Actualités

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Jean Renoir's The Testament of Dr. Cordelier (1959) is playing August 3 - September 2, 2017 in the United States as part of the series Jean Renoir.Jean Renoir frequently focused on complicated characters who toe the line between right and wrong. They are often trapped by social mores, for better or for worse. In works like The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936) or The River (1951), characters are unfairly confined, while in films like La chienne (1931) or La bête humaine (1938), a breaking from custom is fatally dangerous. Even in more light-hearted fare, such as French Cancan (1954), a bold flaunting of convention is cause for conflict and scandal. It seems only logical, then, that Renoir in his interest in the imposed customs of community and the social construction of morals would be drawn to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...