Nana

NANA is a dramatic love story by Renoir, one of the few directors that understood all aspects of cinematography. For me, these early mutes are the reason why cinematography is also an art form. Much more then the money driven "products" that came out the last years (spending millions on 1 film, but not including a story?). NANA only strengthened that opinion. It's certainly not the best film from the thirties I've seen. I find some scenes too long for that, but it's still very good. The sets are inside the hotel and house are amazing, the plot is strong. The actor that played Muffat is the best I've seen from that generation of films. I'm not really a fan of films that have a dramatic love story as a starting-point, I find it quickly too slow, but that's just really un-PC from me. ;) 6.5/10

After the al fresco hallucinations of the La Fille de l'eau come the severities of Zola's interiors, the other side of the coin of Jean Renoir's theater. The opening shot reverses Hitchcock's in The Pleasure Garden, the eponymous coquette (Catherine Hessling) ascends a staircase and is lowered by a rope before the eager audience, her feet don't quite touch the ground. The femme fatale as marionette-mermaid, on stage she cannot play noblewomen so instead she collects noblemen, on goes the trajectory from "La Blonde Venus" to la petite duchesse to doomed courtesan. Many an admirateur éperdu comes and goes, helplessly smitten and withered. The ponderous Count Muffat (Werner Krauss) stands backstage next to medieval armors, later in her boudoir in... more

Another film to cross off my Jean Renoir Complete List, another probably never to watch again. It's not that it's bad, generally it's pretty good and nearly always interesting but it's over-melodramatised and simplified Zola for my taste.

Actress Nana has men especially rich men eating out of the palm of her hand and begging for more, she has at least 3 suitors vying for her courtesan favours. How it all unravels is the subject of the classic tale. And the sets are marvellous, sub-Stroheim, the modern tinting and music very good (Studio Canal), the print clear and sharp, and the photography excellent considering the then technical limitations Renoir had to contend with. The big problem is Hessling's – and the other leads – constant over-acting spoil the flow of the story. Definitely not tres chic! They all make the contemporary British barnstorming actor Todd Slaughter look subtle in comparison, although to be fair for a lot of the time the leading men seemed to understudy statues to Nana's wildly waving arms. As a rule silent films needed expressive acting to hold wandering eyes in the cinemas, but this reminded me of the mickey-taking in Singin' In The Rain. A red blooded male swooningly said at the beginning in response to her stage dancing that she was "the pinnacle of elegance"! And I also doubt whether either sexists or feminists will find anything worthwhile.

But I enjoyed the 129 minutes as I like silent films anyway – if you're only a Renoir completist I think it'll be an ordeal for you to complete. Nice print and tints!

I really looked forward to seeing Nana after seeing Renoir amazing debut work, Whirlpool of Fate. I had read that Nana was generally considered his best silent film so I had high hopes. Sadly this felt like a huge step backwards.

Catherine Hessling is the main problem with this film. Her acting is over the top, even for a silent film. Her acting is more like what one would expect in a film from the early teens, not the late 20s. She usually has the same face, which reminds me (sorry to say) of someone with constipation pains. It was also very difficult to believe that any man would fall for this femme fatale. There was nothing charming about her at all.

The film was also quite long drawn, the camera work was uninteresting (aside from a shot of a horse race) and the editing was dull. The story reminded me of Pabst's Pandora's Box. It is interesting to compare the two because there are only 3 years between these films. Pandora's Box simply scores on every level where Nana fails.

This film is only for Renoir completists or very serious silent films buffs.

There is a specular quality to Nana that would appear to have some bearing on later Renoir films (Regle and M. Lange come to mind)... however, the affectations of the performances are so tremendously overwrought that each character becomes caricature. The plot plays out like a Punch and Judy show (in this reviewer's opinion) and I will be the first to admit that I would surely benefit from being more familiar with its literary roots in Zola (Nana that is to say... and not Punch and Judy!). The affectations also render the very milieu a grotesque, disdainful stage. Perhaps this was Renoir's intention. Perhaps Renoir was fighting against his better judgment to adapt literary sources prior to knowing the path of his own stylistic system and development. Nana has ample opportunities to employ Renoir's signature stylistic model, however, he refuses to liberate the camera or utilize deep staging for his multiple protagonists. Instead, we are left with theater-like tableau shots. The tableau and caricature make one wonder about how apt the blanketing of "naturalism" works as an operational descriptor across Renoir's oeuvre. But the coup de grace comes with the use of studio sets for exteriors during some of the scenes at the horse races. Much is left to desire and Renoir overemphasizes his ability to over-determine every aspect of the production. Again there is a near-death hallucination impressionist sequence at the end (like La Fille de L'Eau)... is Renoir prognosticating about the death of something in the cinematic medium itself? His next film would be an ironic compliment to the Jazz Singer.