French Cancan Reviews

Jean Renoir's first film in France since La Regle du Jeu had been met with almost unanimous hostility by critics and public alike 16 years earlier, French Cancan was a very deliberate attempt to reconnect with a French audience with a populist subject matter. As added security he cast Jean Gabin in the lead, though the results fall a long way short of their previous pre-war collaborations. Based loosely on the creation of the Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris, offering `the illusion of the high life for modest purses,' and the romantic entanglements of financially insecure and terminally unfaithful impresario Jean Gabin and his latest discovery Francois Arnaul, who is pursued by a prince and a baker's boy but really wants Gabin, it's the sort of soufflé that should be a lot of fun. That it never really fulfils that promise isn't for want of trying: Renoir recreates la Belle Epoque with the kind of colours his father would have used and fills the supporting cast with colourful characters from all stratas of French society (a very young Michel Piccoli among them), and even casts veteran performers who graced the real Moulin Rouge like Edith Piaf, Patachou, Andre Claveau and Jean Raymond in cameos, but the script doesn't really do much with the material or the characters.

At times it's hard to escape the feeling that Renoir wasn't really the right director for the film - while not exactly heavy-handed, doesn't seem to have the lightness of touch this sort of thing needs. More surprisingly his use of the camera is surprisingly unadventurous and distinctly lacking in joie de vivre in the climactic musical number, much of which looks like it was shot from the cheap seats to make sure he gets everyone in the frame, proscenium arch style - not entirely out of place for a backstage story, but a rather disinterested approach you doubt the pre-war Renoir would have made.

There are hints of the old Renoir in its acceptance of the various characters faults - "No better, no worse, just different," as Giani Esposito's suicidal Prince admits - and in the casual merry-go-round of relationships and alliances and the importance of appearances (because "Appearances are all that can save us"), but this is neither deep enough nor superficially enjoyable enough to offer more than the odd passing pleasure as it inoffensively puts its characters through their paces in a somewhat workmanlike fashion. Not bad, just not nearly as good as its pedigree almost seems to demand it should be.

The BFI's Region B-locked Blu-ray/DVD combo benefits greatly from the recent restoration of the film, and is a noticeable improvement on the Criterion DVD. None of the extras from that earlier release - TV interview with Renoir, introduction by Peter Bogdanovich, new interview with production designer Max Doury and stills gallery - have been carried over, though there's a good selection of new ones carried over from the French Blu-ray release, but given the English subtitles that version lacked: a 57-minute documentary on the making of the film, a featurette on he restoration and a booklet (but not the additional 51 minute documentary on Renoir's legacy or the original trailer from the French release). As with the Criterion release, this is the uncut French version of the film rather than the heavily censored US release.