A Day in the Country
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
Starring Sylvia Bataille, Georges D’Arnoux, Jane Marken
This bittersweet film from Jean Renoir, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, is a tenderly comic idyll about a city family’s picnic in the French countryside and the romancing of the mother and grown daughter by two local men. Conceived as a short feature, the project had nearly finished production in 1936 when Renoir was called away for THE LOWER DEPTHS. Shooting was abandoned then, but the film was completed with the existing footage by Renoir’s team and released in its current form in 1946, after the director had already moved on to Hollywood. The result is a warmly humanist vignette that ranks among Renoir’s most lyrical works, with a love for nature imbuing its every beautiful frame.
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A Day in the Country
Directed by Jean Renoir • 1936 • France
Starring Sylvia Bataille, Georges D’Arnoux, Jane MarkenThis bittersweet film from Jean Renoir, based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, is a tenderly comic idyll about a city family’s picnic in the French countryside and the romancing of the mother and grow...
Extras
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Jean Renoir on A DAY IN THE COUNTRY
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Christopher Faulkner on A DAY IN THE COUNTRY
Originally shot in 1936, A DAY IN THE COUNRTY was not released until ten years later, in a 40-minute, unfinished version. In the following interview, conducted in October 2014, Jean Renoir scholar Christopher Faulkner discusses the film’s complicated production history and where it fits in the di...
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Pierre Braunberger on Jean Renoir
In this excerpt from a 1979 interview, A DAY IN THE COUNTRY producer Piere Braunberger talks about his relationship with director Jean Renoir and the film’s production difficulties. The interview originally appeared in the documentary PORTRAIT D’UN PRODUCTEUR: PIERRE BRAUNBERGER, directed by Robe...
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Renoir at Work
The working methods of director Jean Renoir, who was thought to have often used improvisation, were illuminated in 1994 when the Cinémathèque Française released UN TOURNAGE À LA CAMPAGNE, composed of eighty-nine minutes of outtakes from the production of A DAY IN THE COUNTRY. The following video ...
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Un tournage à la campagne
In 1962, four and a half hours of outtakes from A DAY IN THE COUNTRY were given to the Cinémathèque Française. In celebration of the centenary of director Jean Renoir’s birth in 1994, filmmaker Alain Fleischer helped the Cinémathèque edit selected portions–including audio of Renoir directing the ...
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A DAY IN THE COUNTRY Screen Tests
The following screen tests for A DAY IN THE COUNTRY were shot on June 25 and 26, 1936. They are presented here courtesy of the Cinémathèque Française.
