Erotism in Renoir's work is linked so intimately with every aspect of life that it is impossible to separate them; every Renoir film is a hymn to fertility, to the great god Pan. But I think we can find a clue to [the criticism of scientific values made by Renoir in Le Testament du Dr. Cordelier and Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe] in his Boudu sauve des Eaux (1932)….

[Boudu's] will and intellect alike are quite unequal to coping with the simplest table-manners; it is his nature to be free not just from conventions and daily routine but from all such trivialities as moral obligation and logical thought. He isn't very malicious and he's hardly altruistic, although the waywardness of his impulses often leads him into actions which might be classified as one or the other….

This is "Hallelujah, I'm a bum!" acquiring a spiritual as well as an economic...