Renoir is the most unruffled of directors…. [The] rich dynamism of films like Le Carrosse d'Or and Le Caporal Epinglé is effortless and invisible. They are beautiful, but there is no sense of formal composition; they are full of movement, yet the camera, almost invariably upright, moves only when it must; they are extremely complex, yet seem to be built up at random. (p. 71)

The essence of Renoir is his three-dimensional view of things, hinted at as early as La Chienne in the puppet prologue which announces that what follows is neither tragedy nor comedy, but simply a story of ordinary people "comme vous, comme moi."… For Renoir, understanding is more important than approbation or condemnation, and the tiniest of details may be of vital importance. When Legrand murders Lulu in La Chienne, for example, it is ostensibly her mocking laughter when he tries to persuade her to...