French Cancan

French Cancan is a 1954 French musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and Mara Flix. Where Renoirs previous film Le Carosse dor had celebrated the 18thcentury Italian commedia dellarte, this work is a homage to the Parisian cafconcert of the 19th century with its popular singers and dancers. Visually, the film evokes the paintings of Edgar Degas and the Impressionists, including his own father, PierreAuguste Renoir. It also marked his return to France and to French cinema after an exile that began in 1940.

Franois Truffaut reviewed the film in Arts magazine in May 1955 and called it a milestone in the history of colour of cinema. Every scene is a cartoon in movement Madame Guiboles dance class reminds us of a Degas sketch. Whilst Truffaut did not consider it as important a film as Rules of the Game or The Golden Coach, he nevertheless praised it as an example of Renoir as vigorous and youthful as ever. This affirmative response was not shared by Bernard Chardre however, writing in Positif, who criticised the music, the sets, even the final cancan scene. The phoniness of the rue Lepic, with its vegetable carts and piles of artificial stones is painful to look at. The actors act. The audience gets bored. The dance rehearsals are Degas all right, but the kind that appears on Post Office calendars.

Source: Wikipedia