Lecture by Russell Merritt

Jean Renoir's first great sound classic, La Chienne is the story of an unhappily married, middle-aged bank clerk, played by Michel Simon. His only passion in life is for painting, which he does in his spare time, until he becomes obsessed with a prostitute (Janie Mareze). She robs and deceives him, and their involvement ends in tragedy. (Fritz Lang filmed this same story in Scarlet Street, 1945.) In his Dictionary of Films, Georges Sadoul writes, "Even in this, his first sound feature, Renoir used depth of field and sound effects to characterize the personalities in their social milieu, such as the shabby lodgings of the bank clerk, with its courtyard window looking straight onto another window, and the leitmotiv of a clumsy piano exercise endlessly repeated."