Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 107

The delays caused Pierre Renoir to pull out of the film because of prior commitments to stage plays in Paris. Renoir then asked Michel Simon to play Octave but Simon was busy with other projects. Renoir finally cast himself, later saying that he ‘was just waiting for the moment when Pierre would say 'Why don't you play the role yourself, Jean?' He didn't have to ask me twice.’ He added that after having gained experience and confidence as a director his ‘most stubborn dream has been to be an actor.’ Renoir rewrote the role of Octave to better suit himself since he and Pierre were physically and personally very different.

To raise additional funding for the over running production, Zwoboda had used the success of ‘La Bête Humaine’ to sell advanced screening rights in large theatres to Jean Jay, the director of the Gaumont Film Company. When shooting in Sologne finally began progress was slow because of the constant improvisations of the actors; which Renoir always encouraged until he was effectively disallowed doing that by the American film financing requisites. He once said that In France he explained what he wanted to get from a scene to the actors who would then improvise the dialogue, which didn’t jibe with the progress reports required by American film financiers. And Gregor struggled with her role. Jay visited the set and was unhappy with the slow progress and with Renoir's performance.