As the medium of the feature-length motion picture slides slowly but ever so surely toward the status of grand opera—as repository of the grand, grandiloquent esthetic gestures of another time—never-to-be-found boundaries of possibility continue to be exceeded by restorations of movies long neglected, as prophetic history of a rich future likely not to come. Jean Renoir’s happy, goofy, giddy, and, yes, awe-inspiring “The Crime Of Monsieur Lange” (1936) is a timeless marvel. The only good reason this warm, rollicking, political and politically sophisticated comedy is one of Jean Renoir’s lesser-known movies is that it’s been out of circulation for years.
A sparkling 4K restoration with spunky new subtitles could put it right up with whichever Renoir you call his best: I’ll go for a trio that also includes “Rules of the Game” and “Grand Illusion.” The late François Truffaut enthuses properly and well: “Of all Renoir’s films, ‘Monsieur Lange’ is the most spontaneous, the richest in miracles of camera work, the most full of pure beauty and truth. In short, it is a film touched by divine grace.” For as long as I can remember, “Crime” has been a modest grail for cinephile compatriots, so far as inspiring a pilgrimage for a crappy VHS dub in the 1990s to a tidy Los Angeles Fairfax apartment that also offered murky copies of the complete Jean-Pierre Melville. Written by poet Jacques Prévert, screenwriter of vital classics like “Port of Shadows” (1938), “Le jour se lève” (1939) and “Children of Paradise” (1945), “Crime” is never a lesson, only exemplar. Please savor. 83m. (Ray Pride)
“The Crime of Monsieur Lange” opens Friday, January 12 at Siskel.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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