Alain Renoir (original) (raw)
Biography
- Born
- Died
- Height
- After World War II, Alain Renoir entered college at the University of Santa Barbara. There he met the woman he was to marry, Jane, who was obtaining a degree in nutrition. One of his required classes was nutrition, and he had an assignment to describe a nutritious meal. With Jane's help, he and a friend devised a meal with the least nutrition possible. It drove his professor crazy.
Despite not being able to speak English until after he joined the American Army, Renoir was admitted to the Department of English at Harvard University's graduate school. While there, where he obtained a doctorate in Old English Literature under the brilliant (and slightly wacky) Francis P. Magoun, Jr.
Upon receiving his Ph.D., Renoir came to the University of California, Berkeley, where he remained a professor of English until his retirement in 1989. He co-founded the Department of Comparative Literature there, where it still thrives. A number of important scholars of Old English received their doctorates under his guidance. He was a formidable figure in the field of Oral-Formulaic theory, where his experience as a cinematographer helped bring to life the ancient techniques of storytelling of 7th-10th century England.
He often spoke with great fondness of his father, Jean Renoir, to his students, but he never permitted anyone to discuss his grandfather. Occasionally he would make reference to Pierre-Auguste Renoir (whom he never met) by saying, "I had a grandfather who painted pictures."
Alain Renoir died at his country estate in Northern California on December 12, 2008 in the presence of his late-life companion, Pat Powers.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Laura Morland - Alain Renoir was the visiting professor who taught my graduate course in Chaucer (between 1966 and 1968, the exact date yet to be determined), the Renoir who was the only son of the cinematic legend and the grandson of the celebrated painter. It was a seminar at the University of Wisconsin, and unlike the two previous courses I'd taken in Chaucer as a candidate for the Masters degree, Renoir's course-- among the last I would take before the grueling 5-day, 20-hour "preliminary" exam required of every Ph.D. candidate--was one that emphasized depth over comprehensive coverage. Prof. Renoir surprised us when, on the very first day of the class, he announced that we would NOT read Chaucer's masterwork, "The Canterbury Tales." Instead, the seminar would be devoted exclusively to Chaucer's "other" canonical work, "Troilus and Criseyde."
By this time I had determined that there are two kinds of great professors--the first are the "apologists," or "custodians," of the canonical works of English literature. They take upon themselves the grave responsibility of representing, as Matthew Arnold puts it, "the best that has been thought and written" in a literary tradition, representing it accurately, responsibly and authoritatively. The second kind of professor is the "performer," someone who has taken such extreme delight in the reading of an ancient text that he simply cannot resist reading the text with his students, seeking always to recreate the life that had jumped off the page of a 14th-century poem and taken up residence in the consciousness of its receptive modern reader. As "enacted" by Professor Renoir the characters in Chaucer's consummate exploration of "courtly love" came alive in his classroom--the excitable "tease" Criseyde; the war hero Pandarus, reduced to a puddle of tears by the opposing emotions of desire and fear that comprise "true love" as experienced by a blind-sided teenager; finally, the sly and manipulative Pandarus, fully engaged in his role as love's "agent"--manipulating the two "innocents" (the first a Greek; the 2nd a Trojan) both to his own pleasure and ours.
"Courtly love" ("secret love" would be a fairly accurate approximation) was condemned as heresy by the Catholic Church, so in addition to a romantic tragedy and a "send-up" of young love's delusions and deviant behaviors, Chaucer, as the poet-director of this tragicomedy, was relishing his role as a "literary Pandarus," a vicarious participant in situations and actions he would ultimately be required to condemn--as anathema to the Church and a certain road to hell. It's a potent mix for a teacher to take on with a class--full of opportunities and challenges because, with the exception of the pathetic Troilus, the other two characters have divided minds and various voices to express each manifestation of their changing consciousness. In the end it is the "lovely heroine," Criseyde, who emerges as the most complex, delightfully deceptive character of the three, with an agency and autonomy that trumps the creative energies of Pandarus if not Chaucer himself.
Not each of Prof. Renoir's performances was Oscar-worthy, though of the four voices, his Criseyde remains most alive in my head almost half a century later. His voice would tremble and rise to a falsetto in depicting pitiful Troilus and a compliant Criseyde ("Infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn"), and the next moment he would light a Parodi Cigar--a perfect representation of the feminine savvy of Criseyde, whose desire for love's satisfactions is intermixed with her awareness of her newfound power in the midst of all this animated "maleness." Renoir rarely spoke of his past experience in helping his father make "Rules of the Game," but his teaching of "Troilus and Criseyde" created quite a buzz in the class: "Why isn't he in the movies?" "He's as good as Danny Kaye." "Why would he abandon a career like that to get a Ph.D. in English literature?"
We never got any clear answers from him, but his choice made us feel that, as English Ph.D. candidates, we had chosen the higher calling. Today, as English literary canons are threatened by political conflict and the English major along with its texts are increasingly appropriated and "used" by Women's Studies programs, Renoir's example is one of the consolations of a retired professor who wonders if he chose wisely. Perhaps my biggest mistake was to remain in Wisconsin. I recall that Renoir could not get over--upon seeing little "shacks," or huts, on the winter ice of Madison's two lakes--the absurdity of human beings sitting in each structure engaged in the sport of fishing through a hole in the ice. At least he appreciated the irony in my attempt to make the practice understandable to a foreigner: "C'est la Vie!"
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Samuel Chell, Professor Emeritus in English Literature, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI
Fought in the French army during World War II against the Germans and was wounded in battle. He managed to escape to Morocco and was later brought to the US by his father, director Jean Renoir, who by this time was an American citizen. One night at dinner Jean said to him, "You know, since this country has been gracious enough to admit you to its shores, it would be only polite of you to volunteer for the army." He took his father's "suggestion" and enlisted, eventually being sent to a machine-gun unit in the South Pacific where he saw very heavy action against the Japanese.