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Jean Renoir, 1926, from Zola, starring his wife Catherine Hessling as Nana. A theatre girl becomes the ruin of counts and soldiers; the apartments get larger and the men smaller. It was an expensive French silent, designed to look like money, and it did not earn it back. Autant-Lara worked on the décors. CNC restorations are how it is seen. Renoir is not yet the director of the 1930s; Hessling is already a problem the camera cannot solve by loving her.
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Renoir before Renoir, spending money to look like money and losing it. Hessling plays Nana as a stylized gesture, not a person, and the apartments grow while the men shrink. Watch for the compositions in depth. The director of the 1930s is in there, waiting.
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