Untitled Document Orson Welles was once asked what, in his opinion, were the two greatest films ever made. Jean Renoir's savage social comedy, satirizing the moral decadence of the French leisure class prior to World War II, is considered by many to be a classic, both for its subject matter and its film-making elements. Renoir built his sets on two enormous sound stages to accommodate his tracking camera, used a special camera lens to capture great visual depth, and generally created the conditions which allowed him to do things that broke the barriers of film-making at the time. The film has an interesting history. Later, when war broke out, the French government banned it and it wasn't until after the war that interest in the film was rekindled.
People remember the disastrous opening, the recutting, and the ban.
Understanding what audiences and critics were watching in 1939 and between 1945 and 1959 is what interests Faulkner. One of the problems however, was not knowing how Renoir initially envisaged the film or what cuts he made on that July weekend. It was generally assumed the original script was lost. Then, Faulkner made an amazing discovery. Chris Faulkner has recreated a Paris sidewalk caf in Carleton s St. Patrick s Building.