Jean Renoir

Jean Renoir was born 15 September 1894, the son of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and spent a lifetime translating his father's eye for human warmth onto film. La Grande Illusion arrived in 1937, followed two years later by The Rules of the Game, both of which secured his place among directors whose work redefined what cinema could express about our shared absurdities and desires. He moved between countries and forms with ease: The River in 1951 became the first color film shot in India, made with his nephew, cinematographer Claude Renoir, while The Golden Coach and French Cancan turned his longtime love of theater into something strange and stylized. In 2002, the BFI ranked him fourth among the greatest directors ever, and in 1975 he received a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award - recognition for a body of work that critic Pauline Kael said captured "the beauty in our common humanity." He died 12 February 1979, leaving behind a line from The Rules of the Game that doubles as his epitaph: "Everyone has his reasons."