French Cancan

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French Cancan is a 1955 French musical film written and directed by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabin and Francoise Arnoul. Where Renoir's previous film Le Carosse d'or had celebrated the 18th-century Italian commedia dell'arte, this work is a homage to the Parisian café-concert of the 19th century with its popular singers and dancers. Visually, the film evokes the paintings of Edgar Degas and the Impressionists, including his own father, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It also marked his return to France and to French cinema after an exile that began in 1940.

Video French Cancan

Plot

Set in 1890s Paris, Henri Danglard is the owner of a cafe, which features his mistress, Lola, as a belly dancer. Losing money, Henri finds himself in Montmartre and finds that the old-fashioned can-can is still being performed there. Inspired, Henri comes up with a new business scheme that aims to revive the can-can, featuring a new dancer, Nini, a laundress he meets by chance.

Maps French Cancan

Cast

Jean Gabin as Henri Danglard
Françoise Arnoul as Nini
María Félix as Lola
Anna Amendola - Esther Georges
Jean-Roger Caussimon - Baron Walter
Dora Doll - La Génisse
Giani Esposito - Prince Alexandre
Gaston Gabaroche - Oscar, le pianiste
Jacques Jouanneau - Bidon
Jean Parédès - Coudrier
Franco Pastorino - Paulo, le boulanger
Michèle Philippe - Eleonore
Michel Piccoli - Le Capitaine Valorgueil
Albert Rémy - Barjolin
Philippe Clay as Casimir le Serpentin
Édith Piaf as Eugénie Buffet

Film] French Cancan | JEAN RENOIR - | Pinterest | Jean renoir ...

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Critical reception

François Truffaut reviewed the film in Arts magazine in May 1955 and called it a milestone in the history of colour of cinema. "Every scene is a cartoon in movement [-] Madame Guibole's dance class reminds us of a Degas sketch." Whilst Truffaut did not consider it as important a film as Rules of the Game or The Golden Coach, he nevertheless praised it as an example of Renoir "as vigorous and youthful as ever." This affirmative response was not shared by Bernard Chardère however, writing in Positif, who criticised the music, the sets, even the final cancan scene. "The phoniness of the rue Lepic, with its vegetable carts and piles of artificial stones is painful to look at. The actors act. The audience gets bored. The dance rehearsals are Degas all right, but the kind that appears on Post Office calendars."

The film received the Grand Prix de l'Academie du Cinéma in 1956. Roger Ebert added French Cancan to his "Great Movies" list in 2012.