Jean Renoir and Improvisation

I love to read quotes from artists about their working methods. Jean Renoir, the french film director, offers a great description of improvisation:

"I'm a bit like a man who is in love with a woman and who goes to see her with a bouquet of flowers in hand. In the street he goes over the speech he is going to make; he writes a brilliant speech, with many comparisons, talking about her eyes, her voice, her beauty, and he prides himself in all this, of course. And then he arrives at the woman's house, hands her the bouquet of flowers, and says something completely different. But having prepared the speech does help a little."

Renoir prepared tirelessly, but he also opened himself up to improvisation. His films, as a result, have an air of spontaneity and playfulness. His best characters are also improvisers; they act out in theatrical ways, bending and shaping themselves.

In "Grand Illusion," Boeldieu, a prisoner of war, sacrifices himself, allowing his fellow prisoners to escape. His sacrificial act becomes an improvisational performance. He puts on white gloves, as if he was a dignified butler in a play. Renoir, moreover, injects moments of artificiality, transforming the prison camp into an imaginative stage. While Boeldieu distracts the German guards, Renoir uses a non-diegetic score; and the guards’ searchlights resemble stage lights. Renoir’s directing highlights the theatricality of the moment, while transforming Boeldieu’s actions into creative gestures that help him play the role of a selfless hero.