The Woman on the Beach (1947)
Directed by Jean Renoir
A steamy love triangle melodrama rendered as a despairing, expressionistic fugue, this quintessential film-noir was the French master’s last work in Hollywood, as well as the only screen pairing of Joan Bennett, femme fatale par excellence, with Robert Ryan, graven visage of mid-century America’s latent psychic turmoil. One of the cinema’s great what-ifs—retooled after an unsuccessful preview, Renoir’s original version is now thought lost forever—it remains, even in its compromised form, a singular testament to the director’s artistry. Clunky exposition and narrative gaps can’t obscure the feverish emotions inflecting image after image; no less an authority than Jacques Rivette pronounced it “pure cinema.” Eli Goldfarb (Jan 28-30, 1:30pm at MoMA’s “Acteurism”)
