33 Quotes by Jean Renoir

I am against great themes and great subjects... You can't film an idea. The camera is an instrument for recording physical impact.

I believe that perfection handicaps cinema.

The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.

A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.

The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience, and a little love, we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man.

The only things that are important in life are the things you remember.

The foundation of all civilization is loitering.

All technical refinements discourage me. Perfect photography, larger screens, hi-fi sound, all make it possible for mediocrities slavishly to reproduce nature; and this reproduction bores me. What interests me is the interpretation of life by an artist. The personality of the film maker interests me more than the copy of an object.

When a friend speaks to me, whatever he says is interesting.