The Southerner

Jean Renoir
,
US
,
1945
,
b&w
,
85'

Evoking the Franco-American writings of Michel-Guillaume-Saint-Jean de Crèvecoeur, Renoir turns his gaze on the American South. Nominated for a Best Director Oscar, the film portrays a white family’s struggle with their cotton farm in Texas. Is this film one of erasure that pictures the South devoid of Black Americans except in the background of its fleeting early sequences? (Terri Francis)