30 December 2024 by bobhud

Notes from the Editor (18.1): Jean Renoir’s Wartime Cinema and Student Film Reviews

Bob Hudson, Editor-in-Chief

Brigham Young University

One of the distinct advantages of digital publication is that the former print limitations on article length and meeting a page quota have become a thing of the past. As an editor once told me several years ago when I inquired about the galley proofs for an article of mine that he was publishing, “Galleys have gone the way of the Trireme.” Indeed, transportation and publication have both changed for the better. So, when Frédéric Levéziel (who had previously published with Lingua Romana in Vol. 13.1 in 2017) contacted me proposing a co-authored article significantly longer than those accepted in most print venues, I was immediately intrigued. After reading the submission and instructing our external peer reviewers that length need not be a concern, we are thrilled to be able to publish this excellent essay on Jean Renoir and the US Office of War Information as our feature article for this volume.

With Renoir and war as our theme, I decided to call on Elizabeth Vitanza, another Renoir expert, and have a candid conversation on the topic of why Renoir still matters today. To further accompany this article and interview, I had transcribed a podcast interview from 2020 that I did with Chad Turner from the Clearly Underrated podcast on Renoir, war and his great film Grand Illusion (1937).

Finally, in efforts to remain true to our resolve to “topple the ivory towers of the Humanities” and support Outreach/Public Humanities (cf. Ilona Klein, “The Humanities: Our Human Journey” in Lingua Romana Vol. 13.1), this volume also includes a section of student-authored reviews of recent French and Italian films. What a great experience it was to work with these young students and help harness their drive and passion into the conventions of this important critical genre, thus enabling them to experience the thrill of adding their voices to the world of academic publication!

While the methods of delivery change and evolve with technology, may our fundamental quest to better understand humanity, which – to quote the late Sister Wendy Beckett – “starts at the top and stays at the top,” ever remain. Several decades removed from Renoir’s efforts to see the best in human beings, may we continue in this same great spirit of optimistic humanism, ridding ourselves of all pretense and seeking to better understand our fellow beings.