[Renoir lists the handful of titles that he directed in the last few years, 1936–1938; then he writes as follows . . . ] I do not know whether these films are good or bad. In my humble opinion, it is without importance. What I know is that I am beginning to understand how one should work. I know that I am French and that I must work in an absolutely national vein. I know also that in doing this, and only in doing this, can I reach people from other nations and act for international understanding.
I know that the American cinema will collapse because it is no longer American. I know too that we must not spurn the foreigners who come to us with their knowledge and talent; we must absorb them. It is a practice which has served us rather well from Leonardo da Vinci all the way to Picasso. I believe that the cinema is not so much an industry as people would have us believe and that the fat men with their money, their graphs, and green felt tables are going to fall on their faces.
[translated by W. W. Halsey II and William H. Simon]