Gershom

Translated Jean Renoir, from Cahiers du Cinema, March 1952...

When one is making a path through a jungle it is a good idea to beat the bushes ahead with a stick and uncover the dangers that lie ahead. Sometime the stick breaks in your hands. Sometimes it doesn’t break, and the force of its resistance numbs your arm. This is the kind of thing I have been doing these last few years.

I didn’t want to stay put. But my compass was out of order. I couldn’t find my direction. I am very proud of this.

It means that I haven’t lost contact with the actual world, with this strange, unstable world of the mid-twentieth century.

Very few people, today, can truthfully say they know where they are going. Be they individuals, groups, or nations, chance alone is guiding them. Those that seem to advance toward a goal are guided by instinct, not by reason.

-found at Films in Review

[HT: Girish]