''Night at the Crossroads'' (french: La Nuit du carrefour) is a 1932 French film by

Jean Renoir Jean Renoir (; 15 September 1894 – 12 February 1979) was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent film, silent era to the end of the 1960s. ...

, based on the novel of the same title (known in English as '' Maigret at the Crossroads'') by

Georges Simenon Georges Joseph Christian Simenon (; 13 February 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a Belgian writer. He published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, and was the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret. Early life and education ...

and starring Renoir's brother

Pierre Renoir Pierre Renoir (March 21, 1885 – March 11, 1952) was a French stage and film actor. He was the son of the impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and elder brother of the film director Jean Renoir. He is also noted for being the first ...

as Simenon's popular detective,

Inspector Maigret Jules Maigret (), or simply Maigret, is a fictional French police detective, a '' commissaire'' ("commissioner") of the Paris ''Brigade Criminelle'' ('' Direction Régionale de la Police Judiciaire de Paris:36, Quai des Orfèvres''), created b ...

. The French director

Jacques Becker Jacques Becker (; 15 September 1906 – 21 February 1960) was a French film director and screenwriter. His films, made during the 1940s and 1950s, encompassed a wide variety of genres, and they were admired by some of the filmmakers who led th ...

, then apprentice to Renoir, worked as

assistant director The role of an assistant director on a film includes tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, and maintaining order on the set. They also have to tak ...

and

production manager In the cinema of the United States, a unit production manager (UPM) is the Directors Guild of America–approved title for the top below-the-line staff position, responsible for the administration of a feature film or television production. Non- ...

on the film.

Reputation and influence

Often cited as being Jean Renoir's least well-known

sound film A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

, ''Night at the Crossroads'' has nonetheless maintained a very strong critical reputation. In an article republished as part of

André Bazin André Bazin (; 18 April 1918 – 11 November 1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine '' Cahiers du cinéma'' in 1951, ...

's book on Renoir, the

French New Wave French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...

critic and filmmaker

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as Fran� ...

described it as being ''"Renoir's most mysterious film"'' and ''"the only great French detective movie--in fact, the greatest of all adventure movies."'' Bazin, André, Jean Renoir (1992), Da Capo Press, p. 231, At a

symposium In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...

on the Hungarian filmmaker

Béla Tarr Béla Tarr (born 21 July 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film '' Family Nest'' (1977), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordi ...

held at

Facets Multimedia Facets Multi-Media founded in 1975, is a non-profit, 501(C)3 organization, and a leading national media arts organization. Its mission is to preserve, present, distribute, and educate about film. Besides its facilities at 1517 W. Fullerton Ave., Ch ...

on 16 September 2007, American

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, magazines and other popular mass-media outlets ...

Jonathan Rosenbaum Jonathan Rosenbaum (born February 27, 1943) is an American film critic and author. Rosenbaum was the head film critic for ''The Chicago Reader'' from 1987 to 2008, when he retired. He has published and edited numerous books about cinema and has ...

mentioned that Tarr's then-new feature, ''

The Man from London ''The Man from London'' ( hu, A londoni férfi) is a 2007 Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky. It is an adaptation by Tarr and his collaborator-friend László Krasznahorkai of the 1934 novel ''L'Homme de Londres'' by proli ...

'' (also based on a novel by Georges Simenon), was influenced by ''Night at the Crossroads''. Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Discussion. Facets Multimedia. Symposium: Béla Tarr. Facets Cinematheque, Chicago, Illinois. 16 September 2007.

References

External links

* * 1932 films 1932 crime drama films French crime drama films Police detective films Maigret films Films directed by Jean Renoir French black-and-white films 1930s French-language films 1930s police procedural films 1930s Dutch-language films 1932 multilingual films French multilingual films 1930s French films {{1930s-crime-drama-film-stub