Personal info
Known for
Cinematographer
Gender
Male
Birthday
04 December
Location
Paris, France
Edit pageClaude Renoir
Biography
Claude Renoir (December 4, 1913 – September 5, 1993) was a French cinematographer. He was the son of actor Pierre Renoir, the grandson of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and the nephew of director Jean Renoir.
He was born in Paris, his mother being actress Véra Sergine. He was apprenticed to Boris Kaufman, a brother of Dziga Vertov, who much later worked in the United States on such films as On the Waterfront (1954).
Renoir was the lighting cameraman on numerous pictures such as Monsieur Vincent (1947), Jean Renoir's The River (1951), Cleopatra (1963), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968), John Frankenheimer's French Connection II (1975), and the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
At the time of Claude Renoir's death, The Times of London wrote of The River that “its exquisite evocation of the Indian scene, helped to inaugurate a new era in the cinema, one in which color was finally accepted as a medium fit for great filmmakers to work in.”
He also participated in the making of The Mystery of Picasso (1956), the documentary on painter Pablo Picasso directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. He was the cinematographer for The Crucible (1957) and lived in East Germany during filming. Renoir's career came to a close in the late 1970s, as he was rapidly losing his sight. In his final years, he was largely blind.
