Renoirs films were underestimated when they first came out. They were unconventional, complex, and so energetic and technically daring that few noticed their intricate structure.They were often dismissed as rough, not fully achieved artistically.The generation that came to the cinema in the 60s and 70s perhaps the richest and most diverse era in European cinema recognised Renoir as an ancestor who had already made the kind of films they admired or were setting out to make themselves, and justly hailed them as masterpieces.Critic David Thomson recalls: The Renoir retrospective at Londons National Film Theatre in 1962 amounted to the clearest revelation of the nature of cinema that I have ever had.

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