Abstract

This article analyzes the way in which Jean Renoir, in his film Naná −an adaptation of Émile Zola’s novel− shows the impossibility of an “objective point of view” for its characters. It is argued that Renoir shows this impossibility through narrative techniques that question, at the same time, the possibilities of “realism” in cinema. The article explains the existence of “two realisms” −narrative and descriptive− as constitutive of the filmic text, that are used paradoxically by Renoir to deny objectivity in his characters’ point of view.