Le Journal d’une femme de chambre as a musical comedy A project by Jean Renoir and Carl Koch at the beginning of the 1930s

Renoir’s 1946 adaptation of Le Journal d’une femme de chambre is one of the most well-known cinematic adaptations of this Mirbeau novel. However, Renoir’s interest in this novel dates back to the early 1930s, when he, Carl Koch and Kurt Weill wanted to create a musical comedy based on the “primitive version” of this text. An unpublished exchange of letters between Renoir and Koch from the years 1933-34, illustrates that they envisioned two versions, one for the German and one for the French market.