John Belton is a professor of English at Rutgers University. He earned his PhD from Harvard University and specializes in film history and cultural studies. Belton has served on the National Film Preservation Board, as Chair for the Archival Papers and Historical Committee of the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers, and is the author of numerous books. In 2005-2006, he was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his study of the use of digital technology in the film history. 
From La Fille to Dr. Cordelier: Character and Environment in the (Mostly) Early Works of Jean Renoir
“Renoir’s static images contain a great deal of emotional intensity — like that last lyrical shot of the sun setting in La Fille — and the sheer beauty of his two-dimensional compositions generates an emotional in volvement within the viewer (like that in the viewer of a painting) and a sense of emotional treatment of the romantic material within the frame, yet preserves an awareness of the existence of a larger world beyond the borders of the frame.”
