French films of the time were very realistic with their filmmaking and storylines or at least tried to make films that touched upon real issues of poverty and social displacement. As such Boudu Saved from Drowning explores the class divide in France and notions of social expectation, the exact sort of film that was being shunned by American Great Depression audiences. It’s very clear how french filmmakers were challenging their social conventions more and more as the 1930’s rolled along while the Americans were not.
In the same vein of Rene Clair, Jean Renoir is creating films for the masses against the established conventions of Hollywood. He makes films that utilize the techniques of mass entertainment to depict stories of real people. In this sense I would argue he is creating a French history of challenging established conventions of American Hollywood escapism in the way that Godard and Truffaut will do during the French New Wave.