:
Nora Gregor,
Nora Gregor,
Jean Renoir,
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:
Jean Renoir,
Jean Renoir
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: Criterion
: Classics, Foreign, France, Criterion Collection
: French
: English
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Now often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu/Rules of the Game was not warmly received on its original release in 1939: audiences at its opening engagements in Paris were openly hostile, responding to the film with shouts of derision, and distributors cut the movie from 113 minutes to a mere 80. It was banned as morally perilous during the German occupation and the original negative was destroyed during WWII. It wasn't until 1956 that Renoir was able to restore the film to its original length. In retrospect, this reaction seems both puzzling and understandable; at its heart, Rules of the Game is a very moral film about frequently amoral people. A comedy of manners whose wit only occasionally betrays its more serious intentions, it contrasts the romantic entanglements of rich and poor during a weekend at a country estate. André Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a French aviation hero, has fallen in love with Christine de la Chesnaye (Nora Gregor), who is married to wealthy aristocrat Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio). Robert, however, has a mistress of his own, whom he invites to a weekend hunting party at his country home, along with André and his friend Octave (played by Jean Renoir himself). Meanwhile, the hired help have their own game of musical beds going on: a poacher is hired to work as a servant at the estate and immediately makes plans to seduce the gamekeeper's wife, while the gamekeeper recognizes him only as the man who's been trying to steal his rabbits. Among the upper classes, infidelity is not merely accepted but expected; codes are breached not by being unfaithful, but by lacking the courtesy to lie about it in public. The weekend ends in a tragedy that suggests that this way of life may soon be coming to an end. Renoir's witty, acidic screenplay makes none of the characters heroes or villains, and his graceful handling of his cast is well served by his visual style. He tells his story with long, uninterrupted takes using deep focus (cinematographer Jean Bachelet proves a worthy collaborator here), following the action with a subtle rhythm that never calls attention to itself. The sharply-cut hunting sequence makes clear that Renoir avoided more complex editing schemes by choice, believing that long takes created a more lifelike rhythm and reduced the manipulations of over-editing. Rules of the Game uses WWI as an allegory for WWII, and its representation of a vanishing way of life soon became all too true for Renoir himself, who, within a year of the film's release, was forced to leave Europe for the United States.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Special Features:
- New high-definition digital transfer of the feature, with restored image and sound
- Introduction to the film by Jean Renoir
- Audio commentary written by film scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
- Version comparison: side-by-side analysis of the two endings of the film, along with an illustrated study of Renoir's shooting script
- Selected scene analysis by Renoir historian Christopher Faulkner
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| The Rules of the Game (Criterion Collection) (Bonus Disc) (1939) |
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| A film for people who dig films...a lot
by toddandsteph
May 5, 2007 - 4:20 PM PDT
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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| I hate to go into a flick with expectations, and I hate hype as well. But, seeing as how the screenwriter of one of my favorite flicks deemed this to be the greatest film ever made, it was quite hard for me to expect it to be anything but great. Luckily, it was. Renoir's Grand Illusion really impressed me, but it wasn't anything that I'd put on my favorites list or anything like that (I would really like to see it again though). This is a whole other ballgame. The plot is pretty easy and melodramatic. There are a number of love affairs going on with servants and masters on a hunting trip just before World War II. These affairs have courses and dips and hills and whatnot. I think the guide on my parent's TV offered this synopsis: "Masters and servants play hard during a hunting trip." Renoir even goes a bit far in telling his viewers in title cards that this isn't a movie about manners. And he's right. The rules aren't a prescribed way whose following causes a character to die due to societal evils...nor are they a new list of rules for this evil new world. The rules refer to the set of manners we give to the world, and when Renoir says that this isn't a story about manners, he's right. There isn't a single set of manners that this film shows being universal. Rather, the film concentrates on displaying the different views of the world as set in rules by different classes and genders. Sound like an awfully annoying pill to swallow? Well, never fear! Renoir impresses on all levels, giving amusing dialogue, a brisk pace, and a neverending cavalcade of amazing things to look at. This is a first rate classic in every sense of the word. Is it the greatest damn thing ever made? Well, everyone has their answer. **** and 1/2 * out've ***** |
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