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DVD The Rules of the Game - Criterion Collection
Consistently cited by critics worldwide as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's bittersweet drama of life, love, class, and the social code of manners and behavior ("the rules of the game") is a savage critique undertaken with sensitivity and compassion. Renoir's catch-phrase through the film, "Everyone has their reasons," develops a multilayered meaning by the conclusion. A young aviator (Roland Toutain) commits a serious social faux pas by alluding to an affair on national radio. To avert a scandal, the cultured Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio), husband to the aviator's mistress, Christine (Nora Gregor), and a philanderer in his own right, invites all to a weekend hunting party in his country mansion. The complicated maze of marriages and mistresses (social register and servant class alike) is plotted like a bedroom farce, but the tone soon takes a darker cast. Renoir, who also takes the pivotal role as Andre's jovial pal and de la Chesnaye confidant Octave, deftly blends high comedy with cutting satire as he parallels the upstairs-downstairs affairs. The film builds to a comic pitch with the hilarious performance of Julien Carette as a rabbit poacher turned groundskeeper, but soon turns tragic in a devastating conclusion. The film was roundly condemned and banned in France upon its 1939 release, but years later (out of the shadow of WWII) the film was rediscovered for the masterpiece that it is. --Sean Axmaker
Review(s): DVD The Rules of the Game - Criterion Collection
Good Package of one of the World's all time best movies.
`The Rules of the Game', written and directed by Jean Renoir is considered by most to be one of the top ten movies of all time, commonly spoken of in the same class as Fellini's `La Dolce Vita', Kurasawa's `The Seven Samurai', Wells `Citizen Kane', Eisenstein's `Battleship Potemkin' and Kubrick's `2001' I completely agree with this assessment, but with a comments on why this movie is so much different than these others.
There are many things you can appreciate about this movie with nothing more than the English translation of the dialogue. I confess that I had to be prompted to appreciate this, but a careful viewer should be able to see how skillful Renoir and his cameramen are in making long focus shots where both foreground and background action can be seen in clear focus. The camera work may not be quite as dramatic as Eisenstein or Wells, but it is effective nonetheless. And, like these other directors, the camera shots are not done just to be clever. They are always used to capture something important, as when we see action down a hall in the middle background that puts the lie to the dialogue in the foreground.
Another cinematic trick is how Renoir ties together several scenes by some perfectly logical devices. The most dramatic is in the first few scenes where many of the principle characters are introduced at widely separate locations by the device of having all the characters either contributing to or listening to the same radio broadcast upon the arrival of aviator, Andre Jurieu at a Paris airport upon repeating the transatlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh.
While the cinematic devices and stage directions contribute much, the meat of the film is in the relations between the eight principal characters, forming three interlocking romantic triangles among the bourgeoisie and a parallel triangle in the servant class, linked by the `classless' character, Octave (played by Renoir himself). These various interlocking romances drive most of the action throughout the movie, and are, collectively, evidence of a rottenness in the fabric of French society. Part of the greatness of this movie is that the malady Renoir depicts probably cannot be summarized in a few words, which is why we need a two hour movie to fully play it out.
Unfortunately for the modern American viewer who does not know French and whose knowledge of French 20th century history may be a bit weak, there is much in this movie which will be missed. The first is as simple as some word usages common to European languages but foreign to modern English. French and German both have two different modes of addressing people. One is polite and respectful for business colleagues, superiors, distant relatives, and just about everything except close relatives such as spouse, children, and close friends. The use of one form of address or the other is a dead giveaway to some aspects of the relation between people in drama. The second is present in English, but probably not very familiar to the average speaker. This is the difference between `good-bye' and `farewell'. The first simply means you are leaving for the moment, and expect to see the listener again soon. The latter means you are parting company for good, as when you are breaking a relationship and leaving for a distant land. I experienced how dramatic this difference was when I was leaving a company in Germany after a summer employment and used the German form of `farewell' and found my listeners were really touched by the distinction.
An even more important background element is the fact that this movie was filmed just a few months before the outbreak of World War II, and everyone knew it was coming. Thus, anything said to reflect on the soundness of the French culture or `backbone' could be taken as a serious criticism of the French state. Another subtlety is the fact that the lead actress, Nora Gregor, is from Strasbourg, a German city that just happens to be in France as a result of World War I.
The film is subtitled a `dramatic fantasy' which takes some of the bite out of the social satire, but not much. On a visceral level, I can't find a single major character with whom I am sympathetic. They are all tangled up in what seem like such shallow relationships, where the principle male character's interest in mechanical toys seems more important to him than his relation with his wife.
This DVD includes the single most useful extra, an English commentary track written by film scholar, Alexander Sesonske and read by the noted director and film commentator, Peter Bogdanovich. This commentary illuminates almost all of the things that may be hidden by the language and the historical context.
Most of the other extras support our understanding of the film, our appreciation of how it went from commercial flop in 1939 to its appreciation as a great film today, and our appreciation of what Renoir had to do to get the film made.
While I do not know if older versions of the film are available, it is worth warning that this particular 106 minute version of the film is actually 12 minutes longer than Renoir's original release and almost 20 minutes longer than the version cut down after the original critical and commercial failure of the 92 minute version. While I cannot be absolutely sure the long version is better than the original, the film is so important that every scrap of information we have about the film is valuable.
One contribution of some extras is testimonials by major directors such as Francois Truffaut and Bernardo Bertolluci on how this film influenced their careers. If I were to find anything at all objectionable about this package it is the fact that the booklet is printed with white text on a dark gray and is very difficult to read.
This is a very important movie indeed!
It's worth being alive to see this movie
I never thought of reaching 40 years old to rediscover, in a film, just what we are doing here as humans, in such a clear, bright and open way. Just like in reality, in this film there are no main characters. They all are, we all are main characters. Rich, poor, men, women, happy, outsiders, truthful, hypocrites. No concessions to distinction. In every moment, all characters fully representing their roles, no matter are they in the foreground or in an almost unperceivable corner of the screen. Welcome, 1939 Jean Renoir, welcome to our future. "Stop the masquerade!", so we say to our politicians, to the media and to ourselves. "Which one of them?" is the universal answer, one of the several universal impulses of this delightful, adorable movie and of their loveable characters. That's why I end up with a classic travel-agency like cliché: Enjoy life - see La Règle du Jeu!
A Short Review
This is a very funny and sad film. A farce, it's full of incredible energy and incredible events. One theme (remember those rabbits): the sacrifice of an innocent scapegoat allows society to go on with its hypocrisy. It's hard to think of many comedies this tragic. Perhaps Shakespeare's "problem plays" might make a good comparison, although Marriage of Figaro seems to be the real inspiration (music from which is heard in the film). The deep-focus photography and fluid tracking shots are a real delight to watch.
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