La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game)

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La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game)

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La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of ...

Anne Mayen, Claire Gerard, Eddy Debray, Gaston Modot, Jean Renoir, Julien Carette, Lise Elina, Marcel Dalio, Mila Parely, Nora Gregor, Odette Talazac, Paulette Dubost, Pierre Magnier, Pierre Nay, Richard Francoeur, Roland Toutain

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...( read more  read more... ) 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

Id: 10902388

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La Règle du Jeu (The Rules of the Game) Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 30, 2009
    SirPant
    A classic from Renoir. The interplay between the wonderful bourgeois upper class characters just before the second world war has never been matched. It's been copied countless times but has never been bettered in my opinion!
  • sanjurosamurai
    November 18, 2008
    sanjurosamurai
    widely considered one of the greatest films of all time, this one falls a bit flat for me. i understand the commentary renoir was attempting, but the cinematography and acting were bland and the editing was distracting. it deserves a decent score for the fact that high society ...( read more)types might find the satire engaging and because the film is so well respected, and it certainly wasnt a bad film by any means, but this is one of the "greats" that fails to move me. the decade has certainly produced better films.
  • Jungian
    April 5, 2008
    Jungian
    Considered one of the greatest films of all time. Jean Renoir
  • columbiatch
    June 7, 2007
    columbiatch
    Worth seeing just to see Jean Renoir in a bear suit.
  • bennytheclown
    October 9, 2006
    bennytheclown
    This is great, La regle de jeu you might know it as. Some hail it as the best film ever, it's not in my opinion but it is up there with the best!
  • paultheitie
    December 3, 2009
    paultheitie
    a clever satire that can easily explain the ins and outs of upper class society as well as critiquing the melodrama of its era with a superb ensemble of characters, a creative use of realist elements and a brilliant renoir feature
  • ifitz
    November 12, 2009
    ifitz
    I need to state first: I love that cover! So I knew that 'Gosford Park' was inspired by this- it clearly is: the upstairs, downstairs, the ensemble cast, the story (a hunting trip to the country house), even the looming war! Either way, I think that while this is a good film; at ...( read more)times brilliant, I liked 'Gosford Park' better and here are some reasons why: first I wasn't always sure what was going on, partly because I didn't know who was who. This I think is because its in blac-and-white and a few people look alike. Secondly, I had trouble in general figuring out what was going on- who was with who etc. However, the soundtrack is great, the shots are amazing (I love the long takes) and the characters are perfect- so are the actors!
  • horsmanrobert
    October 30, 2009
    horsmanrobert
    A great, sprawling film full of realistic characters, depth, and charm.
  • ElCochran90
    October 18, 2009
    ElCochran90
    "The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons."

    LA RÈGLE DU JEU (1939)


    Director: Jean Renoir
    Country: France
    Genre: Comedy / Drama
    Length: 114 minutes

    ...( read more)t.com/albums/ww125/ElCochran90/?action=view¤t=rulesgame.jpg" target="_blank">Jean Renoir,France,1939

    After having a considerable amount of success with his prewar films La Grande Illusion (1937) and La Bête Humaine (1938), Jean Renoir, a cinema genius that did not receive the recognition he deserved in the 30's and 40's, brings along his second masterpiece and what is widely regarded nowadays as one of the greatest films ever made. Despite that Jean Renoir's take on the French upper-class society resulted, naturally, in outstandingly complete rejection, hatred and public insults, La Règle du Jeu is a film that constitutes the most complex and multifaceted critique towards the bourgeoisie of its time, brilliantly juxtaposed with absurd and profound elements, yet not resorting to the fantasy genre in a similar way Luis Buñuel (El Ángel Exterminador [1962], Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie [1972]) would do. The films by Renoir always had the peculiar and interestingly-enough characteristic of being damaged and destroyed, but reconstructed during the 50's under the director's approval, what may lead modern worldwide masses to believe and reconsider their true artistic and cinematic purposes. The magic of his epic and human masterpieces originates from the fact that their striking honesty and renewed vision appealed not only to past generations, but to modern society as well in the sense of having historically important subject matters and morally everlasting messages concerning equality and ethicality.

    La Règle du Jeu centers on a big group of upper-class people who attend the huge party invitation of Christine and his aristocratic husband named Robert. What follows is an extraordinarily accurate and overall stylish depiction of their typical signs of racism and discrimination towards those who do not belong to their particular social status, snobbish life styles, romance, and infinite love triangles, ensuing chaos and an extreme dose of moronic absurdity. The film received no attention from any international film festival after its initial release, but got its negatives damaged during the German occupation in France during the Second World War. It would not be until 1966 that Jean Renoir received a Bodil Award for Best European Film at a festival held in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is a clear sign that audacious and controversial (under the standards of a coward and democratic society) film projects are most likely to transcend over time and acquire a considerably high historical relevance.

    Jean Renoir showed an extremely confident vision towards the bourgeoisie. Mirroring the experience he acquired serving in the air force during World War I, his direction style denotes veracity and politically correct accuracy. If the results of its screening ended up in an almost burned-down theater, its banning in French cinemas for about a month after its initial release, the accidental destruction of the original negatives and in its banning by the Nazi party, not to mention many burned prints by the Germans, it is clear that the commotion it provided had more serious reasons than just for preserving the morale of the country due to imminent war. The audacity of the film could finally establish Renoir as a representative auteur, providing a totally identifiable and effectively ambitious direction style without overly resulting to disrespectful pretentiousness in a similar way D.W. Griffith did with The Birth of a Nation (1915). It is, fortunately, a perfectly filmed social criticism, and not an insulting essay towards the mores of the entire country. The characters represented the extreme opposite of those portrayed in La Grande Illusion, the people that had caused such a lamentable and disastrous European situation already present in 1939, especially with arguably the greatest war humanity has gone through in its history coming along the way.

    Once more, Jean Renoir develops the scenario and witty dialogue, counting with the collaboration of the (ironically) German screenwriter Carl Koch. The brilliance of the resulting screenplay is notorious throughout, originating several critique branches concerning love, romance and poverty mockery, but always preserving the main purpose of the film, making it one of the most extraordinary and well-developed screenplays in the history of the motion picture. Providing fully rounded characters, an unstoppably entertaining pace and unforgettable hypocritical one-liners, and dialogues that ultimately end up being hilarious because of the conviction with which they are naturally spoken, La Règle du Jeu does not have a main character, but several main characters. We have a collective protagonist, each of its members having peculiar characteristics that, as a whole, give birth to the everlasting defects present in the past and modern aristocracy. These are the same defects that put a tragic end to the personality's psychology, thus causing the sensation of not being able to tolerate oneself. Such repulsion towards life and towards everything that does not belong to the bourgeoisie is unconsciously reflected on them, which explains the catastrophe that they unleash upon them. The mansion only serves as the vehicle that drives them to insanity, especially when their own pride and ego are accentuated when becoming a "national hero" just because of setting a flight record, an undeniably human deed that does not contribute to the progress of humanity. Mass media is the one that slows it down in front of our very faces.

    From lovable and attractively expert long shots that tend to last more than a minute to a high amount of quick shots during the chaos sequences, the cinematographic technique has been noticeably perfected since La Grande Illusion (1937), their racism being illustrated by one of the most haunting and memorable scenes ever filmed: the rabbit hunt, a scene that was beautifully referenced in Robert Bresson's Mouchette (1967). Slightly and almost unnoticeably resorting to surreal elements typical of Luis Buñuel, the absurdity of the film is undeniable, but arguably realistic. The mansion room from which the dinner guests are unable to leave in Buñuel's El Ángel Exterminador (1962) could be a direct reference to the bear suit Renoir's character (Octave) wears without anyone helping him to remove it. Members of the upper-class are incapable of helping each other to get out of their blind world of hypocrisy, let alone getting out of it for themselves.

    As a character study it wonderfully works, using smart comedy and love triangles only to enlighten the human condition. As a social criticism, it also works, being arguably the best and most intelligent ever directed, as well as an influential one. Goodness and justice exists in this world in the sense that Renoir's definite masterpieces were about to become lost arts, but were reconstructed (perhaps) for the sake of humanity. Hated before and worshipped now, Renoir is one of the best filmmakers of French classic cinema, depicting the human being in its most complex, complete, accurate, natural, ambitious and empathetic way possible.

    100/100
  • cinemikeinfrance
    July 29, 2009
    cinemikeinfrance
    Takes the cinema to places that not other director has gone.
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