The Rules of the Game
Encyclopedia
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir
about upper-class French
society just before the start of World War II
. As a point of departure he began with Alfred de Musset's
Les Caprices de Marianne
, a popular 19th-century comedy of manners
: "My first intention was to film a transposition of Caprices de Marianne to our time. It is the story of a tragic mistake: the lover of Marianne is taken for someone else and is bumped off in an ambush". He was also inspired by Jeu de l'amour et du hasard of Marivaux, by Molière
, and took some details from Beaumarchais: the quote at the beginning of the film comes from Mariage de Figaro
The Rules of the Game is often cited as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. The decennial poll of international critics by the Sight & Sound
magazine ranked it #10 in 1952, moved it up to #3 in 1962, and #2 in 1972, 1982, and 1992; in 2002 it fell back to #3, behind Citizen Kane
and Vertigo
.
, France
. He is greeted by his friend, Octave, who reveals that Christine, the woman André loves, has not come to the airfield to greet him. André is heartbroken. When a radio reporter comes to broadcast his first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces the woman who has spurned him. Christine, an Austrian, is listening to the broadcast from her apartment in Paris as she is attended by her maid, Lisette. Christine has been married to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye for three years. Lisette has been married to Schumacher, the gamekeeper
at the country estate, for two years, but she is more devoted to Madame Christine. Christine's past relationship with André is openly known by her husband, her maid, and their friend Octave. After Christine and Robert playfully discuss André's emotional display and pledge devotion to one another, Robert excuses himself to make a phone call. He arranges to meet Geneviève, his mistress, the next morning.
At Geneviève's apartment, Robert announces he must end their relationship, but invites her to join them for a weekend retreat to Robert and Christine's country estate, La Colinière, in Sologne
. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the country as well. They joke that André and Geneviève will pair off and solve everyone's problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds, trying to get rid of rabbits. Marceau, a poacher, sneaks onto the grounds to retrieve a rabbit caught in one of his snares. Before he can get away, Schumacher catches him and begins to march him off the property when Robert demands to know what is going on. Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits, and Robert offers him a job as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Schumacher's wife, Lisette.
At a masquerade ball, various romantic liaisons are made. In the estate's dark, secluded greenhouse, Octave declares that he, too, loves Christine and they impulsively decide to run away together. Schumacher and Marceau, who have both been expelled from the estate after a fight over Lisette, observe the greenhouse scene and mistake Christine for Lisette, because Christine is wearing Lisette's cape and hood. Octave momentarily returns to the house and, while there, Lisette talks him out of running off with Christine. Consequently, he sends André to meet Christine. When André reaches the greenhouse, Schumacher mistakes him for Octave, who he believes is going to steal his wife. He shoots and kills André, which Robert subsequently explains to his guests as an "accident".
, Renoir wanted to get away from naturalism
and wanted to work on project more classical and poetic. To get ideas and inspirations for The Rules of the Game he read the works of Pierre de Marivaux
and Alfred de Musset
. Although he had no intention of following their style, reading their work helped Renoir to find his own style halfway between realism and poetry.
ian crowd on its première. The upper class is depicted in this film as capricious and self-indulgent, with little regard for the consequences of their actions. The French government banned it. Author, journalist and film critic Robert Brasillach
, who was shot after the war for fervently advocating collaboration, gave the film a mixed review. In the 1943 edition of his famous Histoire du cinéma he stated that the film was amongst Renoir's most jumbled and confused but applauded the biting satire, which he considered Proustian, and the technical variation employed by the director, ultimately concluding that the film was an unrealized masterpiece. After the War it has come to be seen by many film critics and directors
as one of the greatest films of all time. Critics placing it at the top of their lists include Nick Roddick, Paul Schrader
, and Bertrand Tavernier
.
The critical and public receptions largely could not or were unwilling to comprehend the film's crystal clear expression of a moribund age, represented through a mixing of genres to create Renoir's satirical, yet realist style. Audiences may have been displeased with the subtle irony of the compositions and unique camera movements that often highlight peculiar off screen activity. The stunningly mobile photographic style emerged against traditions, disconcerting the public and critics with a depth of field and deep focus mise-en-scene that would return to France from America via Citizen Kane
and The Best Years of Our Lives
. The Rules of the Game has since become regarded as a classic of prewar French realism, showcasing the elemental but also advancement of cinematography.
governments banned the film as being "demoralizing", and it was removed from every movie screen in Paris.
After the outraged audience response, distributors demanded that Renoir cut the film drastically. He edited the film from 94 minutes to 81 soon after the premiere. He reduced the role of Octave, which he played, including Octave's brief infatuation with Christine during the ending. The omission of this complication during the ending gave rise to the notion of a "second ending".
During one of the Allied bombings, the original negative got destroyed, leading many to believe that a complete version would never be seen. After the war though, pieces of the negative were found, and the painstaking task of reassembling the film was undertaken. The film was restored to 106 minutes in 1959 with Renoir's approval and advice. Only one scene was not located, one of Lisette talking about affairs among the maid staff, but this was a short scene and, according to Renoir, not vital to the plot.
However, Roger Manvell's authoritative Film (Pelican Books, 1944, 1950 revision, p. 208) refers to a first London showing in 1946.
so that events going on in the background are as important as those in the foreground. In a 1954 interview with Jacques Rivette
and François Truffaut
, reprinted in Jean Renoir: Interviews, Renoir said "Working on the script inspired me to make a break and perhaps get away from naturalism completely, to try to touch on a more classical, more poetic genre." He wrote and rewrote it several times, often abandoning his original intentions altogether upon interaction with the actors having witnessed reactions that he hadn't foreseen. As a director he sought to "get closer to the way in which characters can adapt to their theories in real life while being subjected to life’s many obstacles that keep us from being theoretical and from remaining theoretical".
The film's style has had an impact on numerous filmmakers. One example is Robert Altman
, whose Gosford Park
copies many of Rules of the Games plot elements (a story of aristocrats in the country, aristocrats and their servants, murder) and pays homage with a direct reference to the infamous hunting scene, or "la chasse", in which no one moves but the help.
Criticism
Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
about upper-class French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
society just before the start of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. As a point of departure he began with Alfred de Musset's
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
Les Caprices de Marianne
Les caprices de Marianne
Les caprices de Marianne is a two-act opéra comique by Henri Sauguet with a French libretto by Jean-Pierre Grédy after Alfred de Musset. It was first performed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 1954, with the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire conducted by Louis de Froment with...
, a popular 19th-century comedy of manners
Comedy of manners
The comedy of manners is a genre of play/television/film which satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters, such as the miles gloriosus in ancient times, the fop and the rake during the Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young...
: "My first intention was to film a transposition of Caprices de Marianne to our time. It is the story of a tragic mistake: the lover of Marianne is taken for someone else and is bumped off in an ambush". He was also inspired by Jeu de l'amour et du hasard of Marivaux, by Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, and took some details from Beaumarchais: the quote at the beginning of the film comes from Mariage de Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
The Rules of the Game is often cited as one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. The decennial poll of international critics by the Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
magazine ranked it #10 in 1952, moved it up to #3 in 1962, and #2 in 1972, 1982, and 1992; in 2002 it fell back to #3, behind Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and Vertigo
Vertigo (film)
Vertigo is a 1958 psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Kim Novak, and Barbara Bel Geddes. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A...
.
Plot
The film begins with the aviator André Jurieux landing at Le Bourget Airfield just outside ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He is greeted by his friend, Octave, who reveals that Christine, the woman André loves, has not come to the airfield to greet him. André is heartbroken. When a radio reporter comes to broadcast his first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces the woman who has spurned him. Christine, an Austrian, is listening to the broadcast from her apartment in Paris as she is attended by her maid, Lisette. Christine has been married to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye for three years. Lisette has been married to Schumacher, the gamekeeper
Gamekeeper
A gamekeeper is a person who manages an area of countryside to make sure there is enough game for shooting, or fish for angling, and who actively manages areas of woodland, moorland, waterway or farmland for the benefit of game birds, deer, fish and wildlife in general.Typically, a gamekeeper is...
at the country estate, for two years, but she is more devoted to Madame Christine. Christine's past relationship with André is openly known by her husband, her maid, and their friend Octave. After Christine and Robert playfully discuss André's emotional display and pledge devotion to one another, Robert excuses himself to make a phone call. He arranges to meet Geneviève, his mistress, the next morning.
At Geneviève's apartment, Robert announces he must end their relationship, but invites her to join them for a weekend retreat to Robert and Christine's country estate, La Colinière, in Sologne
Sologne
Sologne , a region of north-central France extending over portions of the départements of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher and Cher...
. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the country as well. They joke that André and Geneviève will pair off and solve everyone's problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds, trying to get rid of rabbits. Marceau, a poacher, sneaks onto the grounds to retrieve a rabbit caught in one of his snares. Before he can get away, Schumacher catches him and begins to march him off the property when Robert demands to know what is going on. Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits, and Robert offers him a job as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Schumacher's wife, Lisette.
At a masquerade ball, various romantic liaisons are made. In the estate's dark, secluded greenhouse, Octave declares that he, too, loves Christine and they impulsively decide to run away together. Schumacher and Marceau, who have both been expelled from the estate after a fight over Lisette, observe the greenhouse scene and mistake Christine for Lisette, because Christine is wearing Lisette's cape and hood. Octave momentarily returns to the house and, while there, Lisette talks him out of running off with Christine. Consequently, he sends André to meet Christine. When André reaches the greenhouse, Schumacher mistakes him for Octave, who he believes is going to steal his wife. He shoots and kills André, which Robert subsequently explains to his guests as an "accident".
Cast
- Nora GregorNora Gregor-Biography:She was born Eleonora Hermina Gregor in Gorizia, a town which then belonged to Austria-Hungary but is now part of Italy, to Austrian Jewish parents.Her first husband was Mitja Nikisch, a pianist...
as Christine de la Chesnaye - Paulette DubostPaulette DubostPaulette Dubost was a French actress who began her career at the age of 7 at the Paris Opera.She appeared in over 250 films and worked with such directors as Jean Renoir, Jacques Tourneur, Marcel Carné, Julien Duvivier, Preston Sturges and Max Ophüls. One of her most famous roles was as Lisette in...
as Lisette, her maid - Marcel DalioMarcel DalioMarcel Dalio was a French character actor. He had major roles in two of Jean Renoir's most famous films, Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game.- Biography :...
as Robert de la Chesnaye - Roland ToutainRoland ToutainRoland Toutain was a French actor, songwriter and stuntman. he is most well known for playing the aviator André Jurieux in Jean Renoir's film La Règle du jeu....
as André Jurieux - Jean RenoirJean RenoirJean Renoir was a French film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and author. As a film director and actor, he made more than forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s...
as Octave - Mila ParélyMila ParélyMila Parély is a French actress best known for the roles of Belle's sister in Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête and as Geneviève in La Règle du jeu. She gave up acting in the late 1950s in order to take care of her race-car driving husband, who had been injured in an accident.She also worked with...
as Geneviève de Marras - Anne Mayen as Jackie, niece of Christine
- Julien CaretteJulien CaretteJulien Carette was a French film actor. He appeared in 127 films between 1931 and 1964. He suffered fatal burns when his nylon shirt caught fire from his cigarette; apparently he had fallen asleep while smoking....
as Marceau, the poacher - Gaston ModotGaston ModotGaston Modot was a French actor. For more than 50 years he performed for the cinema working with a number of French directors....
as Edouard Schumacher, the gamekeeper - Pierre MagnierPierre MagnierPierre Magnier was a French actor who began on the stage in the 1890s and became a prominent silent film actor in France. He was the second actor to portray Cyrano de Bergerac in any film in 1925. He continued acting until the 1950s...
as The General - Pierre Nay as Monsieur de St. Aubin
- Francœur as Monsieur La Bruyère
- Odette Talazac as Madame de la Plante
- Claire Gérard as Madame de la Bruyère
- Lise Elina as Radio-Reporter
- Eddy Debray as Corneille, the butler
- Léon LariveLéon LariveLéon Larive was a French film actor. He appeared in 95 films between 1923 and 1961.-Selected filmography:* Return to Life * The Rules of the Game * The Tale of the Fox -External links:...
as the Cook - Henri Cartier-BressonHenri Cartier-BressonHenri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
as the English Servant
Production
After completing the film La Bête HumaineLa Bête Humaine (film)
La Bête Humaine is a film directed by Jean Renoir, with cinematography by Curt Courant...
, Renoir wanted to get away from naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
and wanted to work on project more classical and poetic. To get ideas and inspirations for The Rules of the Game he read the works of Pierre de Marivaux
Pierre de Marivaux
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux , commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French novelist and dramatist....
and Alfred de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
. Although he had no intention of following their style, reading their work helped Renoir to find his own style halfway between realism and poetry.
Reception
The film was initially condemned for its satire on the French upper classes and was greeted with derision by a ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian crowd on its première. The upper class is depicted in this film as capricious and self-indulgent, with little regard for the consequences of their actions. The French government banned it. Author, journalist and film critic Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach
Robert Brasillach was a French author and journalist. Brasillach is best known as the editor of Je suis partout, a nationalist newspaper which came to advocate various fascist movements and supported Jacques Doriot...
, who was shot after the war for fervently advocating collaboration, gave the film a mixed review. In the 1943 edition of his famous Histoire du cinéma he stated that the film was amongst Renoir's most jumbled and confused but applauded the biting satire, which he considered Proustian, and the technical variation employed by the director, ultimately concluding that the film was an unrealized masterpiece. After the War it has come to be seen by many film critics and directors
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
as one of the greatest films of all time. Critics placing it at the top of their lists include Nick Roddick, Paul Schrader
Paul Schrader
Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and former film critic. Apart from his credentials as a director, Schrader is most notably known for his screenplays for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Raging Bull....
, and Bertrand Tavernier
Bertrand Tavernier
Bertrand Tavernier is a French director, screenwriter, actor, and producer.-Life and career:Tavernier was born in Lyon, the son of Geneviève and René Tavernier, a publicist and writer, several years president of the French PEN club. Tavernier wanted to become a filmmaker since the age of thirteen...
.
The critical and public receptions largely could not or were unwilling to comprehend the film's crystal clear expression of a moribund age, represented through a mixing of genres to create Renoir's satirical, yet realist style. Audiences may have been displeased with the subtle irony of the compositions and unique camera movements that often highlight peculiar off screen activity. The stunningly mobile photographic style emerged against traditions, disconcerting the public and critics with a depth of field and deep focus mise-en-scene that would return to France from America via Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
and The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler, and starring Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell, a United States paratrooper who lost both hands in a military training accident. The film is about three United States...
. The Rules of the Game has since become regarded as a classic of prewar French realism, showcasing the elemental but also advancement of cinematography.
Edit after the premiere and restoration in 1959
Renoir was deeply hurt by the initial reception. The French and the VichyVichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
governments banned the film as being "demoralizing", and it was removed from every movie screen in Paris.
After the outraged audience response, distributors demanded that Renoir cut the film drastically. He edited the film from 94 minutes to 81 soon after the premiere. He reduced the role of Octave, which he played, including Octave's brief infatuation with Christine during the ending. The omission of this complication during the ending gave rise to the notion of a "second ending".
During one of the Allied bombings, the original negative got destroyed, leading many to believe that a complete version would never be seen. After the war though, pieces of the negative were found, and the painstaking task of reassembling the film was undertaken. The film was restored to 106 minutes in 1959 with Renoir's approval and advice. Only one scene was not located, one of Lisette talking about affairs among the maid staff, but this was a short scene and, according to Renoir, not vital to the plot.
However, Roger Manvell's authoritative Film (Pelican Books, 1944, 1950 revision, p. 208) refers to a first London showing in 1946.
Style
The Rules of the Game is noted for its use of deep focusDeep focus
Deep focus is a photographic and cinematographic technique using a large depth of field. Depth of field is the front-to-back range of focus in an image — that is, how much of it appears sharp and clear. Consequently, in deep focus the foreground, middle-ground and background are all in focus...
so that events going on in the background are as important as those in the foreground. In a 1954 interview with Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette
Jacques Rivette is a French film director. His most well known films include Celine and Julie Go Boating, La Belle Noiseuse and the cult film Out 1....
and François Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
, reprinted in Jean Renoir: Interviews, Renoir said "Working on the script inspired me to make a break and perhaps get away from naturalism completely, to try to touch on a more classical, more poetic genre." He wrote and rewrote it several times, often abandoning his original intentions altogether upon interaction with the actors having witnessed reactions that he hadn't foreseen. As a director he sought to "get closer to the way in which characters can adapt to their theories in real life while being subjected to life’s many obstacles that keep us from being theoretical and from remaining theoretical".
The film's style has had an impact on numerous filmmakers. One example is Robert Altman
Robert Altman
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...
, whose Gosford Park
Gosford Park
Gosford Park is a 2001 British-American mystery comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, and Michael Gambon...
copies many of Rules of the Games plot elements (a story of aristocrats in the country, aristocrats and their servants, murder) and pays homage with a direct reference to the infamous hunting scene, or "la chasse", in which no one moves but the help.
Trivia
- Ranked #13 in EmpireEmpire (magazine)Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
External links
InformationalCriticism