The Rules of the Game [Criterion Collection] [2 Discs]

Director: Jean Renoir Jean Renoir

Overview

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..

Product Details

Release Date:	11/15/2011
UPC:	0715515089814
Original Release:	1939
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:46:00
Sales rank:	16,322

Special Features

Disc One: Introduction to the film by Director Jean Renoir; Audio Commentary Written by film scholar Alexander Sesonske and ready by Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich; Comparison of the film's two endings; Selected-scene analysis by Renoir Historian Chris Faulkner; ; Disc Two: Excerpts from Jean Renoir, le patron: La règle et l'exception (1966), a French television program by filmmaker Jacques Rivette ; ; Part one of Jean Renoir, a two-part 1993 BBC documentary by film critic David Thompson; ; Video essay about the film's production, release, and 1959 reconstruction; ; Interview with film critic Olivier Curchod; Interview from a 1965 episode of the French television series Les écrans de la ville in which Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand discuss their reconstruction and rerelease of the film; ; Interviews with Set Designer Max Douy; Renoir's son, Alain; and actress Mila Parély

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Marcel Dalio	Robert de la Chesnaye
Nora Gregor	Christine de la Chesnaye
Roland Tourain	Andre Jurieu
Jean Renoir	Octave
Paulette Dubost	Lisette
Gaston Modot	Schumacher
Julien Carette	Marceau
Odette Talazac	Charlotte de la Plante
Pierre Magnier	The General
Pierre Nay	M. de Saint-Aubin
Richard Francoeur	M. La Bruyere
Claire Gerard	Mme. La Bruyere
Anne Mayen	Jackie
Roger Forster	Effeminate Guest
Nicolas Amato	The South American
Tony Corteggiani	Berthelin
Eddy Debray	Corneille
Jenny Helia	The Servant
Celestin	Kitchen Servant
Lise Elina	The Radio Reporter
Henri Cartier-Bresson	The English Domestic
Mila Parély	Geneviève de Marrast
Antoine Corteggiani	Berthelin, the Huntsman
Camille Francois	The Announcer,Composer
Léon Larive	Le cuisinier
André Zwoboda	The Engineer from Caudron's
Roland Toutain	Actor
Claire Gérard	madame de la Bruyère
Joseph Kosma	Composer
Roger Desormieres	Composer

Technical Credits

Carl Koch

Camille Francois

Jean Renoir	Director
Carl Koch	Screenwriter
Joseph de Bretagne	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Camille Francois	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Rules of the Game
1. Opening Credits [2:19]
2. André and Octave [3:38]
3. Lisette and Christine [1:28]
4. Christine and Robert [2:00]
5. Robert and Geneviève [2:50]
6. "You'll See Her Again" [3:03]
7. Convincing Christine [4:28]
8. "A Dangerous Poet" [3:16]
9. Schumacher and Marceau [7:17]
10. Guests Arrive at la Colinière [3:03]
11. Upstairs [3:29]
12. Downstairs [3:32]
13. "Cards on the Table" [4:13]
14. La chasse [6:53]
15. A Closer Look [4:12]
16. Frankly Speaking [3:06]
17. "She loves me..." [2:41]
18. La fête de la Colinière [6:21]
19. "There are still rules" [5:28]
20. The marquis' latest find [1:46]
21. The chase [3:05]
22. "Poor little Christine" [5:16]
23. End of the affair [4:42]
24. "Everyone lies" [6:00]
25. A dangerous angel [3:20]
26. "You're making a mistake" [2:43]
27. The sacrifice [3:51]
28. Game over [2:15]
1. Color Bars [:00]
1. A frivolous story [2:19]
2. Un film d'ensemble [3:38]
3. The Only Topic of Interest [1:28]
4. Political Climate [2:00]
5. Moral Parameters [2:50]
6. Outsiders [3:03]
7. The Go-between [4:28]
8. Reasons [3:16]
9. Structure and sources [7:17]
10. Christine [3:03]
11. Maintaining Appearances [3:29]
12. Mirror Image [3:32]
13. Schumacher and Marceau [4:13]
14. The Thematic Center [6:53]
15. Winding Up the Plot [4:12]
16. Mistaken Discoveries [3:06]
17. Change of Partners [2:41]
18. Out of Renoir's Control [6:21]
19. Roles Reversed [5:28]
20. Summation of a Life [1:46]
21. Triangles and Pairs [3:05]
22. The Jester's Reality [5:16]
23. Sound and Music [4:42]
24. Old and New Loyalties [6:00]
25. Renoir and Octave [3:20]
26. The Truth in the Mirror [2:43]
27. Death of Innocence [3:51]
28. A Web of Truths [2:15]
1. Color Bars [:00]
Disc #2 -- The Rules of the Game
1. Between Munich and the War [2:53]
2. The Shooting Script/Depth of Field [5:09]
3. The Main Characters [3:23]
4. Seeking the Center [2:02]
5. La Chesnaye [7:28]
6. Christine [4:38]
7. Improvisation [3:38]
8. The Sacrifice [1:58]
1. "How Did He Do It?" [2:51]
2. Auguste, the father [4:25]
3. Gabrielle/The Military [3:43]
4. Dédée [3:09]
5. La fille de l'eau [3:47]
6. Charleston/Nana [4:11]
7. La chienne/Boudu [6:19]
8. Le crime de Monsieur Lange [2:48]
9. Political leanings/Marguerite [3:27]
10. A Day in the Country [5:40]
11. Grand Illusion [7:46]
12. The Rules of the Game [6:29]
13. Leaving France [5:20]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Rules of the Game
   Renoir Introduction
   Movie
   Chapters
   Commentary
      Commentary: On/Off
      Index
   Playing By Different Rules
      Version Comparison
      Short Version Ending
   Scene Analysis
      "Public And Private"
      "Corridor"
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On/Off
         Subtitles: On
         Subtitles: Off
Disc #2 -- The Rules of the Game
   Jean Renoir, Le Patron
      Play
      Index
   Jean Renoir
      Play
      Index
   Production History
      Chris Faulkner
      Olivier Curchod
      Gabort and Durand
   Interviews
      Max Douy
         Play
      Mila Parély
         Play
      Alain Renoir
         Play
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On/Off
         Subtitles: On
         Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

Elegant, funny, and profoundly pessimistic, Jean Renoir's 1939 masterpiece Rules of the Game is widely considered one of France's greatest cinematic exports. With the help of Carl Koch, Renoir -- son of the Impressionist painter Auguste Renoir -- adapted Alfred de Musset's "Les Caprices de Marianne." Set during a weekend house party in the country, this tragicomic farce explores class differences and sexual peccadilloes, featuring Roland Toutain as a pilot in love with a woman (Nora Gregor) who is married to an aristocrat (Marcel Dalio). The film remains a landmark for its ensemble construction, exploring the relationships among its characters in a fashion that continues to influence such prominent filmmakers as Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson. Renoir's visual style consists of camera movements that glide easily between actors and deep-focus photography that highlights the characters' environment. It all combines beautifully to express the film's central theme: the social code of behavior that connects us to one another while simultaneously keeping us apart.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

Jean Renoir's masterpiece and his last French film before he went to Hollywood, Rules of the Game (1939) is an intricate, tragi-comic indictment of a decadent European culture on the verge of collapse and war. Renoir's innovative "observational" style of long takes, deep focus, and gracefully subtle camera movements relates the characters to their environment and to each other, communicating the complexity of the class-based society seen in microcosm at the film's central country house. Rather than overtly manipulating the viewer's attention and emotional responses, Renoir's style allows the audience to share his ambivalent view of human nature, playing out multiple, metaphorically loaded love triangles among the guests and servants at the estate. Setting up the story around contrasts between tradition and modernity, individual passion and social rules, and nature and culture (revealing the corrupting force of culture in a brutal hunting sequence), Renoir presents a declining society doomed by its intractable conflicts and adherence to superficial manners. In his role as Octave, Renoir literally orchestrates the events but even he, the wise artist, cannot prevent violent tragedy. After provoking a riot at its Paris premiere, Rules of the Game was edited to 80 minutes and finally banned by French censors as "demoralizing"; the Nazis banned it during the Occupation as well. Although the original negative was destroyed in World War II, Rules of the Game was restored under Renoir's supervision to its original length (minus one short scene) in the late 1950s, debuting to great acclaim at the 1959 Venice Film Festival. In this version, Rules of the Game has since come to be considered one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola