The Rules of the Game


The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French satirical comedy-drama film directed by Jean Renoir. The ensemble cast includes Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, Pierre Magnier and Renoir.
Renoir's portrayal of the wise, mournful Octave anchors the fatalistic mood of this pensive comedy of manners. The film depicts members of upper-class French society and their servants just before the beginning of World War II, showing their moral callousness on the eve of destruction.
At the time, The Rules of the Game was the most expensive French film made: Its original budget of 2.5 million francs eventually increased to more than 5 million francs. Renoir and cinematographer Jean Bachelet made extensive use of deep-focus and long shots during which the camera is constantly moving—sophisticated cinematic techniques for 1939.
Renoir's career in France was at its pinnacle in 1939 and The Rules of the Game was eagerly anticipated. However, its premiere was met with scorn and disapproval by critics and audiences. Renoir reduced the film's running time from 113 minutes to 85, but even then, the film was a critical and financial disaster. In October 1939, it was banned by the wartime French government for "having an undesirable influence over the young".
For many years, the 85-minute version was the only one available; even so, its reputation slowly grew. However, in 1956, boxes of original material were discovered, and a reconstructed version of the film premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival, with only a minor scene from Renoir's first cut missing. Since then, The Rules of the Game has been called one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Numerous film critics and directors have praised it highly, citing it as an inspiration for their own work. It is the only film to earn a place among the top ten films in the respected Sight & Sound decennial critics' poll for every decade from the poll's inception in 1952 through the 2012 list.

Plot

Aviator André Jurieux lands at Le Bourget Airfield outside Paris after crossing the Atlantic in his plane. He is greeted by his friend Octave, who tells André that Christine the Austrian-French noblewoman André loveshas not come to greet him. André is heartbroken. When a radio reporter comes to broadcast André's first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces Christine. She is listening to the broadcast in her Paris apartment while attended by her maid, Lisette. Christine has been married to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye for three years. For two years, Lisette has been married to Schumacher the gamekeeper at Robert's country estate, La Colinière in Solognebut she is more devoted to Christine than to her husband. 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 telephone call. He arranges to meet his mistress Geneviève the next morning.
At Geneviève's apartment, Robert says he must end their relationship but invites her to join them for a weekend retreat to La Colinière. Christine also invites her niece, Jackie. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the estate as well. They joke that André and Geneviève will begin a relationship, thereby solving everyone's problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds and trying to eliminate rabbits. Marceau a poachersneaks onto the estate to retrieve a rabbit caught in a snare. Before Marceau can escape, Schumacher catches him and begins to escort him from the property when Robert demands to know what is happening. Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits and Robert hires him as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Lisette. The next morning the assembled guests go on a hunt led by Schumacher. On the way back to La Colinière's castle, Robert tells Geneviève that he no longer loves her. Geneviève unwillingly accepts but demands a kiss from Robert as a farewell, something that Christine accidentally sees while looking through a monocular. Because of this, later when Geneviève wants to pack up and leave Christine confronts her but persuades her to stay because this will make Robert pay less attention to Christine while André is present.
At a masked ball, various romantic liaisons are made. André and Christine declare their love for each other and plan to run away together. Marceau pursues Lisette, and the jealous Schumacher is upset. Robert and André come to an argument over Christine. In the secluded greenhouse, Octave declares that he too loves Christinewho is now having doubts about Andréand they decide to run away together. Schumacher and Marceau, who have both been expelled from the estate by Robert after a fight over Lisette, watch Octave and Christine in the greenhouse. As in Beaumarchais's Marriage of Figaro, the literary basis for Mozart's opera, they mistake Christine for Lisette because Christine is wearing Lisette's cape and hood. Octave returns to the house for his coat and hat, where Lisette begs him not to leave with Christine.
Breaking his promise to Christine, Octave meets André and sends him out to Christine in the greenhouse, lending him his overcoat. When André reaches the greenhouse wearing Octave's coat, Schumacher mistakes him for Octave, whom he thinks is trying to run off with his wife Lisette, and Schumacher shoots him dead.
In the closing moments of the film, Octave and Marceau walk away into the night as Robert brings Schumacher back into the household and explains that he would report the killing to the authorities as nothing more than an unfortunate accident.

Cast

  • Nora Gregor as Christine, Marquise de la Chesnaye
  • Paulette Dubost as Lisette, Christine's maid
  • Marcel Dalio as Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye, Christine's husband and Geneviève's lover
  • Roland Toutain as André Jurieux, an aviator in love with Christine
  • Jean Renoir as Octave, an old friend of Christine and friend of André
  • Mila Parély as Geneviève de Marras, Robert's lover
  • Julien Carette as Marceau, a poacher and Lisette's would-be lover
  • Gaston Modot as Edouard Schumacher, Robert's gamekeeper and Lisette's husband
  • Anne Mayen as Jackie, a niece of Christine
  • Pierre Magnier as The General, a guest at Robert's estate
  • Léon Larive as the cook
  • Henri Cartier-Bresson as the English servant
  • Marguerite de Morlaye as a guest
  • Pierre Nay as Monsieur de St. Aubin, a guest at Robert's estate
  • Richard Francœur as Monsieur La Bruyère, a guest at Robert's estate
  • Odette Talazac as Madame de la Plante, a guest at Robert's estate
  • Claire Gérard as Madame de la Bruyère, a guest at Robert's estate
  • Lise Elina as the radio reporter at the airport
  • Eddy Debray as Corneille, Robert's butler
  • Géo Forster as the effeminate guest
  • Tony Corteggiani as Monsieur Berthelin, a guest
  • Nicolas Amato as Cava, a guest from South America
  • Jenny Hélia as Germaine, a servant
  • André Zwoboda as André's engineer at the airport
  • Camille François as a radio reporter

    Production

Background and writing

In 1938 the French film industry was booming, and Renoir was at the height of his career. He had had three consecutive hit films and La Grande Illusion had won awards from the New York Film Critics, the National Board of Review and the Venice Film Festival. The financial success of La Bête Humaine made it easy for Renoir to secure enough financial backing to form his own production company. In 1938 he founded Nouvelle Édition Française with his brother Pierre Renoir, together with André Zwoboda, Oliver Billiou and Camille François. All five invested 10,000 francs into the company and intended to produce two films per year. The company was modeled after the American film production company United Artists, which was formed in 1919 as a film distribution company for independent artists by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford. Renoir rallied his friends in the film industry around the company and got financial support from René Clair, Julien Duvivier, Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. NEF's headquarters on the Rue la Grange-Batelière was sublet from Marcel Pagnol's production company. On 8 December 1938 Georges Cravenne published a press release in Paris-Soir announcing that Renoir and Pagnol were about to sign an agreement to procure a large theatre where they would publicly screen "the films that they would direct from then on". The Rules of the Game was the only film produced by the company.
In May 1938, Renoir completed the historical drama La Marseillaise and wanted to make a comedy. He was anxious about the Munich Agreement and the strong possibility of another world war, and wanted to film a "happy dream" to subdue his pessimism. He wrote a synopsis for a film titled Les Millions d'Arlequin, which had characters similar to those in The Rules of the Game. When conceiving the film, Renoir was inspired by classical French art, such as the works of Pierre de Marivaux, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and especially Alfred de Musset's play Les Caprices de Marianne, which Renoir initially intended to adapt; NEF first announced the film as an adaptation of it. Renoir later said he never intended to directly adapt Les Caprices de Marianne but only to re-read it and other classics of French literature for inspiration.
After returning from lecturing in London in January 1939, Renoir left Paris to work on a script. He told a reporter that his next film would be "A precise description of the bourgeois of our age." Renoir, Carl Koch and Zwoboda went to Marlotte to work on the script. Because Renoir wanted to allow the actors to improvise their dialogue, only one-third of the film was scripted and the rest was a detailed outline. Renoir later said that his "ambition when I made the film was to illustrate this remark: we are dancing on a volcano". Renoir called the film a "divertissement" for its use of baroque music and aspects of classical French comedies. Renoir's initial inspiration by Les Caprices de Marianne led to the film's four main characters correlating with those of the play; a virtuous wife, a jealous husband, a despairing lover and an interceding friend. In both the play and the film the interceding friend is named Octave. Octave is also the only one of the four characters inspired by the play that shares traits with its counterpart. In both works, Octave is a "sad clown" full of self-doubt and self-pity. The characters' names constantly changed between versions of the script; Renoir said that in an early draft, André Jurieux was an orchestra conductor rather than an aviator.