La Règle du jeu
Jean Renoir
France, 1939. The marquis Robert de La Chesnay is having an affair. The aviator André Jurieux is courting the marqui's wife. His friend Olivier is in love with her. The poacher Marceau is courting Lisette, the marquis wife's chambermaid, who is married to the marquis's gamekeeper Schumacher. When all these infidelities get entangled during a hunting party at the marquis' chateau La Colinière, it turns ugly.
With : Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Mila Parely, Roland Toutain, Jean Renoir, Richard Francoeur, Claire Gérard, Anne Mayen, Jenny Hélia, Paulette Dubost
Screenplay : Jean Renoir, Carl Koch, Camille François
Image : Jean Bachelet, Jean-Paul Alphen, Alain Renoir
Sound : Joseph de Bretagne
Editing : Marguerite Renoir
Music : Joseph Kosma
Screenplay : Jean Renoir, Carl Koch, Camille François
Image : Jean Bachelet, Jean-Paul Alphen, Alain Renoir
Sound : Joseph de Bretagne
Editing : Marguerite Renoir
Music : Joseph Kosma
Production : Nouvelle Edition Française
Distribution: Les Grands Films Classiques
Distribution: Les Grands Films Classiques
The Rules of the game was Jean Renoir's last film in France before his self-imposed exile in the States. It was the last of a decade of masterpieces (The Bitch (1931), Boudu saved from drowning (1932), Toni (1934), A Day in the country (1936), The Grand Illusion (1937), La Marseillaise and The Human Beast (1938)). " The Rules of the game (1939), the movie buffs'credo, was booed by audiences when it first came out only to later become a great box-office success. (...) Inside this "gay drama" Renoir skillfully blends a handful of universal ideas with some more specific ones, while clearly conveying to us his great love of women. The Rules of the game, along with Citizen Kane, is surely the film that inspired the greatest number of aspiring directors. Watching this film we feel accomplices: instead of looking at a finished work, we're filled with curiosity and feel like we're on the set watching Renoir put it all together even as we see it on the screen." (F. Truffaut, The Films in my life, from a presentation at a Renoir Festival at the Vidauban Arts center in 1967)