#216: RENOIR, Jean: The Rules Of The Game (1939)

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RENOIR, Jean (France)
The Rules Of The Game [1939]
Spine #216
Blu-ray


Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game, by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis' country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn't reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.

106 minutes
Black & White
Monaural
in French
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2011
Director/Writers


Screenplay by Jean Renoir, with the collaboration of Carl Koch.

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-page booklet featuring essays by Alexander Sesonske, Renoir, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bertrand Tavernier, and François Truffaut, and tributes by Paul Schrader, Alain Resnais, Amy Taubin, Luc Sante, Robin Wood, Noah Baumbach, Kent Jones, Kenneth Bowser, Wim Wenders, J. Hoberman, Peter Cowie, Cameron Crowe, and Robert Altman.

Commentary

Written by film scholar Sesonske and read by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich.

Introduction

To the film by director Renoir.
Comparison

Of the film’s two endings.
Selected-scene analysis

By Renoir historian Chris Faulkner.
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 1

With film critic Olivier Curchod.

Interview 2

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.

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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