The maxim that has long been said about Citizen Kane can also be applied to Jean Renoir’s 1939 film The Rules of the Game: it’s a classic film that is not only good for you, but also enjoyable to watch. Is it possible to remove the “classic” brand from a movie anyway? Even if some of David Lean’s bloated epics haven’t aged well or the racial politics of Gone with the Wind have battered its reputation, the notion of “classic” is never revoked. We may not like them, but they are still classics. But many classic films still feel vibrant, essential and alive today. The Rules of the Game is one of them.
The best films yield new pleasures on repeated viewings. Watch a mediocre comedy and the jokes don’t seem as funny the second time around. Renoir accomplishes something amazing with The Rules of the Game where he meshes lowbrow comedy with portentous commentary that continues to reward multiple viewings. We see the last gasp of a haut society on the eve of World War II. Renoir’s characters are unworried about the rumblings coming from the East. Instead, they are “dancing on a volcano,” the director would say.
Part scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, part sex romp, part tragedy, The Rules of the Game dances on the edge of a volcano like its characters, skirting easy classification. Just prior to filming, the Munich Agreement allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a section of Czechoslovakia. In hindsight, we know this would be the first step in Hitler’s quest to conquer Europe, but in Renoir’s movie, the wealthy feel protected from danger. Why should they worry about anything more than love?
Renoir, however, was not a misanthrope and he infused his characters in The Rules of the Game with human qualities, pulling the film away from simple class critique. His characters might be rich assholes, but they are likable rich assholes. Just like he did with Erich von Stroheim’s German officer von Rauffenstein in Grand Illusion (1937), Renoir refuses to draw his characters broadly here, crafting profoundly human creations who sometimes succumb to passion, whim and anger.
Other directors have laughed before in the face of tragedy but perhaps none as skillfully as Renoir. A series of affairs and love triangles fuels the action in The Rules of the Game. On one level, the film can be enjoyed as a light-hearted comedy of misunderstandings, missed opportunities and miscommunications. Yet, it is impossible to ignore the social commentary. Renoir, the son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, knew this world well. Educated in posh boarding schools, Renoir was privy to French high society from birth. Today he would be considered a “Nepo Baby,” but the success of Grand Illusion and La bête humaine (1938) afforded Renoir the freedom to form his own production company and dispelled any accusations of nepotism. Jean Renoir was an artist in his own right.
Renoir’s films are unlike most other cinema from the late ‘30s. He did not bother with noir and set about making humanist dramas that behaved differently from other films. Robert Altman was taking notes on how Renoir perfected the use of deep space and how his characters sometimes talked over one another. Against the milieu he created, Renoir allowed his stories to unfold. In his previous films, Renoir worked with international stars such as von Stroheim, Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. But The Rules of the Game lacks a true main character. So rather than cast a Gabin, Renoir’s repertory features a mix of smaller names and amateurs. The director casts himself in a key role and even has renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson play a small part.
The lack of a major star was an intelligent move by Renoir as each actor vanishes into his or her role. There is no big personality pulling away the attention from what is happening on the screen. Most of the action takes place at a hunting villa where the characters spend their time switching partners and blasting rabbits and pheasants. Many compared Altman’s Gosford Park (2001) to The Rules of the Game in its two-tiered narrative that follows not only the wealthy but the maids, cooks and attending staff, as well. Here, the same sort of drama replicates itself on both levels. The human condition of love and longing transcends class.
But back to that hunting scene. It is still a gruesome marvel as the characters stalk the barren Sologne countryside, looking to wipe out rabbits and pheasants. During the hunt, love is declared, affairs are revealed and rifts are formed, all set to the massacre. Do the animals (which appear to be killed for real) represent the impending carnage of World War II? Will these strutting and fretting characters soon be wiped out like the helpless rabbits they are dispatching with glee?
At the time of its release, The Rules of the Game was a complete flop. The audiences reviled the film, booing and hissing at screenings. Even after trimming it down to a shorter runtime, audiences still hated the movie. Then the war came. In 1959, Renoir would have the opportunity to recut the movie to his original vision. The world was also ready to receive The Rules of the Game by then, finding rapturous fans that included numerous French New Wave directors. It also ranks consistently in Sight and Sound’s esteemed Greatest Films of All Time poll. Making the film even more timeless is that the rules of the game haven’t changed much since 1939, especially as the gap between the rich and middle class widens. Even now as we face one existential crisis after another – from another possible Trump presidency to climate change – the rich continue to dance close to the precipice. They don’t even feel the heat from the lava waiting for them below.
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