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MOVIES / ON DVD / THE RULES OF THE GAME
The Rules of the Game

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The Rules of the Game (1939)

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93%
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97 %
Reviews Counted: 36 Fresh: 35  Rotten:1 Average Rating: 9.1/10
Runtime: 1 hr 55 mins
Synopsis:
Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the... [More]
Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's masterpiece THE RULES OF THE GAME is a devastating satire of the pre-WWII French aristocracy. Starring Marcel Dalio as wealthy landowner Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye, it charts the shifting relationships among the guests at a weekend hunting party on his vast estate. The guest list includes Robert's mistress Genevieve (Mila Parely), from whom he's trying to part, and Andre Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a famed aviator who is in love with Robert's wife, Christine (Nora Gregor). As they begin a dizzy dance of escape and pursuit, their games are observed and echoed by the servants below the stairs. The gamekeeper Schumacher (Gaston Modot) is trying to keep the poacher, Marceau (Julien Carette), from poaching on his pretty wife, Lisette (Paulette Dubost), unaware that his boss also has his eye on her. The passionate Jurieu, the only guest incapable of the appropriate hypocrisy, finds Christine in an embrace with a random lover (Pierre Nay), and the startled woman decides to leave Robert and go away with the aviator. Renoir's subtle deployment of long tracking shots in multiplanar deep focus reveals the relations of both groups and individuals as he dismantles the rituals of hypocrisy that make this society run smoothly. [Less]

Genre: Foreign Films

Starring: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Jean Renoir, Mila Parely, Roland Toutain

Director: Jean Renoir
Screenwriter: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch
Producer: Claude Renoir

DVD Info

Release:

Jan 20, 2004

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • Keep Case

Additional Release Material:

  • Introduction by Jean Renoir
  • Audio Commentary - 1. Written By Alexander Sesonske - Film Scholar, Read By Peter Bogdonavich - Director
  • Audio Commentary (Selected Scene) - 1. Christopher Faulkner - Renoir Historian
  • Featurette - 1. "Jean Renoir le Patron: La Reeagl et l'Exception" (1966) - French TV Program
  • 2. Video Essay
  • 3. Jean Gaborit and Jaques Durand Discuss the Reconstruction and Rerelease of the Film (1965)
  • 4. Interview with Assistant Cameraman Alain Renoir
  • 5. Interview with Set Designer Max Douy

Text/Image Galleries:

  • Written Tributes to the Film and Renoir by Filmmakers Wim Wenders, Francois Truffaut, Paul Schrader, Bernard Tavernier, and More

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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Ratings Image

Perfect.

| Comment
02/21/08 08:10 PM
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | Comment
05/12/07 05:17 AM
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Ratings Image

The mobile camera seems to be a member of the party, as it follows the almost balletically choreographed movements of the cast. The effect for the audience is transcendental. We are watching life at its messiest, unfolding at its most beautiful.

Full Review | Comment
04/26/07 03:31 PM
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
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A scathing attack on the show of feeling by a murderously superficial elite . . . the more you watch it, the more Renoir's masterwork reflects the cold, hard truth%u2014The Rules of the Game still apply.

Full Review | Comment
03/25/07 11:54 AM
Brian Gibson
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)
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Welcome to The Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir's delightful, frothy, bittersweet masterpiece about romance, class and manners.

Full Review | Comment
03/16/07 02:39 PM
Shawn Levy
Oregonian
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A great film because of the way it moves beyond social commentary to show how each character, rich and poor, is isolated and at the same time unified by his fears and needs. We're all in a class by ourselves.

Full Review | Comment
03/01/07 09:20 AM
Rob Thomas
Capital Times (Madison, WI)
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A disaster when initially released, the movie's reputation has only grown since.

Full Review | Comment
02/16/07 04:14 PM
John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
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The digitally restored print showing in theaters is worth seeing. If it doesn't come to your town, then look for it to show up on IFC in its tribute to Janus Films or buy or rent the Criterion Collection DVD. However you see this masterpiece, you absol

Full Review | Comment
01/11/07 04:44 PM
Ted Murphy
Murphy's Movie Reviews
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Jean Renoir's classic 1939 satire hasn't lost any of its ability to both shock and enlighten.

Full Review | Comment
12/30/06 07:22 AM
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
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Even if you think you know it, see it again for its newly rediscovered depth of field, and even more, for its infinite wellsprings of character and empathy.

Full Review | Comment
12/28/06 02:48 PM
Leslie Camhi
L.A. Weekly
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There are about a dozen genuine miracles in the history of cinema, and one of them is Jean Renoir's supreme 1939 tragi-comedy The Rules of the Game.

Full Review | Comment
12/28/06 01:36 PM
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
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Yes, there is the director's perfect and unobtrusive technique...and, yes, there's his extraordinarily good-natured, generous attitude toward his characters. But the whole is much greater than the sum of these elements.

Full Review | Comment
12/28/06 05:11 AM
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
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What ultimately defines the film, what makes it unforgettable, is its tragic gravity.

Full Review | Comment
12/22/06 03:52 PM
Mark Feeney
Boston Globe
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[The film] is a comedy, a tragedy, a portrait of class manners, a love story of touching caprice (who will Nora Grégor's Christine fall for? Whoever woos her at the right moment), and far and away the cinema's greatest midsummer night's dream.

Full Review | Comment
11/08/06 03:27 PM
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
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The film was withdrawn, recut, and eventually banned by the occupying forces for its "demoralizing" effects. It was not shown again in its complete form until 1965, when it became clear that here, perhaps, was the greatest film ever made.

Full Review | Comment
11/08/06 03:25 PM
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
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Like the very greatest artists in all media, Renoir was able to transcend his own perspective, his own prejudices, and glimpse something of the terror and wonder of human life, the pain of misapplied or rejected love, for rich as for poor.

Full Review | Comment
11/02/06 12:03 PM
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
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If you think you know it, see it again for its newly rediscovered depth of field, and even more, for its infinite wellsprings of character and empathy.

Full Review | Comment
10/31/06 12:37 PM
Leslie Camhi
Village Voice
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Embracing every level of French society, from the aristocratic hosts to a poacher turned servant, the film presents a hilarious yet melancholic picture of a nation riven by petty class distinctions.

Full Review | Comment
06/24/06 04:14 AM
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
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... impressionante a fluidez com que as diversas narrativas se movem e se cruzam, mas ainda mais admirável é perceber a complexidade e a eficiência com que a câmera de Renoir percorre a história.

| Comment
11/23/05 07:50 PM
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena
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One of the films most despised (and butchered) when released, only to become one of the most valued ones, and Renoir's undisputed masterpiece, a decade later

Full Review | Comment
06/29/05 09:46 AM
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
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Related Forums

REEL_REVIEWER
(1939/1950 orig. USA release)-Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME back in theaters!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/6/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(1939/1950 orig. USA release)-Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME back in theaters!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/6/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(1939/1950 orig. USA release)-Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME back in theaters!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/6/06


REEL_REVIEWER
(1939/1950 orig. USA release)-Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME back in theaters!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 11/6/06


Darko, Donnie
The French r known 4 love triangles & Jean Renoir invented THE RULES OF THE GAME!!!
by: Darko, Donnie 3/28/05

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