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The Rules of the Game (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
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Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir (Grand Illusion), is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners, in which a weekend at a marquis’s countryside chateau lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haute bourgeois acquaintances. The film was a victim of tumultuous historyâ€"it was subjected to cuts after premiere audiences rejected it 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.Consistently cited by critics worldwide as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's bittersweet drama of life, love, class, and the social code of manners and behavior ("the rules of the game") is a savage critique undertaken with sensitivity and compassion. Renoir's catch-phrase through the film, "Everyone has their reasons," develops a multilayered meaning by the
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| 158 of 166 people found the following review helpful  Review of Criterion 2011 Blu-ray, 2011 DVD, 2004 DVD, This review is from: The Rules of the Game (The Criterion Collection) (DVD) *** NOV-22-2011: ADDED REVIEW OF 2011 BLU-RAY & DVD ***Criterion now has released 3 editions of this French classic: 2004 DVD edition (blue cover with photos) that has been put out of print, 2011 DVD edition (bright cover with vintage drawing) that has identical content save for a revised supplement, and a corresponding 2011 Blu-ray edition that is a high-def version of the 2011 DVD. The 2011 Blu-ray and DVD appear to have used the same source that yielded the 2004 DVD. As those who have seen the 2004 DVD know, the original source is not in the best of shape, even though it is the best material Criterion was able to get. Google "nytimes hunting rules of the game" to see the report on Criterion's effort in tracking down the best material of the film. So does this Blu-ray look as good as the "Casablanca" blu-ray, the "Gone of the Wind" blu-ray, the "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" blu-ray? No, it doesn't. But as usual, Criterion maintains the integrity of the picture by retaining a lot of film grains on the transfer. Other studios may use digital noise reduction (DNR) to remove those film grains to not annoy modern viewers. But Criterion consistently retains film grains on its Blu-rays, thereby retaining a lot of picture details which may have been lost otherwise had DNR been used. Those who have seen a classic film in theaters would know that film grains are inherent to the pictures from those periods. These Criterion Blu-rays therefore give you as close to a theatrical experience as you can get. This Blu-ray also offers 2-3 times higher horizontal and vertical resolutions, 6 times higher video bit rate, and 6 times higher audio bit rate compared to its DVD counterpart, although these advantages benefit more to those with large screen HDTVs and good audio systems. So what about the revised supplement on the 2011 editions? On the 2004 edition, the filmmakers' tributes to the film is on the disc. But on the 2011 editions, they are put on the booklet. My review of the 2004 DVD is below. ** ORIGINAL REVIEW OF CRITERION 2004 DVD EDITION, JAN-24-2004 ** On the surface, THE RULES OF THE GAME is a frivolous satire of the French ruling class during the interwar years. But beneath it, this 1939 film is a rather sweeping appraisal on human nature and how the rigidity of our society continues to undermine our humanity. With a microcosmic cast of characters that comprises of masters and servants, the film weaves an intricate plot about their love, jealousies, deceit, infidelities, hypocrisies, misunderstandings, and, at times, reconciliations, and realignments of friends and foes. Through their travails, the film depicts a symbolic breakdown, and ultimately restoration, of the prevailing social order, resulting in the film being both a comedy and a tragedy. Director Jean Renoir also acts in the film, playing the pivotal role of an outsider (obviously a stand-in for the audience). His character's futile attempts to break into the "circle" and to bring about the well-beings of his friends suggest that it is often difficult to survive under the social order, let alone change it. The Criterion DVD is an all-region two-disc set with a newly restored video transfer and plenty of rewarding extra material. This eagerly-awaited disc was originally to be released last Fall, when Criterion had already finished a video transfer that would have looked better than any existing copy of the film. But at the last minute, Criterion received word that an earlier-generation fine-grain master of the film had been located in France, and that additional improvement, though not dramatic, could be made to the picture quality. Being the perfectionist that it often is, Criterion decided to redo the video transfer based on the fine-grain master, thus delaying the DVD's release by several months. According to the New York Times article "Hunting 'The Rules of the Game'" on Jan-18-04, the redone transfer justified the additional time and cost by yielding more details in dark areas and richer shades of grey on the picture, resulting in a less harsh look and perhaps subliminally making the characters in the film seem more sympathetic. The DVD's video quality is indeed the best I've ever seen. Its sharpness and clarity of details are a revelation to those who have seen, for instance, Criterion's laserdisc version years ago. A digital cleanup process has been used to eliminate much (but not all) of the dirt and blemishes. The original French audio track has also been improved, and it now sounds cleaner, with almost no hiss and pops, and more detailed. In a film that relies on its numerous visual and audio details to be effective, the technical improvements made for this DVD are absolutely worthwhile and welcomed. Accompanying the film is a superb analytical audio commentary written by film historian and Renoir's friend Alexander... Read more 55 of 60 people found the following review helpful The exquisite decline and fall of Old World Europe..., By The Sentinel (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews This review is from: The Rules of the Game [VHS] (VHS Tape) Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME takes place on the eve of World War II at an aristocratic house party in an opulent chateau just outside of Paris where the overlapping `affaires d'amour' of all social classes are observed with a keen and compassionate eye. Renoir looks to the eighteenth-century world of Commedia dell'Arte and Mozartian opera, and seamlessly integrates farce with tragedy, using a classical form to offer his audience a profound and multifaceted parable on the disturbing realities that underlie the veneer of contemporary French society. It is the middle-class aviator, André Jurieu (Roland Toutain), who embodies the film's central conflict between the private passions and a sense of obligation to a larger social body. Right at the outset of the film, he violates the unwritten "rules" of social propriety by declaring to a radio reporter his disappointment that the woman he had been courting, Christine de la Chesnaye (Nora Grégor), is not present at his reception after completing a record-breaking flight across the Atlantic. His skill with the advanced technology of aircraft is not matched by an ability to deal with people, particularly in matters of love. Indeed, André's careless and unmediated show of desire for a highborn lady not only transgresses the received law of proper social conduct but of traditional class distinctions as well. Other characters also entertain desires that come into conflict with the social order. The Marquis, Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio), is having a fling with Geneviève de Marrast (Mila Parély) behind Christine's back, and Geneviève is sincerely attached to him and wants for them to go away together yet he maintains the proper outward appearance, and out of politeness and consideration for his wife's feelings, keeps up the charade that their affair is a secret in spite of the fact that "everybody knows." Christine observes her husband's liaison with strange amusement, commenting that they look "very interesting" together - for her adultery is a form of entertaining spectacle. But even Robert loses his cool at one point when he discovers Christine and André together in the gunroom and punches the aviator in the face. Strangely enough, it is only the classless Pandarus-figure, Octave, who can get through to the serenely unattainable Christine because he seems to have no particular desires of his own; he only concerns himself with regulating the desires of others. Octave confesses that, like Marcello Mastrioanni in Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA, he is "a failure" who merely pleases his friends so that he may live off their wealth like "a parasite." Apparently, Christine loves him for his understanding that everything in life, every social relationship, is really a lie of some sort, and that all desire and romantic fantasy is, at bottom, a blind form of narcissistic self-deception. It seems that the two of them have come to understand the law that underpins desire - "La Règle de Jeu" - all too well. As Pauline Kael has pointed out, Renoir may have conceived Robert de la Chesnaye as a composite of two different characters in GRAND ILLUSION: Marcel Dalio's rich young mercantile Jew, Rosenthal, and the generous, self-sacrificing French nobleman, De Boeldieu, played by Pierre Fresnay. Here, the director appears to equate the waning aristocracy of Old World Europe with the imminent fate of the European Jewish community in the wake of rising nationalism, militarism, and xenophobia. When a chef makes an anti-Semitic slight against the Robert, revealing the bigotry of the French working classes, it evokes the controversy surrounding the Dreyfus Affair. By the same token, the General's final comment that Robert is one of a "dying breed" not only heralds the decay of aristocratic privilege but, from the vantage point of hindsight, also seems a chilling spectre of Nazi racialist ideology and the Final Solution. Christine's Austrian origin alludes to the looming war with Germany and seems a prediction of France's collaboration under the Vichy régime. Likewise, the reference to Schumacher's home of Alsace-Lorraine, the highly contested land ceded to the Germans at the end of the Franco-Prussian war in 1871 and then returned to France with the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, highlights an old geopolitical conflict between the two countries. The indiscriminate destruction of life in the rabbit and pheasant hunt sequence forecasts the waste and destruction of the war to come. Renoir's approach to mise-en-scène is especially groundbreaking. He employs seamless cutting as well as long continuous takes and tracking shots which follow the characters as they move from one space to the next in a manner that anticipates the graceful circling, panning, sensuously kinetic camera of Welles, Ophüls, Godard, Resnais, Bertolucci and others. He uses deep-focus compositions, avoiding... Read more 18 of 19 people found the following review helpful Renoir's Masterpiece, By This review is from: The Rules of the Game (The Criterion Collection) (DVD) No history of cinema would be complete without "The Rules of the Game" (1939). Director Jean Renoir's brilliant, perceptive study of a dying French aristocracy remains among the finest examples of visual poetry captured on film - as evidenced in the savage "rabbit hunt" and the haunting final shot. Along with "Grand Illusion" (1937), "The Rules of the Game" represents the high-water mark of Renoir's career. It's as close to perfection as a film can get. |
The Rules of the Game (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
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