The Rules of the Game on DVD |
If there's any film that makes this film
buff's heart race as fast as Citizen Kane does, it is Jean Renoir's The Rules of
the Game (La Règle de jeu). Renoir's 1939 masterpiece is a devastating comedy
of manners set in the French countryside in the late 1930s. It juxtaposes the lives of
five aristocrats and three servants -- the lives below the stairs mirror those above --
and with only eight significant characters, there are three romantic triangles. But the
film isn't simply a Feydeau farce full of slamming doors and roaming lovers. It's a finely
nuanced dissection of class, morals, and politics that signals the death of the old order
and foreshadows the darkness of Europe's horizon.
Renoir acts in the film -- and superbly -- but it's his
artistic conviction that old Europe (France, specifically) is diseased to its core that
burns so indelibly in Rules. The rich are depraved, and they corrupt those who ape
them. Society is filled with fear and hate -- unless, of course, one has money and
prestige. Even then, God help the man who crosses the line.
Like Citizen Kane, Rules was technologically
revolutionary. It was lavishly filmed, with deep focus and high contrast. Instead of using
short takes from fixed angles, Renoir used the camera almost as another character who
moves about freely, even staring at times -- before Rules, no one had seen this
kind of point-of-view cinematography. The cast is masterful, the sets lavish -- and Renoir
brilliantly explores the narrative possibilities of his characters' interlocking stories.
Yet much of this brilliance is completely revealed only
now, thanks to Criterion's spectacular new edition of the film. Every print of Rules
I've ever seen was faded, pulsing, difficult to watch, although the acting and direction
were always compelling enough to shine through. And because the negative was destroyed in
World War II, it seemed as if a pale reflection of the film's glory was the best we could
hope for. Even a complete restoration (with added footage approved by the director) in
1959 only added to the distorted image -- on disc 2 of Criterion's set, film historian
Chris Faulkner argues that the "restored" version is actually a different film
from the 1939 original.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Criterion has restored Rules
so well that we can now see just how beautiful a visual masterpiece it is. For that alone,
the set is worth the price. Even more than that, it has given us a model of how a film
experience can be profoundly deepened by the extra features included in a truly
"special" edition. One of those features is Faulkner's side-by-side comparison
of the two versions of the film. Others include: a video introduction by Jean Renoir,
filmed for French TV; a BBC documentary on Renoir; a full-length audio commentary by
Alexander Sesonske; script and scene analyses; reconstruction interviews; and an interview
with Alain Renoir, who served as cameraman for his father. There's also a 24-page booklet.
All meat, no filler.
A/V purists need to be aware that Rules is 65 years
old. Its mono soundtrack is about as good as we can expect, but it hisses and screeches.
And as good as the reconstruction is, it’s not without blemish -- it's simply better
than I had ever hoped to see this masterpiece.
However, as Mark Twain once observed, "We must not be
too picky -- it is better to have old diamonds than to have no diamonds at all." The
Rules of the Game is one of film's crown jewels.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
