The rule of the game
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The rule of the game |
| Original title | La règle du jeu |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1939 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jean Renoir |
| script |
Jean Renoir Carl Koch |
| production |
Camille François Raymond Pillon Claude Renoir |
| music | Joseph Kosma |
| camera |
Jean-Paul Alphen Jean Bachelet |
| cut |
Marthe Huguet Marguerite Renoir |
| occupation | |
| |
The rules of the game is a French film by Jean Renoir from 1939 . The film belongs to the style of poetic realism and portrays the life of the French upper class and their servants on the eve of the Second World War in a tragicomic way .
When it premiered in 1939, The Rules of the Game , the most expensive French film to date, was a failure and was attacked for its socially critical attitude. The film has now become widely recognized as an influential classic in world cinema. Since 1952 it has consistently been in the top ten of the poll for the best film of all time, which is carried out every ten years by the renowned film magazine Sight and Sound ; In the latest survey from 2012, Die Spielregel takes fourth place.
action
In the opening scene of the film, the pilot André Jurieux lands at Le Bourget airport near Paris . The press and onlookers are present as he broke several records during his sensational transatlantic flight. André, on the other hand, is deeply disappointed because Christine, who comes from Austria - the woman he flew for - is not waiting for him at the airport. In a radio interview, André expresses his anger at Christine with clear words, which Christine overhears on the radio in her Paris apartment. Christine has been married to the wealthy Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye for three years . Through the radio, many now learn of Christine's relationship with André, which, however, as she assures her husband, was purely platonic. Christine and Robert assure each other of their affection. But Robert also has a secret from his wife: the long-standing affair with Geneviève. Out of a guilty conscience and fear that his wife might get a divorce, Robert wants to end his relationship with Geneviève.
André is deeply saddened, but his friend Octave, who is also a close friend of Christine's, wants to give him a hand. Octave persuades Robert to invite the flight hero on a hunting weekend. This weekend is to take place with the high society outside Paris on the spacious estate of the de la Chesnaye family. There, the gamekeeper Schumacher is now preparing the planned hunt with a few assistants . One discovers the poor poacher Marceau who tries to catch some game from Roberts' estate himself with the help of some cleverly set traps. Schumacher captures Marceau and treats him harshly, but a generous Robert offers the poacher a job as a servant, which he gratefully accepts. After a short time in the house, Marceau flirts with Lisette, Christine's maid. Unfortunately, Lisette has been married to Schumacher for two years. Schumacher would like his wife Lisette to be with him all the time on the estate, but she is often with her mistress Christine in Paris. In addition to her marriage, pretty Lisette can also have a few affairs there.
During this weekend, a lively love affair develops, accompanied by a brutal hunt for the animals and an elaborate masked ball. André finally manages to get into conversation with his great love Christine. Since Christine has meanwhile observed her husband's affair with Geneviève, the disappointed woman wants to flee with André overnight. André hesitates, however, because there are social rules: Can he offer the lady Christine the standard of living that she is used to in the unsafe and dangerous job of a pilot? The hesitation, in turn, annoys Christine. Robert and André initially fight over Christine, but then reconcile. In contrast, the dispute over Lisette between her husband Schumacher and her admirer Marceau escalates. Schumacher chases Marceau through the house with a pistol and also threatens the fine guests. Robert dismisses both Schumacher and Marceau from his service because of the incident. Meanwhile, Christine and her childhood friend Octave seek distance from the hustle and bustle: Both go for a walk, confessing their love to each other and wanting to run away. The love scene between Octave and Christine in the garden house is observed by the dismissed servants Schumacher and Marceau. Since Christine is wearing the cloak of her servant Lisette, the two rivals think fatally that her beloved Lisette will meet a third admirer with Octave. The two want to shoot Octave.
Octave returns to the house to get his coat and hat. Lisette prevents Octave from going with Christine because of the "rules" - after all, he is just a failed artist and cannot offer her anything. So Octave sends the amorous André outside to Christine and gives him his coat. When André arrives at the summer house, Schumacher takes him for Octave because of the coat and shoots him. Andrés' death is reported to the society as an accident by the Marquis.
background
The film premiered in Paris on July 7, 1939 and was initially a failure. The famous photographer and adventurer Henri Cartier-Bresson was Renoir's assistant director and also took on a small role as castle servant. The legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel was responsible for the costume design .
subjects
The rules of the game were created in the spring of 1939, just a few months before the start of the Second World War . The film is seen today as a commentary on the moral callousness of the European upper class (and also the middle and lower classes, embodied by the servants) just before the war. Director Jean Renoir later said he saw the war coming, which is why The Rules of the Game is a war film, even if the war is not directly mentioned in the film. Renoir literally: “What is interesting about the film, maybe, is when it was made. It was shot between Munich and the war, and I made the film quite impressed, completely absorbed in the state of mind of part of the French population, part of the English population, and part of the world population. And one way to interpret this state of mind, hopefully for the whole world, seemed to me to be not to address the situation itself, but to tell a frivolous story. I looked for inspiration from Beaumarchais , from Marivaux , the classic comedy writers. "
Jean Renoir wanted to show people what they really were at that point in time. The film was a “reconstructed documentary”, “a documentary about the state of society at a certain point in time”. Renoir attributed the rejection of the film at the time to the fact that the audience could not stand his open portrayal of the grievances, and in 1974 concluded in his autobiography: "(...) the truth leads to unpleasant feelings for them". Shortly after the war began, but also after the end of the war, The Rules of the Game were banned in France. Renoir's biographer Roland Bergen writes that he struck a chord with the public through his realistic characters in the film, showing people “who might have influenced the course of events but did nothing to stop the advancing fascism; yes, some of them even greeted him. ”In a scene with the cook, for example, anti-Semitic tendencies are shown in French society.
The hunting scene is often compared to senseless killing in war. Renoir wanted to show a class of the population that kills for no reason. The hobby hunters who fire indiscriminately at animals serve as a parable of world political events. Renoir himself was an opponent of the hunt, calling it a "hideous display of cruelty". For this reason, shooting the hunting scenes was the hardest for him and he did not film the scenes himself.
One of the best-known sentences in the film comes from Octave, played by Renoir himself: "You see, there is a terrible thing in the world, namely that everyone has their reasons." Here Renoir makes his humanism clear and shows that he understands people and wants to feel with them, although at the same time he denounces their bad sides. There are no heroes in the film, each of the characters has certain weaknesses; but at the same time it is designed in such a way that no character is exclusively evil, but rather that everyone acts badly for certain reasons. Renoir wanted the film to have no villain roles - the film's only villain should be the eponymous company rules. By taking on the role of Octave, Renoir blended himself into the plot as well. The figure André, the social climber, is the victim: He tries to fit into a world in which he does not belong. He breaks the rules and therefore dies. André thought that he could break the rules with his heroic flight; Christine tried the same when she wanted to follow her heart. “The world is made up of cliques… Each of these cliques has its customs and traditions, even its own language. Simply put, the world is made up of rules and these rules determine the game. ”Renoir believed that human behavior is determined by social rules that are no longer as obvious as with Louis XIV , but secretly still strict.
Prohibition, Destruction and Rediscovery
In October 1939, shortly after the outbreak of war, the film was banned by French censors . The reason given was that the film was depressing, morbid, immoral and had a negative impact on young people.
In 1942, the film laboratory of the manufacturing company Gaumont in Boulogne-Billancourt was hit in an Allied air raid and the original film reels were destroyed. From 1946 onwards, the film was only available in a version shortened to 85 minutes. It was not until 1956 that records were found in the partially bombed Gaumont buildings, a total of 224 boxes with partially duplicate copies, remains of cuts and mixed sounds from the film. A restored version with a length of 106 minutes was created from these sections, which is also the version available today. The missing four minutes of the film are considered lost .
Awards
Jean Renoir received the 1966 Bodil Prize for the best European film for The Rules of the Game .
German dubbed version
The film premiered in Germany on March 5, 1968 with a broadcast on ARD . It was not shown in the cinema until November 24, 1972. The German dubbed version (script and direction) was created by Hermann Gressieker .
| role | actor | German Dubbing voice |
|---|---|---|
| Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye | Marcel Dalio | Herbert Stass |
| André Jurieux | Roland Toutain | Randolf Kronberg |
| Genevieve de Marras | Mila Parely | Renate Küster |
| Octave | Jean Renoir | Martin Hirthe |
| Edouard Schumacher | Gaston Modot | Claus Holm |
| general | Pierre Magnier | Paul Wagner |
| Monsieur de St. Aubin | Pierre Nay | Joachim Nottke |
| Kitchen assistant | Celestin | Ingo Osterloh |
| engineer | André Zwoboda | Hans Nitschke |
| Guest Berthelin | Tony Corteggiani | Walter Bluhm |
| guest | Roger Foster | Joachim Pukass |
Reviews
- “In Renoir's masterpiece, criticism of time and bitter skepticism are hidden under a comedic surface; the collapse of the sanctioned lie is staged as a sarcastic and cheerful dance, and the social "rules of the game" of that time turn out to be self-destructive conventions. The reaction of his compatriots showed that Renoir had precisely hit the mood in pre-war France. The film was rejected by the audience and banned by the censors as 'demoralizing' in October 1939. ” -“ Lexicon of International Films ”, 1997
- “With this series of films, which are above average in terms of both form and content, Renoir [...] created a masterpiece of narrative cinema.” (Rating: 4 stars = outstanding) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz in Lexicon “Films on TV” , 1990
- “The rule of the game is one of those rare works of the highest art, which on a certain level doesn't have to be art to be convincing: Considered as an entertaining comedy, it is a pleasure, as a social parable a critical, pessimistic masterpiece. The miracle is that it can and wants to function equally on both levels. ”- Janis El-Bira for moviemaze.de
- "I don't know of any other filmmaker who has put so much of himself - and the best of himself - into a film as Jean Renoir in La Regle du Jeu . " - François Truffaut
- “Director Jean Renoir staged this brilliant love drama about the trials and tribulations in 'fine' society. The Rule of the Game is arguably Renoir's most remarkable film. Filmed on the eve of World War II, this is an evil satire on the society of that time with all the lies and self-deception. Even today, he is next to The Night of the Hunter and Citizen Kane as one of the best films of all time. " - Prisma
- “It's a lot of little peaks and observations that breathe life into the film. The nobles, who are decadent, but somehow also amiable. The servants who are dominated but also domineering - and step down. Those on the dregs of society, on the other hand, are smart farmers, but also cowards. In all its turmoil between tradition and modernity, class society and revolutionary history, France is held up in a mirror. So the film is still worth seeing today, after three quarters of a century. Because he does not put his morals in the foreground, always has love for people in mind. Empathy and understanding instead of sarcasm and a raised index finger - these were the guidelines of the great humanistic director Jean Renoir. ” - Deutsche Welle , 2013
Others
There is a French magazine called La règle du jeu . It was founded in 1990 by Bernard-Henri Lévy (* 1948), today editor of the magazine.
literature
- Jean Renoir : La règle du jeu. Screenplay = The rules of the game (Original title: La règle du jeu ). German by Angela von Hagen. With a memory from Jean Renoir. Diogenes, Zurich 1981, 173 pp., ISBN 3-257-20434-5
- Jean Renoir : La règle du jeu = The rule of the game . Transcript from a collective led by Manfred Engelbert and Annette Stürmer. Media Library, Series A, Texts (Volume 4). Narr, Tübingen 1981, 233 pages, ISBN 3-87808-989-9
- Georg Hoefer: The hunt in the film. Detailed analyzes of the films "Lord of the Flies", "La caza", "La régle du jeu" and other articles on film and television, Volume 2. Coppi-Verlag, Coppengrave 1994, 164 pp., ISBN 3-930258-01- 3
Web links
- The rule of the game in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The rules at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sesonske, Alexander (1980). Jean Renoir: The French Films, 1924-1939. P. 383
- ↑ Sesonske, Alexander (1980). Jean Renoir: The French Films, 1924-1939. P. 383
- ^ Cardullo, Bert (2005). Jean Renoir: Interviews. ISBN 978-1-578-06730-5 , p. 106
- ↑ Renoir's autobiography, p. 174
- ^ Bergan, Ronald (1997). Jean Renoir, Projections of Paradise. ISBN 0-87951-537-6 .
- ↑ Renoir's autobiography, p. 170
- ↑ Renoir's autobiography, p. 170
- ↑ Quoted from: "250 Film Challenge: The Rules of the Game" , in: more stars than in the heavens (blog). April 11, 2013.
- ^ The Rules of the Game. The Criterion Collection (2004)
- ^ Drazin, Charles (2011). French Cinema. New York, New York: Farber and Farber, Inc. ISBN 978-0-571-21173-9
- ↑ Sesonske, Alexander (1980). Jean Renoir: The French Films, 1924-1939. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-47355-8 .
- ^ "Lexicon of International Films" (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
- ^ "Lexicon of International Films" (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997
- ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz in Lexicon "Films on TV" (extended new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 766
- ↑ moviemaze.de [1]
- ^ André Bazin: Jean Renoir. Translated by Udo Feldbusch. Fischer, Frankfurt 1980 & 1984, ISBN 3-596-23662-2 . (Foreword by JR; Filmography 1924 - 1969; Ed. & Introduction by François Truffaut) First Hanser, Munich 1977, ISBN 3446124306
- ↑ Critique of Prisma
- ↑ Critique of "The Rules of the Game" at Deutsche Welle
- ↑ http://laregledujeu.org