Retro Reel: The Rules of the Game
Posted on Jan 15, 2008
By Julia Szabo
(Criterion Collection, 1939, 106 minutes) - add this title to your Netflix queue
"The more I see of men, the more I like dogs." That line has been attributed to Madame de Stael as well as Peter the Great, and a viewing of this film will remind you why it will always ring true no matter who said it. Jean Renoir's breezily comic indictment of French society's cruelly cavalier upper crust so offended audiences when it was first released that the director was obliged to re-cut the film to make it less biting. Then the original print was destroyed during World War II.
Happily, this DVD assembles every available inch of restored film for the closest possible approximation of a director's cut; Criterion even adds a prologue by Renoir describing the outrage that dogged his film, now regarded as one of the greatest of all time. Lying, cheating, and back-stabbing are all par for the course as a cross-section of socialites spends a spell in the country at the estate of the Marquis de La Chesnaye.
"Sincere people are such a bore," yawns the Marquis' wife, a transplanted Austrian named Christine whose pastime is breaking hearts. In a case of upstairs/downstairs parallel infidelities, Christine's lady-in-waiting is two-timing her own husband, the groundskeeper Schumacher, with one of the guests AND one of the domestics (interestingly, her name is Lisette, also the name of one of Peter the Great's beloved dogs).
It's a great relief to catch a few brief glimpses of dogs, enduring symbols of loyalty in this milieu where humans have none. Schumacher goes about his duties in the field accompanied by his trusty terrier mix, Musette, and a spaniel-setter cross who's not named. Meanwhile, during the hunt scene, a black lab eagerly retrieves downed game. (A caveat to rabbit lovers: animals were definitely harmed.)
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