1. The Rules of The Game-Jean Renoir

The first French film I chose to watch this quarter was, The Rules of The Game. I chose it for the simple reason that it is a French classic (made in 1939) and I felt slightly obligated. The one thing I have to credit the film for is not for its witty comedy of manners (which was used often during this period in French filmmaking in order to make fun of class distinctions/the bourgeoisie) or the character types (which are, to be honest, sort of archetypal) but rather, the amazing fluidity of the camera the entirety of the second half of the film. I couldn't help but feel that this is what made the film
really great. It sweeps and circles from room to room and face to face as we witness the complete breakdown--comical as it may be--of various marriages and affairs that are being revealed to us at the party.
             It's not worth boring anyone with details of the film, or me trying to think of something profound to say after one viewing (because it usually takes three views to be able to pull much from it) but I will say that one scene I found interesting was the hunting scene. The guests all set out onto M. La Chesnaye's land to hunt rabbits and pheasants and we see probably about 3-5 minutes of rabbits and pheasants actually being shot and killed. I could hardly stand watching it; however, because I found it so hard to watch these poor little animals being shot it made me wonder, "why am I being shown this?". At the end (or maybe it was at the beginning) of the scene, one of the men asks a woman ( I think Madame La Chesnaye) if she enjoys hunting and she responds with something to the likes of "it's alright..". We get a sense that she is just doing it because people of her rank do it. Shot after shot of pointless and anticlimactic killing of rabbits and we start to feel the same way--that it is boring, pointless, a formality--all of which are perhaps social criticisms coming from Renoir.
             The French writers and poets I studied in French literature this fall all possessed a dislike for the bourgeoisie and the same can certainly be said for French filmmakers during this period (and following periods). I guess the only people that like the bourgeoisie are the bourgeoisie. A good film that I saw last year in class that reminds me of this sort of farcical display of class distinctions is Boudu Saved From Drowning (also by Renoir). Oh how I love it when filmmakers make sense. I read an interview of Renoir last year in which he stated something to the extent of, "Filmmakers really only have a desire to communicate one common theme and this same theme or idea takes different forms in different films--but still remains fundamentally the same.." or something like that. I'd have to agree with that, at least for he and his auteur contemporaries in France.