Jean Renoir was devastated.
At the 1939 premiere of his masterwork, La Règle du jeu—known to us as the rules of the game movie—a man in the audience actually tried to set fire to the theater with a newspaper. People weren't just bored; they were offended. They hated it. It was too long, too cynical, and it felt like a personal attack on the French upper class.
Renoir, frantic and heartbroken, hacked the film from 113 minutes down to 85. It didn't help. The French government eventually banned it for being "demoralizing." Then, the Allied bombs falling on a laboratory near Paris during World War II destroyed the original negative.
For a decade, one of the most important pieces of art in human history was basically a ghost.
But here’s the thing about actual genius: you can’t really kill it. In 1956, two enthusiasts found hundreds of boxes of original film scraps. They pieced it back together like a giant, celluloid jigsaw puzzle. When the reconstructed version debuted, the world finally saw what Renoir had done. It wasn't just a movie about a weekend hunting party. It was a prophecy.
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What Actually Happens in the Rules of the Game Movie?
On the surface, it’s a comedy of manners. Or maybe a farce.
Robert de la Cheyniest is a wealthy aristocrat with a penchant for mechanical toys. He invites a group of friends to his sprawling country estate, La Colinière. Among the guests is André Jurieu, a heroic aviator who has just flown across the Atlantic but is miserable because the woman he loves—Robert's wife, Christine—didn't meet him at the airfield.
Chaos follows.
But it’s not just the "upstairs" crowd acting out. The "downstairs" servants are just as messy. While the nobles are playing at romance, the gamekeeper is chasing the poacher who is flirting with his wife. Everyone is breaking the rules, yet everyone is obsessed with maintaining the appearance of those same rules.
Renoir once famously said through his character Octave, "The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons." That single line is the heartbeat of the rules of the game movie. Nobody is a pure villain. Nobody is a pure hero. They’re just people trapped in a crumbling social structure, dancing on the edge of a volcano.
The Technical Brilliance Nobody Noticed in 1939
If you watch a modern movie today, you see "deep focus" all the time. You see characters in the foreground talking while something important happens way in the back of the room. We take that for granted.
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In 1939, that was witchcraft.
Renoir and his cinematographer, Jean Bachelet, used wide-angle lenses to keep the entire room in focus. This wasn't just a gimmick. It forced the audience to choose where to look. While a couple is whispering in the foreground, you might see a servant scurrying in the background or another guest eavesdropping through a doorway.
It makes the world feel alive. Real.
The camera moves constantly. It prowls through the hallways of the chateau like a ghost. This was years before Orson Welles would use similar techniques in Citizen Kane. Renoir was essentially inventing the language of modern cinema while the public was throwing popcorn at the screen.
The Infamous Rabbit Hunt
There is one sequence in the rules of the game movie that still turns stomachs today. It’s the hunting scene.
It is brutal. It is real.
Renoir didn't use staged effects. The actors actually shot rabbits and pheasants. For several minutes, the film becomes a documentary of slaughter. Why? Because the movie is a critique of a society that kills for sport. The way the aristocrats treat the animals is exactly how they treat each other’s feelings—with a detached, casual cruelty.
When a rabbit twitches in its death throes on screen, it mirrors the impending death of European peace. The film was shot just months before the Nazis marched into Poland. The "rules" these people lived by were about to be incinerated.
Why Does It Still Matter?
Honestly, the rules of the game movie is more relevant now than it was eighty years ago.
We live in a world of curated personas. We have "rules" for how we present ourselves on social media, how we argue in public, and how we navigate our own social hierarchies. We are still Robert, obsessed with our mechanical gadgets while our relationships crumble. We are still André, thinking that a grand gesture like flying across an ocean entitles us to someone’s love.
The movie captures that specific human weirdness where we care more about the etiquette of an affair than the morality of it.
Common Misconceptions About the Film
- It’s a Boring Black-and-White Classic: No. It’s actually funny. It’s a farce. People run through doors, hide in closets, and get into fistfights. It’s closer to a dark Seinfeld episode than a dry history lecture.
- It’s Only for Film Scholars: While film students obsess over it, the story is incredibly accessible. It’s a soap opera with better lighting.
- Renoir Was an Amateur Actor: Jean Renoir actually plays the character Octave. He’s the bumbling, bear-like friend who serves as the bridge between the two worlds. His performance is heartbreakingly sincere.
The Tragedy of the "Reasons"
When the film ends, there is a death. It’s an accident born of jealousy and mistaken identity.
But look at how the characters react. They don't stop the party. They don't call for a radical change in their lives. They retreat back into their "rules." They explain away the tragedy as a "deplorable accident" to save face.
The social mask stays on.
That is the true horror of the rules of the game movie. It’s not that people are evil; it’s that they are so committed to the performance of their lives that they lose their humanity in the process.
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How to Watch It Like an Expert
If you’re going to sit down with this film for the first time, don't look for a traditional plot.
- Watch the Background: Seriously. Don't just watch the person speaking. Look at what’s happening in the far corners of the frame.
- Listen to the Sound: Renoir used complex, overlapping dialogue. This was revolutionary at the time. It feels more like a real party where everyone is talking over each other.
- Note the Contrast: Look at how the servants mimic the behaviors of their masters. The "downstairs" drama is a mirror image of the "upstairs" drama, showing that these social follies aren't limited to the rich—they're a human virus.
- Find the Criterion Collection Version: Since the original negative was destroyed, the restoration process was a nightmare. The Criterion 4K restoration is the closest you will ever get to seeing what Renoir actually intended back in 1939.
The rules of the game movie didn't just survive a war, a fire, and a ban; it survived the test of time because it refuses to give easy answers. It doesn't tell you who to root for. It just shows you a group of people trying to be happy while following a set of rules that makes happiness impossible.
It’s a masterpiece that almost didn't exist. Now that it does, we’re lucky we get to watch it.
Next Steps for the Film Enthusiast
To truly appreciate the impact of the rules of the game movie, you should pair your viewing with a look at Jean Renoir's other major work, Grand Illusion (1937). While Rules of the Game examines the internal rot of society, Grand Illusion looks at the external forces of war and class that bridge national divides.
After watching, read the 1956 accounts of the film's restoration by Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand. Their work in piecing together the "lost" version of the film is a detective story in its own right and explains why the version we see today has such a unique, slightly fragmented energy. Finally, compare the deep focus shots here to the cinematography in Citizen Kane (1941) to see exactly how much Orson Welles owed to Renoir's earlier experimentation.