The Rules of the Game (1939): why it’s timeless

It’s difficult to find this movie on the Internet. Outside of true film fans, few people are familiar with this film nowadays. Copies on the Internet are scarce and difficult-to-find, as well. To many great directors, however, it is THE BEST film of all time.

I myself had to watch the film twice before I realized why it’s such a great film. The first time I watched it was with a person I like, and I was overwhelmed with the film. What did the film’s title mean? Where is the game in all of this? It didn’t help me that Jean Renoir brilliantly utilized the mise-en-scene: action happens both in the foreground and in the background, and for the viewer to actually understand the film more, one has to be hyperfocused on it. (I did that my second viewing while dissecting the film with my father, taking notes while watching the film.)

The Rules of the Game was released on 1939, during the eve of the Second World War. It was remarkably prescient, because it showed the dissolution of the upper classes and their insensitivity to their looming destruction. By 1940, Germany would install a puppet state in France and called it Vichy France.

Further, the idea of social interaction as a series of games would be later developed by a psychologist, Eric Berne. He would call this psychological theory transactional analysis, and explains why it is so much easier (as can be seen in the film) to play games rather than to pursue intimacy. The ritualistic nature of social games tempers the emotional pain felt by its players because of its repetitive nature. True intimacy, on the other hand, necessitates vulnerability and could cause pain that will be much greater and sharper than the predictable pain of social games. Immature people often comfort themselves with the familiar.

The game that is being pertained to in the film’s title is that adultery is all right, as long as it is being done discreetly. By the end of the film, the people who refuse to play the game are the outsiders, and are the biggest losers. Schumacher becomes a murderer, and Andre Jurieux dies.

Before Parasite grabbed most of the awards in the film circuit last year, it swept people off their feet with its symbolic commentary on social inequality. However, most people are also unfamiliar with this piercing masterpiece on social hypocrisy. People within the film would rather follow the rules of the game rather than rules of propriety or decency. Renoir suggests by the end of the film that France was leading itself to its destruction by being short-sighted, paying more attention to what high society dictated rather than what was happening around them.

This was shown by how the people working for the rich transmogrified their sentiments and applied it to their own situation. Lisette refracts Christine; Schumacher refracts La Chesnaye; and Marceau refracts Andre. Octave is the one who is a friend to all and yet, by the end of the film, willingly betrays Andre when Christine confesses her love for him.

Many critics have commented on the hunting scene which, to me, was the film’s linchpin towards presenting the rich’s excesses. While the rest of the country and the world was progressing towards war, the rich on the countryside had time to kill pheasants and rabbits — and one cat. People, even during the entertainments, when Schumacher was out for Marceau’s blood and Christine had decided to play the game as well, distanced themselves from being affected by reality. Upon the film’s close the General comments on La Chesnaye’s class, but the tragedy had already happened: Jurieux died, and Schumacher killed him. Those who refuse to play the game by its rules suffer heavily by the end of the film: Jurieux died because he was unwilling to compromise his propriety and his love for Christine; Schumacher became a pariah because he believed in loyalty and uxoriousness.

The one who understood the game the most was the Count himself, even though he was a Jew. In fact, in spite of dealing with personal tragedies such as the loss of his wife’s trust, and the loss of his faith in Octave, he manages the occurrences within the mansion to minimize damage to anyone else. Though he dismissed Schumacher, he provides him a rich severance pay; though he parts with Marceau, he is kindly to him. Even in the end, he tries to protect everyone by painting the murder as an accident. He manages to be the master of pretending that everything is all right even when everything has actually fallen apart: perhaps that is why he is so attracted to mechanical toys — at least these are predictable.