La Règle du jeu 1939

Jean Renoir

What pushed me to make The Rules of the Game was an ambition to treat a subject which would allow me to use the exterior forms of a French comedy of the eighteen century. I was also a little bit influenced by Musset, but my ambition was to find again a certain elegance, a certain grace, a certain rhythm which is typical of the eighteenth century, French or English. And that’s the way I made the picture. During it, as always, I discovered that my problem was my old problem: what would happen to a stranger who wants to belong to a milieu which is not his. And, of course, the problem of how the poacher is going to be admitted to the servant milieu. I discovered this only afterwards, but I thought that’s not bad, the picture will certainly please. I was sure the public would like it – it was a light picture, parties are not big problems, and the big problems were so well hidden that the audience wouldn’t be hurt in their feelings. Well, I was very wrong. Starting with the first show it was a kind of riot in the theatre. I even saw one gentleman who was trying to light a newspaper to set fire to the theatre and prevent them from showing such a piece of trash. And I came to the conclusion that the film was at least a very controversial one. That hurt me very deeply – I was so surprised. I didn’t shoot The Rules of the Game with the idea of being a revolutionary. It was a big surprise and a bad one.

Read more here and here.