Considered one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Gameis a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’s country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the audience at its 1939 premiere, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.
4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES
New 4K restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray of the film with special features
Introduction to the film by director Jean Renoir
Audio commentary written by film scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich
Comparison of the film’s two endings
Selected-scene analysis by Renoir historian Chris Faulkner
Excerpts from a 1966 French television program by filmmaker Jacques Rivette
Part one ofJean Renoir,a two-part 1993 documentary by film critic David Thompson
Video essay about the film’s production, release, and 1959 reconstruction
Interview with film critic Olivier Curchod
Interview from a 1965 episode of the French television seriesLes écrans de la villewith Jean Gaborit and Jacques Durand
Interviews with set designer Max Douy; Renoir’s son, Alain; and actor Mila Parély
PLUS: An essay by Sesonske; writings by Jean Renoir, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bertrand Tavernier, and François Truffaut; and tributes to the film by J. Hoberman, Kent Jones, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders, Robert Altman, and others
