Can anyone who owns the Criterion of this film please tell me what the length of the film is? I've just seen the BFI dvd and it's 110 minutes. But I've heard the Criterion is only 106.
Anyone got the answer?
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Criterion has occasionally been off by a few minutes in labeling a film's running time. They say their DVD for Pygmalion is about 90 minutes long, but it's actually 96 minutes (a good thing, since that's the length of the original British version). So they might have underestimated the running time for The Rules of the Game as well.
shareI have this DVD and it is exactly 106 min.
Just a shot in the dark here but it might just be running at a different frame rate. I know sometimes films play at 24 FPS or 25 FPS and this time adds up over the length of a film.
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DVDBeaver has a comparison of the DVDs here:
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare6/rulesofthegame.htm
The BFI and the Criterion seem to be the same length when you account for the 4% PAL speedup on the BFI disc.
The 4% PAL speedup causes the running time of Reg.2 DVDs to be shorter than that of Reg.1 DVDs.
That website says the BFI DVD runs just for 101 minutes (shorter than 106), not 110 like the OP said.
The criterion disc is 106 minutes long. According to film critics and historians, this is the version that was originally released, minus 1 scene that was not important according to Renoir.
shareAccording to the Criterion disc's suplements:
Technically wrong MacAindrais, that 106 minute runtime is the length of the 1959 restoration (done by others with Renoir's blessing but not his direct involvement) which is 12 minutes longer than the original film at its preview which was 94 minutes (it was then cut down to 81 minutes for the rest of its 1939 release), but yes it does cut that one scene. Just watched the movie, commentary and versions comparisons on the Criterion disc late last night/early this morning.
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If you're watching 'Fullscreen' DVDs, you aren't getting the whole picture.
It is not the original but a very similar version missing one minor scene. It was reconstructed by the director himself from negatives and film that survived after the original was lost when the building it was stored in was bombed by the Allies during WWII.
share