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Film Club: The Rules of the Game and Altman

posted 17 years ago by thao
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Many have pointed out the resemblance with Altman's Gosford Park. I would say that The Rules of the Game is very influential in all of Altman's films (either directly or indirectly). But I think Gosford Park is far from being the film which most resembles The Rules of the Game. In fact it only resembles GP on the surface. The films which touch on the same core, have the same message and bite are rather Short Cuts and Nashville. Both are social commentaries on a rotten society which has lost its morals.

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[–] ras336 17 years ago

As Altman said "[Règle du jeu, La (1939)] taught me the rules of the game."

I agree and think you've made a strong comparison. The "Altman style" seems to be rather derivative of what Renoir was doing in The Rules of the Game. Both this film and Altman's movies contain overlapping dialogue, where several characters speak at once; characters we often see and hear in the background; and are characterized by their in emphasis showing the interrelationships between several characters with long running scenes that keep up a powerully charged pace.

[–] artihcus022 16 years ago

Altman is just one of many film-makers influenced by La Regle du Jeu. Truffaut noted that the film's only competitior was Citizen Kane in the number of film-making careers it launched.

Altman's style in films like Nashville or A Wedding however is more exuberant than Renoir's laidback restraint and natural ability to seize comedy in the most unnoticed places, whereas Altman tends to be more boisterous. Not that either is better than the other, just the differences.

And the difference between Altman's ensemble films and The Rules of the Game is that Renoir is very subtly subverting the story and the audience's perception. The film begins with Andre Jurieux the great aviator but as the film progresses Jurieux' occupies less importance than even Marceau the poacher and becomes irrelevant really by the end. The distance imposed by Renoir makes the viewer take a truly objective stance of the proceedings of what happen in the film, all that frivolity masking the emotional truth which the characters have to face. Altman also tries to make the audience objective viewers but his style is very exuberant and we do find ourselves emotionally and subjectively involved in that film. Not Rules of the Game.

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