Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 98

Renoir's career in France was at its pinnacle in 1939 and ‘The Rules of the Game’ was eagerly anticipated. However, its premiere was met with scorn and disapproval by critics and audiences. Renoir reduced the film's running time from 113 minutes to 85, but even then, the film was a critical and financial disaster. In October 1939, it was banned by the wartime French government for ‘having an undesirable influence over the young.’

For many years, the 85 minute version was the only one available. Even so, its reputation slowly grew. However, in 1956, boxes of original material were discovered, and a reconstructed version of the film premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival, with only a minor scene from Renoir's first cut missing. Since then, ‘The Rules of the Game’ has been called one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Numerous film critics and directors have praised it highly, citing it as an inspiration for their own work. It is the only film to earn a place among the top ten films in the respected Sight and Sound, British Film Institute, decennial critics' poll for every decade from the poll's inception in 1952 through the 2012 list. In 2022 it fell to #13.

The cast included;