Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 118

is only one scene missing in this re-construction, a scene that isn't very important. It's a scene with me and Roland Toutain that deals with the maids' sexual interest.’ The restored version premiered at the 1959 Venice Film Festival, where it was called a masterpiece. Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais and Louis Malle were all in attendance and publicly called Renoir their master while praising the reconstructed version of the film. In 1961 Howard Thompson of The New York Times stated the film ‘completely justified its European reputation ... it is a memorable experience.’ Archer Winsten of the New York Post praised the film for ‘showing the corruption of French society from top to bottom’ and a New York Herald Tribune review called it ‘a satire on French society ... a sharp criticism of social pretenses.’ The reconstructed version of the film was exhibited in France on April 23rd, 1965. It won the 1966 Bodil Award for Best Non-American Film/Best European Film in Denmark.

‘We are all 'mystified;' that is to say, fooled, duped, treated as of no account. I had the good fortune to have been taught to see through the trickery in my youth. In ‘La Règle du Jeu,’ I passed on what I knew to the public. But this is something that people do not like; the truth makes them feel uncomfortable.’ - Jean Renoir, from his autobiography.