Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 127

‘a great satirical comedy, a dance of death’ and Gerald Mast wrote ‘It depicts the failure of love, the failure of society, and the failure of men to rise above the ridiculous. Their only success is that they try and they care.’ David Thomson praised Renoir's performance and remarked on ‘Renoir's admission that the director, supposedly the authoritative and manipulating figure, is as much victim as originator of circumstances.’ Amy Taubin said ‘I can think of no other film that is as unfailingly generous; to its audience, its characters, its actors, the milieu and the medium.’ J. Hoberman wrote about its influence on Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Mike Leigh.

The film especially was appreciated by filmmakers and film critics associated with the French New Wave movement. Bazin said ‘as a conventional love story, the film could have been a success if the scenario had respected the rules of the movie game. But Renoir wanted to make his own style of drame gai, merry drama, and the mixture of genres proved disconcerting to the public.’ Film critic Claude Beylie called it ‘the cornerstone of the work of Jean Renoir, the point of arrival and the swan song of the French cinema of the thirties ... ‘The Rules of the Game’ is a rare combination of satire, vaudeville and tragedy.’ It was a major source of inspiration for Alain Resnais, who said seeing the film was ‘the single most