Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 128

overwhelming experience I have ever had at the cinema;’ and Louis Malle, who said ‘for all of us, my generation of French filmmakers, ‘La Règle du Jeu’ was the absolute masterpiece.’ François Truffaut articulated the film's enormous influence and said ‘it isn't an accident that ‘The Rules of the Game’ inspired a large number of young people who had first thought of expressing themselves as novelists to take up careers as filmmakers.’ He also said ‘It is the credo of movie lovers, the film of films, the film most hated when it was made and most appreciated afterwards, to the extent that it ultimately became a true commercial success.’

Satyajit Ray called it ‘a film that doesn't wear its innovations on its sleeve ... Humanist? Classical? Avant-Garde? Contemporary? I defy anyone to give it a label. This is the kind of innovation that appeals to me.’ Other notable filmmakers who have praised it include Bernardo Bertolucci, Wim Wenders, Peter Bogdanovich, Noah Baumbach, and Cameron Crowe. Henri Cartier-Bresson, who worked on the film before beginning a long career as a photojournalist, called it ‘one of the summits of art and a premonition of everything that was to happen in the world.’ Robert Altman said ‘’The Rules of the Game’ taught me the rules of the game.’