REPUTATION![]() Jean Renoir’s 1939 The Rules of the Game spent decades just behind Citizen Kane as the Greatest Film of All-Time in the BFI Sight and Sound Critics’ Poll. This list, conducted every ten years, still remains the film poll in an era of endless film polls and lists. In fact, a quick Google of “buzzfeed film list” returned such pandemonium inciting results as 47 INCREDIBLE MOVIES YOU NEED TO WATCH IF YOU WANT TO BE A FILM BUFF and more shrug inciting results like Here Are 99 of the Most Popular Movies of All Time. I first found Sight and Sound’s list after the 2002 poll was published and waited nearly fifteen years to see the critical consensus greatest French film ever made. I have priorities and they’ve made twelve Friday the 13th movies in need of critical analysis. Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo took over the number 2 spot in 2002 ending Renoir’s film’s 30 year reign as the second greatest film of all-time; and in 2012 Vertigo ended Kane’s 50 year streak as the greatest film of all-time, a move that saw Game slipping to the number 4 spot albeit still the top French film on the list. The 2012 poll saw a greater swath of critics included to include a more diverse range of opinions included and Rules of the Game held its own. Knowing the film’s reputation, I wanted to pair a wine of similar stature with my viewing. If a Sight and Sound poll equivalent of the Greatest Wines of All-Time exists, I’m not aware of it, but a Google search turns up plenty of results, with all the wines hard to come into possession of and out of my price range. But Karen MacNeil in her trusty The Wine Bible states: Bordeaux – the word alone fires the mind with the anticipation of greatness. No other wine region is more powerful, more commercially successful, or more important as a source of profoundly complex, ageworthy wines. So Bordeuax it would be. EXPECTATION My eyes and mouth had expectations that were high but tempered. The film was one I anticipated to appreciate stylistically and structurally, but largely deal in a realm of 1930’s European Bourgeois vs. Proletariat Culture that ultimately came up short of my life experiences or historical knowledge to properly appreciate. And with Bordeaux, I had no experience drinking wines from the region and picked an $18 bottle (cheap for Bordeaux) as my palette was likely not refined enough yet to taste the extra $20, $40, $60 and beyond you can spend at my local wine buying haunt (and $1,000+ at shops that specialize in that kind of clientele). I expected to like what I was drinking, but not properly appreciate "the nuances that fire the mind," as MacNeil says. I knew going into Game that it was produced and released on the cusp of the Nazi invasion of Poland and is often categorized as “a comedy of manners;” a genre type that feels it should only be discussed in the company of monocles and top hats. I expected high society living in bliss oblivious to the world beginning to burn down around them. I took a recommendation on wine and got a Bordeaux Superior L’Ecuyer de Couronneau 2015. When I got home, I knew from the wine label that the chateau is in Ligeux (and from Google Maps that that is north of the Dordogne, one of the three rivers that make up the region) and that the wine, curiously, is 100% Merlot grapes. Being a film buff (I saw 35 of those 47 movies, buzzfeed) and a wine novice, my mind immediately went to Paul Giamatti in Sideways. So I was slightly nervous I picked the worst possible Bordeaux, but I also knew that many wine enthusiasts take umbrage with Sideways disparaging remarks. The Wine Bible informed me that it is the most widely grown grape in Bordeaux and most likely you’re enjoying a Merlot with Bordeaux although likely in a blend. So here we go. EXPERIENCE Wow, not unlike Citizen Kane which it trailed for so long, The Rules of The Game feels very modern and is so delightful to watch. Renoir is certainly exploring identity and how varying degrees of wealth and status inform his characters perceptions of themselves and their realities, but it never entered the realm I feared of the rich going to task with the poor for laughs I didn’t get or drama I didn’t feel. It’s a much more richly nuanced portrait while invoking a much more farcical plot that unfolds with lots of melodramatic fun and charm (which is to say, a comedy of manners) as the group of characters retreats to a chateau in the country side. I can’t say after one viewing that it takes the spot of my favorite French film, but it's certainly easy to see the hype. And, even if I’m drinking swill by Bordeaux standards, I get the hype here too. The wine tasted more complex than others I’ve had, which is my way of saying that there was a bevy of flavors from sip to sip that all blended well. The wife and I both dug it and are looking forward to more Bordeaux’s. OPINION I’m not ready to rank either as the greatest film or wine I’ve seen/tasted out of France, but I’d highly recommend both. It’s easy to see why The Rules of the Game carries its reputation as it’s breathlessly entertaining and technically an ahead of its time production (popular lore has it that Orson Welles took inspiration from the deep focus cinematography and screened the film 100 times while preparing Citizen Kane). More interesting, the acclaimed version we know today was previously cut by the director himself after a lackluster premiere (popular lore has it one attendee tried to burn the theater down out of hatred for the film) and the original final cut released was condemned by the French Government for producing low morale. The version we know today wasn’t reconstructed until the 1950’s. Renoir’s previous film The Grand Illusion was declared Cinematic Public Enemy No.1 by Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi Propaganda Machine and after German Occupation of France took to burning as many prints as possible of his Renoir’s films. Needless to say, authority frowned upon the director’s humanist approach to filmmaking. Renoir, a veteran of the first World War, seems all too aware that Europe is on the heels of another catastrophic war. In the research I did, I could not find concrete information on whether Renoir was responding a to a global feeling of another war approaching or if he was a prescient artist as to mankind’s foibles (as the film left me with an impression of being). There are holes to poke, but largely Renoir believes people to be good and capable of rising above the labels we bestow upon ourselves to draw rank in human life. I look forward to further exploring his filmography.
As I do to drinking more Bordeaux. If you’re in the market to buy some thousand dollar bottles of wine, please invite me over! Otherwise, with some research I look forward to trying some more moderately priced wines from the region. With great reputations, come great hurdles, and this particular evening saw both clear with a clean stride.
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AuthorGreg Black writes about movies. Archives
March 2024
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