The Rules of the Game

The Rules of the Game

Monday, February 25, 7:00pm

Waterville Opera House

Tickets: $9 (students $5); available at www.miff.org or at the door

France 1939 – 35mm – 106 minutes
In French with English subtitles
Director: Jean Renoir
Cast: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost

“So simple and so labyrinthine, so innocent and so dangerous, that you can’t simply watch it, you have to absorb it. The movie takes the superficial form of a country house farce, at which wives and husbands, lovers and adulterers, masters and servants, sneak down hallways, pop up in each other’s bedrooms and pretend they are all proper representatives of a well-ordered society. Robert Altman, who once said “I learned the rules of the game from The Rules of the Game,” was not a million miles off from this plot with his Gosford Park–right down to the murder”—Roger Ebert. Made on the eve of World War II and with a real understanding on Renoir’s part of what was just about to come, The Rules of the Game has been at the top of everyone’s list of the greatest films ever made for 70 years now…but somehow is rarely seen, though it’s both delightful and profound.