Style
The Rules of the Game is noted for its use of deep focus so that events going on in the background are as important as those in the foreground. In a 1954 interview with Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut, reprinted in Jean Renoir: Interviews, Renoir said "Working on the script inspired me to make a break and perhaps get away from naturalism completely, to try to touch on a more classical, more poetic genre." He wrote and rewrote it several times, often abandoning his original intentions altogether upon interaction with the actors having witnessed reactions that he hadn't foreseen. As a director he sought to "get closer to the way in which characters can adapt to their theories in real life while being subjected to life’s many obstacles that keep us from being theoretical and from remaining theoretical".
The film's style has had an impact on numerous filmmakers. One example is Robert Altman, whose Gosford Park copies many of Rules of the Game's plot elements (a story of aristocrats in the country, aristocrats and their servants, murder) and pays homage with a direct reference to the infamous hunting scene, or "la chasse", in which no one moves but the help.
Read more about this topic: The Rules Of The Game
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“I would observe to you that what is called style in writing or speaking is formed very early in life while the imagination is warm, and impressions are permanent.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“To write well, to have style ... is to paint. The master faculty of style is therefore the visual memory. If a writer does not see what he describes—countrysides and figures, movements and gestures—how could he have a style, that is originality?”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)