LA REGLE DU JEU [BLU-RAY]

Huge-spirited and sharp-eyed, Renoir’s French-society fresco gathers high classes and low for a weekend of country-house fallout

On the surface, Jean Renoir’s brilliant satire is a series of interlinked romantic intrigues that take place during a weekend shooting party in a country château. But the film is, in fact, a study of the corruption and decay at the top of French society on the eve of the Second World War.

Denigrated by the public, vilified by the critics, re-cut at the insistence of its producers and ultimately banned by the French government as demoralising and unpatriotic, La Règle du jeu is today widely recognised as one of the greatest films ever made.

‘To be scathing and humanist and gentle at the same time, and tell your tale effortlessly – that’s Renoir’s genius. One of the world’s great filmmakers, and this is his greatest achievement’

Eddie Muller

Voted the 13^th greatest film ever made in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll

• Restored in 4K in 2021 by La Cinémathèque française and Les Grands Films Classiques and presented on Blu-ray
• Newly commissioned commentary by film writers David Jenkins and Trevor Johnston
• Image par image: La Règle du jeu (1987, 42 mins): Jean Douchet and Pierre Oscar Lévy provide a detailed analysis of La Règle du jeu
• Leslie Caron on La Règle du jeu (2016, 18 mins): the actor introduces Renoir’s classic as part of the Screen Epiphanies series at BFI Southbank
• La Vie est à nous (1936, 64 mins): French Communist Party election film depicting political turmoil and the threat of fascism, with creative input from Jean Renoir and Henri Cartier-Bresson, among others
• Pheasant Shooting (1913, 1 min): newsreel item on the start of the shooting season in a Norfolk game reserve
• Society on the Moors (1921, 1 min): newsreel footage of Lord and Lady Savile’s shooting party on the Yorkshire Moors near Hebden Bridge
• Stills gallery
• Newly commissioned sleeve art by Jennifer Dionisio