Double Feature
The Rules of the Game
Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. (Janus Films)
- Director
- Jean Renoir
- Starring
- Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Jean Renoir
- Year
- 1939
- Country
- France
- Format
- English subtitled 35mm
- Running Time
- 106 minutes
The Earrings of Madame de…
The most cherished work from French master Max Ophuls, The Earrings of Madame de . . . is a profoundly emotional, cinematographically adventurous tale of deceptive opulence and tragic romance. When an aristocratic woman known only as Madame de . . . (Danielle Darrieux) sells a pair of earrings given to her by her husband (Charles Boyer) in order to pay some debts, she sets off a chain reaction of financial and carnal consequences that can end only in despair. Ophuls’s adaptation of Louise de Vilmorin’s incisive fin de siècle novel employs to ravishing effect the elegant and precise camera work for which the director is so justly renowned. (Janus Films)
- Director
- Max Ophüls
- Starring
- Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux, Vittorio De Sica, Jean Debucourt, Jean Galland
- Year
- 1953
- Country
- France/Italy
- Format
- English subtitled 35mm
- Running Time
- 100 minutes