Alexander Austein

The Double: The role of duplicity in Renoirs La Rgle du jeu

Very little of La Rgle du jeu is meant to be taken at face value. Its sprawling,
ensemble cast is composed of characters in varying social and economic positions, some
being rich proprietors of an estate, with others finding themselves in subservient roles. As
such, Jean Renoirs film functions as a microcosm of 1939 France, prescient in the effect
Hitler and World War II would have on the countrys societal dynamics, and also aware
of the circumstances that enabled it to happen. The focal point of his commentary is
ultimately the deceitfulness presented in practically every interaction. In La Rgle du jeu,
duplicity functions as a universally shared character attribute, such that Renoirs
assertions regarding the downfall of France in World War II could be appropriately
framed in the context of class divides, extramarital trysts, and bald-faced lying.
In analyzing La Rgle du jeu, attempting to identify an earnest person amidst its
mix of schemers and players becomes a struggle. As its title states, the world these people
inhabit is one in which straightforward emotion is frowned upon, shunned, and
considered out of turn. To constantly be manipulating, redirecting, and challenging ones
relations is what is expected of each individual so that they can maintain their status in
society. The ultimate failure is being easy to read or against the common order, and so the
duplicity of the films characters and of the era serves to suggest that everyone, regardless
of economic class or occupation deemed being complex and multi-faceted as necessities
for survival. Posh and pompous, the rules of the game engendered a society contingent
on falsehoods and disingenuousness rather than the fundamental aspects of a functional
society. It can be argued that its because of the bourgeois class in the manner they are

shown here that Hitlers domination was enabled. With the upper classes obsessed with
cheating and deception, doom was spelled out for a French society hinged on selfinterest.
And so, it doesnt come as that much of a surprise that the French government so
quickly fell under Nazi occupation. The Vichy regime imposed rigorous limitations onto
the populace, including greatly enhanced censorship of the arts and prominent antiSemitism. Renoirs film seems to foreshadow several facets of society under Vichy: the
lack of fanfare over Andr Jurieus death equating to a lack of regard for human life in
general; Roberts obsession with his purchases comparable to the new sense of sweeping
materialism; each of the affairs identifying a dislocation of both the personal and private
selves. In the opening scene, wherein Andr lands his plane only to be swarmed by
reporters to whom he brashly decries Christines absence, we see him breaking the
rules of the game. In this first appearance of Roland Toutains character, he is shown
acting without the shield of duplicity in a state of pure vulnerability: its a proverbial
crossing of the line that the will of the film forces him to pay for.
Renoir also expresses the hypocrisy of his characters by providing members of the
bourgeois class with a servant mirror. Over the course of the film, Christines maid,
Lisette, adopts the erratic, contrived sensibilities of her boss. The convoluted system of
relations that Christine maintains comes off as glamorous to Lisette, who is stirred to
diversify her own love life. Though married to Schumacher, she begins alternately seeing
Marceau and Octave, while Christines engagements with Andr Jurieu and Octave make
her own loveless marriage to Robert more complicated. The point we are meant to infer
isnt that these people are endlessly discontent with normalcy, but that they care little for

appropriate moral conduct, and spend their time scheming against each other for the sake
of it.
Robert de la Chesnaye is interesting in that he doesnt have as clearly delineated
of a mirror as Christine does. Aspects of his personality recur in a few other characters,
each of whom he presents a falsely friendly and accommodating countenance towards.
Schumacher, his sincere gamekeeper, is massively emotional as an amplification of the
same sort of emotions Robert feels, though refuses to express. Further, Marceau receives
Roberts sympathies in a developed camaraderie, being that Chesnaye likes his face
and deems him to be of good character. Yet, Andr Jurieu and Octave are outliers in the
scheme. Whilst Andrs concerns are petty and often unadorned, he does not slot into the
same category of duplicity and manipulation that the other major players do. Octave
similarly occupies his own plain as a presumably neutral figure to all other characters, but
in actuality is the most forcefully influential person of the bunch. His close connections
to everyone else, regardless of their social status grant him a unique position with
authoritative overtones. Octave, played by the Renoir himself, gives off the impression of
having the largest grasp of control. The fluid camerawork often darts across rooms and
tensely frames conversations so that they feel constantly in motion: many of which
feature Octave, ecstatically bouncing from one corner to the next, progressing his plots.
Remarkably, despite having a finger in every pie, he rarely comes off as negatively as
the other players in the cast. It is clear that his inherent charisma garnered him his social
spot, and though his overarching intentions and feelings are just as puzzling to parse out
as for anyone else, the manner in which he conducts his affairs is unusually jovial in the
context of La Rgle du jeu.

It is entirely within coordination of the Chesnaye societys hypocrisy that the hunt
scene occurs the way it does. Fattened up rabbits race out of their holes to the sound of
sticks tapping against branches, the camera recording them hurriedly escaping in
response to the sound. The hunters, or rather, the unskilled bourgeois fearfully
equipped with rifles, easily execute the manipulated animals for entertainment and a false
sense of achievement. Satisfied as if they had accomplished a genuine feat, the bourgeois
gallivant ceremoniously over moralistic grounds, evoking Renoirs comment, being
absolutely certain that war was inevitable, this feeling pervaded my work in spite of
myself (Rivette and Truffaut, p.6). The hunt is a particularly violent passage of a film
that tries its hardest to stay within the clean-cut lines of its characters obligations; it
manages to markedly shift the tone from merely disingenuous to ominously duplicitous.
La Rgle du jeu serves most effectively as an examination of a toxic class of
people that were frivolously, unsentimentally existing prior to the decimation of World
War II. Jean Renoir efficiently uses the affect of duplicity as a means to characterize both
the figures on-screen and the larger social landscape of the time. As an attribute, duplicity
ranges from being just barely palpable to broadly suffocating. A persistent moral
depravity reverberates throughout the film, conquering earnest emotional urges in favor
of sterile, dispassionate and synchronized order. The most significant realization of
Renoirs La Rgle du jeu is that the lying, disingenuous behavior the Chesnaye society
engages in serves to represent both the shallowness of a small group of players, while at
the same time condemning the prevalence of the equivalent attitudes and behaviors in the
French bourgeois of the era.