Gosford Park / La Règle du jeu

Something hit me when they showed Jean Renoir's classic "La Règle du jeu" on tv the other night. (Yes, it's Cinedays all over Europe ).

Do you think Robert Altman had that film in mind when he did "Gosford Park"? The theme and setting is pretty similar, wouldn't you agree?

Maybe it's something everybody allready know as a fact, I haven't really read that many reviews on "Gosford" (which, by the way, is a brilliant film), or something that Altman himself openly has admitted, I don't know. What are your views on this? Can you see what I'm getting at?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Can't say I'm a fan of Gosford Park, but it is kind of obvious that Altman took Renoir's film into account when he was making his own. But when you think about it, any movie where a bunch of people have a hunting party is going to be compared to La Regle de Jeu, because it's so great and it set the standard.

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Yes, but that wasn't the only similarity. The upper class milieu and the short period of time during which both stories took place. The staff's dinner in the basement. The big gap between the staff and their masters. The indifference about the murder. A lot of stuff, not just the hunting.

I definitely think there are similarities. It most struck me when all the guests were arriving. And the indifference about the murder, very true. Or, in the case of La Regle de Jeu, also the indiffference about one of the servants running around the house brandishing a gun. Both good films, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least some deliberate homage going on in Gosford Park.

I'm not familar with Renoirs film, but as I recall about Gosford Park, you never see or listen in on the upper-class upstairs gentry unless one of the servants is present or listening in. In other word's it's all from the servants' point of view. Is there a similar element in La Regle du jeu?

Nope.

And the Renoir isn't a murder mystery.