AW: Renoir's "Rules" Japan Release?

[Roland Domenig]

It is quite obvious why Renoir's La regle du jeu wasn't released during wartime and as Roger mentioned it was not before 1959 that the film was "rediscovered" and lauded as masterpiece. The late release in Japan can be explained by the fact that from around the time the film resurfaced it became more and more difficult for foreign "art films" to be released in Japan because distributors concentrated on more lucrative popular films. The Art Theatre Guild was established in 1961 to counterbalance this development and Renoir's film was among the many films considered by the ATG programming committee for their lineup. But ATG itself came under financial pressure and concentrated on recent films and didn't release films from before 1950 with a few expectations such as Welles' Citizen Cane and Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (one must not forget the tailback of unreleased "recent" films in Japan).  When the Iwanami Hall (Equipe de cinema), which followed ATG as distributor and exhibitor of non-commercial "art films", finally released La regle du jeu in 1982 the film was already canonized as classical masterpiece.
The film was imported to Japan much earlier, however, and I remember to have seen the title in one of Towa's lineups (from the 1950s if IRCC). I can not rule out that there have been individual screenings of the film in Japan before its theatrical release in 1982.

Roland Domenig


________________________________________
Von: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu [owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu] im Auftrag von Roger Macy [macyroger at yahoo.co.uk]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. August 2008 00:07
An: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Betreff: Re: Renoir's "Rules" Japan Release?

If you haven't already, you might ask the Kawakita Foundation about their Press Sheet for ge-mu no kisoku
http://database.kawakita-film.or.jp/webdatabase/YougaResult.aspx
I can see why it wouldn't have appeared until the sixties.  Quite apart from wartime import restrictions and blockades, it bombed on release and wasn't restored and revived until 1959.  But 1982 seems late.

Others may be able to help you more.
Roger

----- Original Message -----
From: Frako Loden<mailto:frako at well.com>
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<mailto:KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 5:33 PM
Subject: Renoir's "Rules" Japan Release?



In what year was Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (La Regle du jeu, 1939) first released theatrically in Japan? I'm seeing September 18, 1982 mentioned in poster captions and imdb.com. Is this true? If so, what are the circumstances of this delayed release?


Frako Loden
Berkeley, CA