Tuesday, March 3, 2015
It's a Hard Knock Life
On the face of it, both Rules of the Game and His Girl Friday depict a pessimistic, dog-eat-dog world. Both films have characters who care for their reputation and comfort over the well-being of innocent others. The Marquis and his wife condone the killing of his wife's would-be lover to return to their domestic cocoon. The Mayor and the Sheriff are willing to hang an innocent man to win an election. Walter Burns will manipulate and swindle Bruce to get Hildy back. Do both of these movies have cynical views of human nature and/or the society's they show? Or is there some silver lining in the dark clouds? Is their any value in either movie that is redeeming, noble or heroic?
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In the Rules of the Game and His Girl Friday, both films portray a cynical view of human nature. The fact that in the case of the Rules of the Game Marquis and his wife allow the killing of his wife’s would-be lover just shows that the mind set of these people isn’t good. These people demonstrate a kind of selfishness that in their society is considered okay. The actions of these people in the Rules of the Game are acceptable because of their social standing in society. Marquis and his wife are in the higher class of society where incidents happen and they are then over looked. In His Girl Friday, the Mayor and the Sheriff are willing to hang and innocent man to win and election shows the corruption in the society. Once again the Mayor and the Sheriff are looking out for themselves. They will do anything that will win them votes in this upcoming election. There is another type of selfishness in His Girl Friday as well when it comes to Walter Burns and his relationship with Hildy. Walter is only thinking about himself when he plans on breaking up Bruce and Hildy. Throughout these films there has been a demonstration of selfish actions for each characters own gains. This shows that human nature when it comes to personal feelings can become corrupt. In these films, there is no value that is redeeming, noble or heroic. Everyone performs their actions not for the good of the relationship or the society but for the good of themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe portrayal in these two films of a dog-eat-dog, relentless world is not so much a cynical view of society as it is demonstrating the importance of image to people in society. To the characters in these films, it is all about their image to the rest of society and how they must strain in order to keep their image clean. For example, in The Rules of the Game, when the Marquis and his wife allow the killing of her would-be lover, it really is just to maintain their high power image. They want others to look at them and see how they have great power over all inferior people and that they get to call the shots because they have the power. In the film His Girl Friday, the fact that the Mayor and Sheriff are willing to hang an innocent man just to win an election shows that image is of utmost importance. They are willing to do literally anything in order to win the people’s votes because they want people to like them and to honor them by electing them. Clearly, the Mayor and the Sheriff’s motives are to create and maintain an admirable image to display. Another example is the fact that Walter is willing to manipulate Bruce in order to win Hildy back. While his motivation may be love, it may also be the image of him and Hildy as a couple. It’s possible that he doesn’t love her. In fact, he might just love the idea of being with her because then his image improves and looks great.
ReplyDeleteI think that in both of these movies, a harsh criticism is made about the society in which they are set. In Rules of the Game the commentary is on the corruptness of the bourgeoisie ruling class in relation to their fierce desire to remain in power. The fact that the Marquis and his wife are willing to write the death of a close friend off as an accident in order to remain in control shows how backwards and twisted the bourgeoisie has become and Renoir uses this film to comment on this. Additionally, Howard Hawkes uses his film to comment on the corrupt twistedness of journalism and politics. All of the reporters, even when they are standing feet from the events unfolding, report very different accounts to create the best story possible. Everybody is just in a ruthless hunt for the most interesting scoop possible. However, in these seemingly amoral societies one could make the claim that the ends justify the means in that the Marquis is just trying to keep his wife with him, Hildy is trying to write an article to save the life of an innocent man, and Walter is just trying to get the love of his life back. I certainly am not condoning covering up murder or extorting information from a witness or setting someone up to get arrested on multiple accounts, but in societies as corrupt as these, it isn’t hard to spot the justification behind these characters taking such seemingly damnable actions.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt, both “Rules of the Game” and “His Girl Friday” depict a selfish and dishonorable world, where people choose to act for the betterment of themselves rather than for the betterment of others. Whether it’s Walter’s manipulation to get Hildy back, or Robert’s affair with Geneviève, these films certainly do not improve one’s faith in the goodness of humanity. Yet, I believe that there is a silver lining in “Rules of the Game” and in “His Girl Friday,” one which partially redeems some of the characters and some their actions. Beneath the depiction of an amoral and selfish world, both films illustrate the difficulties, complexities, and naivety of love. In “Rules of the Game,” love is presented as something that cannot be controlled, an emotion that overwhelms rational thinking. Robert, for instance, after pledging his devotion to Christine plans on abandoning his affair with Geneviève. Yet, when he meets Christine for lunch he cannot rationally distance himself from her, ultimately inviting her to join him at the country estate. Christine, similarly, cannot choose between Robert, Octave, or André. In “His Girl Friday,” love is presented in the same manner. Walter Burns manipulates Hildy multiple times. For example, he manipulates Hildy by purposely jailing Bruce in order to delay their departure. Walter does not do this because he is an evil person; it is simply because he is desperately in love. Love in some sense redeems these characters who are greatly overwhelmed in the game of love, because love is noble. Everyone watching either movie can relate to the depth and strength of the emotion of love. Furthermore, many will relate to the difficulties that the characters experience in both “Rules of the Game” and “His Girl Friday”. This helps the viewer empathize with the characters and consequently forgive some of the seemingly selfish and dishonorable actions of the characters.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I do not think that a “silver lining” exists within either His Girl Friday or The Rules of the Game; it seems to me like both movies have an extremely cynical view of human nature that doesn’t give much credit or praise to society as a whole. In The Rules of the Game the characters seem to be primarily concerned with their own interests and consider the needs and wants of everybody else to be secondary, as affairs and manipulations occur throughout the film. In a parallel fashion, His Girl Friday (following the paradigm of Screwball Comedy movies) represents men as being either weak, manipulative, or both, and shows the women to be supposedly dominant and strong (at least at the beginning). This seemingly positive depiction of women looks to be a compliment to human nature until the end of the movie, when Hildy realizes that Walter has gotten her fiancée Bruce thrown in jail. Rather than being angry as any reasonable person would be, Hildy sees this as an act of pure love that Walter has done for her, and falls back in love with him. In falling into this manipulative trap, Hildy is actually going against the idea of women being powerful and proving herself to be weak and easily used.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it could be argued that both movies actually show true love and the far lengths that a man will go to win love back from a woman, it seems like the methods by which the men in these movies attempt to do this are ill-intentioned and almost evil. In The Rules of the Game, the final climactic scene involves Schumacher accidentally shooting Jurieux as he believes him to be Octave leaving with Lisette. Clearly Schumacher truly cares about his wife and doesn’t want her to leave him, but the fact that he intentionally killed someone (although it was the wrong person) in order to stop his wife from leaving proves that he is very self-centered and subsequently that the movie wants to show love as a corrupting emotion that makes the world a worse place. At the same time, Andre Jurieux seems to truly love Christine and wants to do anything to win her love, but once again is acting in a morally reprehensible manner in order to do so. Christine is married to Robert, so the fact that Andre is attempting to take her away from their marriage is obviously a self-centered and evil action to take. Yet again, the movie demonstrates that human nature is inherently bad, and that love only makes things worse. The same principle is demonstrated in His Girl Friday, which follows the mold of Screwball Comedy in showing men to be manipulative (which is obviously a cynical view of human nature). Although Walter truly does love Hildy throughout the movie, she too is in a relationship with Bruce and seems to intend on staying with him. However, Walter finds an excuse in keeping her around him and away from Bruce as he wants her to work on an important news report with him and secretly intends on winning her back. Not only does he manipulate her throughout the movie by trying to keep her around, but then at the end this cynical opinion of human nature is once again exemplified in the aforementioned scene in which Bruce is set up by Walter and thrown in jail. Not only does this depict Walter badly, but at the same time it also shows Hildy to be weak and easily manipulated, furthering the notion of inherently bad human nature. Clearly both movies take a rather pessimistic view on the overall attitude and intention of society, and although they both show love and the lengths to which a man will go to get it, the means to that end take a very questionable turn as the characters continue to be manipulative and self-centered throughout the stories of both films.
Both The Rules of the Game and His Girl Friday present cynical views of society, but one can find a few useful societal values in His Girl Friday. The Rules of the Game serves purely as a criticism of the wealthy part of French society. People kill countless animals for sport, are frequently unfaithful to their husbands or wives, and seem out of touch with reality. Through the death of Andre, the film shows that the only way to escape this lifestyle is death. Additionally death is inevitable for those whose values do not fit with society. In His Girl Friday, it may also seem that society is portrayed in a strictly negative sense due to the ruthlessness of politicians and newspaper reporters to get what they want. Yet in reality, the audience is presented with useful, if somewhat cynical, values. The most prominent concept is the way the media checks the power of the government. Although Walter Burns is undeniably selfish, he still does some good. He and his newspaper are the only powerful opposition to the corrupt sheriff and mayor. Walter has the power to ruin the careers of both of them if they act too immorally. Despite the fact that Walter’s own actions are not necessarily moral, he is still able to prevent the hanging of Earl Williams. The film seems to be saying that the only way to stop an immoral person is with another immoral person. Furthermore, the film shows that everyone is equal through immorality. Without delving too deeply into the argument of whether or not His Girl Friday is a feminist movie, one can say that Hildy acts with power uncharacteristic of women in 1940. She manipulates others through bribes and lies as well as any man in the movie and even tackles someone at one point when she wants a story from him. Although the negative parts of human nature are extremely ugly, they can occasionally contribute to moral happenings.
ReplyDeleteWhile both the French film Rules of the Game and its more modern American counterpart His Girl Friday stride to depict the reality of the status quo for a subset of people (wealth, upper-class French society in the former and journalists in the latter), both undoubtedly have cynical, pessimistic views of the subsets they depict. Not only is material success and prominence stressed over morality in His Girl Friday, but also overindulgence and lack of restraint are coupled with gruesomely immoral acts, as seen in Rules of the Game. In fact, the aforementioned societal subsets are presented so adversely that even brief glimpses of "silver linings", or good aspects of societies, in both films, work counterproductively to support the overall pessimistic view.
ReplyDeleteHis Girl Friday is more exemplary of this notion, as it charts the struggles of the protagonist, Hildy, between living a placid life with a pleasant husband, and living a successful, but immoral life as a newspaper journalist with a witty husband. Even though Hildy is determined to resign from her career and to “restart” her life with a highly considerate fiancée, Walter ends up convincing her to both remarry him and rejoin her career (a career which involves conducting immoral actions to succeed). The very fact that Walter succeeds in parting Hildy from a much more moral path demonstrates that the film depicts human nature in a pessimistic light, as a source of irreparable depreciation of human values.
While as a whole, Hildy’s relationship with Walter as opposed to Bruce ends-up demonstrating that good and moral aspects of society work counterproductively in this film to support a pessimistic view of human nature, there are also more specific examples that prove the point. An exemplary moment is the conversation between Earl Williams (in jail) and Hildy, in which an ironic reversal of roles is present. Earl Williams is depicted as a moral and innocent man, having accidentally shot a policeman and scheduled to hang the next day. He speaks slowly and wisely, is constantly in depression about his gruesome actions which are not even his fault, and refuses to smoke. In other words, a highly moral man is convicted for highly immoral acts. This short glimpse of morality means nothing, however. Hildy Johnson, an immoral journalist (who appears to be moral to outsiders such as Earl Williams) eventually helps Williams escape from jail in a vie to compose an extraordinary story for her newspaper, basically sapping all the morality out of Williams for use towards an immoral goal, which involves politics and bribery. The film thus sheds an overall pessimistic light on the notion of human morality.
Similarly, in Rules of the Game, a similar trend is notable. In this case, however, none of the film’s main characters can be described as “moral” in any way: Marquis, Genevieve, Marceau, Lisette, Christine, Andre, Shumacher, Octave, and other are all involved in extramarital affairs. They additionally hunt innocent animals as a form of entertainment, constantly dispute over each other, and Shumacher even ends-up killing Andre. Therefore, any glimpses of morality would happen outside the “ realms” of these characters, but there are very few actions which occur outside their realms. Possibly the only connection with the outside “realm” is the moment when Andre lands after an exhausting around-the-world plane journey, greeted by fans and reporters, at the beginning of the film. There is a potential for a “silver lining” here; Andre could possibly recount his experiences in a heroic and manly fashion to the press. Yet, his first words are that he is disappointed that his love, Christine, did not come to see the landing, a quite spoiled response. Andre evidently did not undergo the journey as a “leap for mankind” but rather as simply a “step” for himself, to strengthen Christine’s view of himself. Thus, it would be false that any true “silver lining” exists in this film either.