I guess I’ll just start with Ruggles of Red Gap (major disclosure: I live in New York City so I get to see a boatload of movies, about one a week in any of just a handful of theaters I regularly go to; since where and when you see a movie can be so important, I’ll comment on that, too, and hope you will as well).

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) directed by the great Leo McCarey (Duck Soup, The Bells of St. Mary’s, An Affair to Remember, not to mention 1927’s The Way of All Pants) was a nice surprise. The only thing I knew about it was that it starred Charles Laughton in one of his earliest roles, at age 36, and that it was one a favorite of my Great Aunt Gertie, who had seen it as a young girl in one of those huge movie palaces of the golden movie era. The film also starred Charles Ruggles, who had a film career lasting more than 60 years, and some great support from Zasu Pitts, but it was Laughton who brought me to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org), just as I will drop whatever I’m doing and make a concerted effort to catch anything by Buster Keaton on the big screen. What I love about the MOMA is that they show a great mix of old and contemporary films, the downstairs theater where they generally show the older films is one of the best in the city, and it’s all free on Friday afternoons. If you’re into film and even just visiting New York sometime, it would be worth the effort to check out their web site and see what’s playing. Oh yeah, no food allowed, though. A cookie in a napkin is safe; nice and quiet. But nothing you have to unwrap, and don’t flaunt that bottle of water.

Aside from the great characterizations and sharp dialogue, what ‘s so enjoyable about this film is the direction and cinematography. Lots of wide shots where you see practically the entire actor’s body, and often more than one actor/character in a scene, forcing them all, everyone in the frame, to be in character, to act. Then, when there is the rare close-up, it’s so much more effective than when , as in so many contemporary movies, we’re constantly given only close-ups. You know the style I’m talking about, the constant cutting back and forth between two people having a conversation. Boring. Show me the two people in a medium shot, actually talking to each other, reacting off each other, studying the other while they speak. That’s interesting, that’s real. The close-up is just used way too much as a cop-out, if you ask me.

Which brings me to the next film I caught, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game/La Règle du Jea (1939). This was playing at Film Forum (www.filmforum.org), a well-known venue in NYC for art-house fare and great retrospectives (not to mention great snacks; probably the best popcorn in the city and very passable lemon cake; too bad the theater inside is old, the seats narrow and the sightlines difficult). There’s a lot that can be said about this film, which has Renoir himself in a key role along with Nora Gregor, reportedly Renoir’s mistress. Which meant that the film suffered acting-wise. Renoir himself is likable in a bumbling way, and it’s great to see him on the screen, but he’s not exactly a model of subtlety; Gregor has minimal presence and comes across as cold and not particularly likable. The film, a critique of French society, was booed at its premiere and has a storied past of being banned and resurrected. There are some wonderful moments and it has come to be considered a major classic.

Personally, I prefer other Renoir films such as Boudu Saved From Drowning/Boudu Sauvé des Eaux (1932), A Day in the Country/Partie de Campagne (1936, The Grand Illusion/La Grande Illusion (1937), The Human Beast/La Bête Humaine (1938), and The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946), but what nearly all Renoir films have in common is his exquisite taste, his absolute certainty and mastery of where to place the camera and how to frame his shots, and his great use of master shots (see: http://www.answers.com/topic/master-shot?cat=technology).

For a short article about Rules of the Game, see: http://www.filmforum.org/films/rules.html.