This week we will be exploring Vivian Sobchack's discussion about the real and the irreal in her essay, "On the Death of a Rabbit in Fictional Space: Extra-textual Knowledge and Documentary Consciousness."
If you are interested in reading more of Sobchack's analysis about the hunting scene from Jean Renoir's film, Rules of the Game, please refer to her book Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture (UC Press, 2004) Chapter 11: "The Charge of the Real: Embodies Knowledge and Cinematic Consciousness," pp. 258-285. You may be able to find a PDF online, if you look.
Film Still from Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (1939)
Considered one of the greatest films ever made, The Rules of the Game (La règle du jeu), by Jean Renoir, is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners in which a weekend at a marquis’ country château lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances. The film has had a tumultuous history: it was subjected to cuts after the violent response of the premiere audience in 1939, and the original negative was destroyed during World War II; it wasn’t reconstructed until 1959. That version, which has stunned viewers for decades, is presented here.
The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie Boudu Saved from Drowning and the popular-front Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths, Renoir closed out the decade with two critical humanistic studies of French society that routinely turn up on lists of the greatest films ever made: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (the former was celebrated in its time, but the latter was trashed by critics and audiences—until history provided vindication). After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, The River, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and Elena and Her Men. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when, after the completion of The Little Theater of Jean Renoir, a collection of three short films, he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.
Film Still from Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game (1939)
Vivian Sobchack's essay isn't an in-depth analysis about the narrative cycle in Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, but instead it explores the way in which there is a disruptive collision between the real and the irreal within the space of this fictional movie. She posits that this very disruption prevents the spectator from re-engaging in the immersive experience of the fiction once they recognize that real deaths occurred in the service of the fiction. While the real deaths are birds and rabbits– instead of people– does this shift the way that you respond to the film?
What is the irreal, about which Sobchack speaks? How would you define the irreal or irreality? How does the irreal differ from the real?
The Irreal: The best way to contextualize the irreal is that it is an illusion of reality created within a fiction, and that it takes its cues from the real world. In other words, it is a fiction that looks like reality, and such a device is a very useful tool in film because it creates a cohesive space within the fiction that allows the spectator to temporarily suspend their disbelief in order to engage in the immersive space of the narrative.
In Rules of the Game the irreal is the fictional story that is being told and the real refers to the death of the rabbits and birds that were actually killed in the hunt scene that you will watch below.
Sobchack argues that once we understand that these real animals were actually killed in the service of this fictional story that the space of the fiction is forever ruptured and cannot be repaired. She claims that the subsequent actions in the fiction, and the eventual death of a character in the film, which is foreshadowed by the deaths of the animals, become irrelevant. Thus, the death of the irreal person (a character in the film) is displaced by the real deaths of animals. Therefore, the irreal death is overtaken in importance by the real deaths of the rabbits, and as a result the seamless space of the fiction is broken.
Questions to ask yourself while viewing the clip of the hunting scene:
1) Does the fact that these deaths occurred 85 years ago in any way desensitize your response?
2) Does knowing that these animals actually died in the service of this film shift the way that you respond to the scene?
3) While reading Sobchack's essay, one has the impression that only a single rabbit died– when in fact it is clear that many rabbits and birds died in this hunting scene. Is there a singular moment to which she appears to be referring? If so, identify it and the precise moment in the clip (cite the time- i.e.: Renoir, 01:15 - 02:00).
4) Do you agree with the premise of Sobchack's argument after watching the scene to which she refers? Why, or why not?
