La Regle Du Jeu

Jean Renoir - 1939
Yes, yes, it's on the level of my favourite films and the greatest ever. And for all its hillarity, it is the most cruel, the warmest, the most direct, the most mysterious.
Here are some questions I came up with from this viewing:
1) Is the massive contrast down to an old print, or deliberate? Certainly Renoir exploits backlighting for some startling portraits, most obviously outside among the grennery.
2) Does Renoir really 'sacrifice' composition (was this what Truffaut really said?)? For scenes where they sit down, and those standing (low angle, famously) static two and three shots, no. When that huge depth is used for little movement in the corner, no. But for the wide rooms, the deep focus, the freedom allowed to the actors probably is against exactness in those scenes.
And what else to say? The wonderfully complex soundtrack. Those camera movements, which if one wasn't paying attention wouldn't be noticeable, that are either those (not on a spirit level) horizontals, or those big, but quiet, moves in to pick out people in a room.
The rythm, the music of the long takes as strands fall into each other. The incredible timing. We follow Octave around, and pretty much get the whole plot.
La Chesnaye is the greatest (after Verdoux) creation of a realist character in the cinema? Cynical, cruel, pathetic, keen, sympathetic....
Renoir is ineffable, all the same. What is this feeling surrounding them all? The lighting? No, it's not pretty pictures. We see their reasons, and we see behind them; the people. And behind that? Renoir casts his gaze their, but it's hard to put into words quite what we see in 'La Regle Du Jeu'.