Game Theory and "The Rules of the Game"

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Abstract

Gerald Mast, in A Short History of the Movies, suggests that Citizen Kane might be structurally viewed as a jigsaw puzzle and cites the giant jigsaw puzzles that Susan plays with as a possible clue to this approach.1 This is very apparent as one views the film with the first sketchy "March of Time" sequence (the outline or edge pieces of the puzzle) through to the final shot (or puzzle piece) of Rosebud being burned which completes the puzzle of Kane. In a larger sense, all film might be said to be analogous to a jigsaw puzzle or game. Certainly, the day-to-day shooting of bits of information and the piecing together of discrete shots, scenes and sequences might be said to resemble the process of completing a jigsaw puzzle. Indeed, one wonders if Orson Welles might have been fully conscious of this as he went about constructing Citizen Kane. There is the presence of a particular kind of game within the content of a film; then the author or director (or both) might have consciously or subconsciously based the film structure and character relationships on that game. I would propose that this is one possible way of examining a film in order to discover at least part of its meaning. For the purposes of this article, I have chosen to examine Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game in relation to game theory in several ways. First I will posit Roger Caillois' model of games and attempt to discover character traits and relationships in the film through the use of those games; secondly, I will try to determine if there is a deep structural arrangement in terms of a game; and finally make some general observations as to the relevancy of game theory as a critical tool. It should be noted here that the terms "play" and "game" may appear to be used interchangeably in this paper. When the term "play" is used, it should be interpreted in the sense that all games consist of players. Furthermore, Caillois' system not only involves categories of games but also "styles" or modes of playing. Although Johan Huizinga's work Homo Ludens2 is considered a classic treatise on play and game in adult behavior, he does not construct as clear a