La Curée (1871–72; English: The Kill) is the 2nd novel in Émile Zola's 20-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It deals with property speculation and the lives of the extremely wealthy Nouveau riche of the Second French Empire, against the backdrop of Baron Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s.
Vastly different from its predecessor and prequel La Fortune des Rougon, La Curée, the portion of the game thrown to the dogs after a hunt, usually translated as The Kill - is a character study of three personalities: Aristide Rougon (renamed "Saccard")--the youngest son of the ruthless and calculating peasant Pierre Rougon and the bourgeois Félicité (by whom he is much spoiled), both of them Bonapartistes and consumed by a desire for wealth, Aristide's young second wife Renée (his first dying not long after their move from provincial Plassans to Paris) and Maxime, Aristide's foppish son from his first marriage.
The book opens with scenes of astonishing opulence, beginning with Renée and Maxime lazing in a luxurious horse-drawn carriage, very slowly leaving a Parisian park (the Bois de Boulogne) in the 19th century-equivalent of a traffic jam. It is made clear very early on that these are staggeringly wealthy characters not subject to the cares faced by the public; they arrive at their mansion and spend hours being dressed by their servants prior to hosting a banquet attended by some of the richest people in Paris. There seems to be almost no continuity between this scene and the end of the previous novel, until the second chapter begins and Zola reveals that this opulent scene takes place almost fourteen years later. Zola then rewinds time to pick up the story practically minutes after La Fortune des Rougon ended.
The Game Is Over (original title La Curée, "The Kill") is a 1966 French-Italian French language film directed by Roger Vadim and starring Jane Fonda, Michel Piccoli and Peter McEnery. The film is a modern-day adaptation of the 1871-72 novel La Curée by Émile Zola.
In Paris, Maxime Saccard visits his wealthy industrialist father Alexandre and his beautiful young Canadian wife, Renée. Alexandre fathered Maxime years ago in a prior marriage and Maxime has come to stay with them after studying in England.
Renée tells Maxime that she married Alexandre when she was pregnant following an unhappy love affair; the child was stillborn and the passion between the two has faded.
Renée and Maxime begin an affair and fall in love with each other. Renée, who came from a wealthy family, asks Alexandre for a divorce. He agrees, on the condition that she leaves the fortune she brought to their marriage invested in his business.
Renée accepts this and goes to Switzerland for a divorce. But while she is away, Alexandre confronts his son with two alternatives: he can either run off with the now penniless Renée or become engaged to Anne Sernet, the daughter of a wealthy banker whose support Alexandre wants for his business. Maxime agrees on the second course of action.
Esta es la vida de un estudiante que estudiaba sin parar
se estaba haciendo una carrera
y no era en la universidad,
era una carrera que no tenía final.
Sus padres le preguntaban
hasta dónde vas a llegar?
y él muy tranqui, él pasaba
- hasta que ya no quede más -
y te quedan muchas venas por chutar.
Al final de la carrera
ningún titulo te van a dar,
sólo te han dado un carné
politoxicomanía total
y te quedan muchas venas por chutar.