Instead of focusing on one or two central characters, the ensemble film casts a wider net and focuses the interactions of group. Often, as in Jean Renoir's masterful La Regle de Jeu or Robert Altman's Nashville, an ensemble film's scope and diversity of characters lends the work a strong sociological bent and typically manages to capture the essense of a particular historical moment, be it the slow collapse of the samurai class as seen in Seven Samurai or a brief moment of mainstream acceptance of porn flicks during the 1970s as seen in Boogie Nights.