classicsoncall
After viewing the film, I'm in a quandary as to why it has earned the reputation it has. About the only historical element that came across as accurate to me was the preference shown to officer prisoners of war, who were segregated from the general population of combat soldiers captured in battle. Beyond that, the story seemed almost farcical, what with the German Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) expressing cordiality to the French captain and pilot he shot down. A later scene when he begs Captain Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) to halt in his escape attempt was even more ludicrous. If these examples were meant to convey some intended message about humanity in the midst of war it was totally lost on me. And the idea of prisoner soldiers dressing in drag to put on an entertainment show defied any kind of rationale I could come up with. Not to mention another question I had - where exactly would the prisoners have gotten all those flutes to irritate their German captors, or the pots and pans they came up with as an encore?I don't know, I must be missing something, and even the more enlightened positive reviews for the film fail to convince me that there's something of significance to be found here. Perhaps in time I'll give it another try, but for now I can only shake my head in wonder. For me, the term Grand Illusion carries an entirely different connotation now as it relates to the movie.
gavin6942
During the First World War, two French soldiers are captured and imprisoned in a German POW camp. Several escape attempts follow until they are sent to a seemingly impenetrable fortress which seems impossible to escape from.This is regarded by critics and film historians as one of the masterpieces of French cinema and among the greatest films ever made. Orson Welles named "La Grande Illusion" as one of the movies he would take with him "on the ark", and even Woody Allen named it among his favorites.Director Jean Renoir uses the First World War (1914–1918) as a lens through which to examine Europe as it faces the rising specter of fascism (especially in Nazi Germany) and the impending approach of the Second World War (1939–1945). Indeed, this is what makes the film so great... Europe between the wars, especially coming from France, which is like Ground Zero for the Second World War.
Ilpo Hirvonen
Jean Renoir's "The Great Illusion" (1937) is often celebrated as the greatest anti-war film. It takes place during the First World War and was made just before the Second. Back in the day, Franklin Roosevelt stated that everyone who believes in democracy should see the film. Detaching from such political idealism, one might claim that every human being should see it. It's the film in which Renoir's humanism crystallizes, showing that humanity can preserve even in the darkest of nights. A story about POW camps and people escaping them is a tale of eternal love, friendship and yearning for freedom. A proof of its cinematic power is that without showing a scene of actual combat, "The Great Illusion" is the most accurate portrayal of WWI. It seems that every film about the First World War much deal with its mythological position as the death of cultural innocence. Although "The Great Illusion" begins with the war already going on, its opening scene works as a metaphor for the period before the war. We see a man singing in a café when all of a sudden he is called for a mission to transport a general which sounds easy and quick, but then turns into a long and unpredictable chain of events -- talk about dancing off to war. Not only does Renoir reach the fact that WWI was pointless and a consequence of ostentatious nationalism -- arms race, alliances and hostilities -- but also the feeling of transience as aristocracy begins taking its final breaths. In the hour of disappearance, two aristocrats, Bouldieu and Rauffenstein (aptly played by Erich von Stroheim), unite. The old general in "The Rules of the Game" (1939) might say that they are a vanishing breed. It is beautiful and moving that Renoir's nostalgia considering this social transition has no irony whatsoever, despite Renoir's apparent sympathy for the working class. The nostalgia is very tender. All that matters to Renoir is humanity. It is precisely this human sympathy which is the strength of Renoir's cinema. This is present in Renoir's characterization, treatment of the class theme, and his anti-nationalist philosophy of the great illusion. André Bazin's timeless words are worth repeating at this point: "the grand illusions are the illusion of hatred, which arbitrarily divides men who in reality are not separated by anything; the illusion of boundaries, (...) the illusion of races, of social classes (...). The war, the product of hatred and division, paradoxically reveals the falseness of all the barriers of prejudice separating man from man."One of the many reasons for the survival of "The Great Illusion" in the test of time is its realism (that is not afraid of poetry) which travels from the director's style to his world view and attitude towards life in general. Bazin thought that the film was based on the authenticity of human relations. I believe this is a key into understanding the film and its legacy. War is the great illusion because it separates us from one another. Yet, despite darkness and disappointment, Renoir continues to believe in love and humanity.
ironhorse_iv
Don't get me wrong, I love this film, but I don't see it being one of the greatest films of all time. It was pretty hard to watch and get through. It's not the fact that it was made in 1937 by French director Jean Renoir for a French speaking audience, and I can't relate to the film due to its aged and language. It's the fact that the film's themes put me in odds and the editing was just horrible. It's not the director or the editor at the time fault. It was World War 2's fault. For many years, the original nitrate film negative was thought to have been lost in an Allied air raid in 1942. Then, it was revealed that the original negative had been shipped to Berlin during the Nazis control of France due to the ban of the film during WWII. Then in Cold War, Berlin in 1945, the film was controlled by the Soviet's zone and consequently shipped along with many other films to Moscow. The negative was returned to France in the 1960s, but sat unidentified in storage for years. In the early 1990's, it was found, restored, and re-released in the United States in 1999. Overall, watching the badly damage film getting restored was a blessing, but it didn't make the film any better. Probably in pre-World War 2, the film was pretty amazing, but after World War 2, this film feels like a long lost puzzle just put together, with a few of the original pieces missing. It just doesn't have that same grandeur. La Grande Illusion is about a small group of French officers who are captured during World War I and are plotting an escape from a German prison camp. The title of the film comes from the book, The Great Illusion by British economist Norman Angell, which argued that war was futile and pointless. One thing, I do love about this movie is that there is no all-good and all-bad type characters in this film. The Germans were portrayed in a mostly positive light, and not like negative evil madmen like other war films do. Elsa (Dita Parlo) had a very powerful scene about talking about how big the table is, now. It really hit you, when you see how the toll of the war has cause this woman, so much pain. Erich von Stroheim as Captain von Raufeenstein, the warden of the prison had great acting. You can tell through his acting that the character felt pain, not only because of what happen to his body, but also to what is happening in the world. The French characters like aristocratic Captain De Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), working-class Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and Wealthy Jew, Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) were all great in their roles. The film was generously humanistic to its character of various nationalities. Still, the movie has this odd tell rather than show moments. There is a scene in the beginning, where De Boeldieu and Marechal are going to do an air reconnaissance before captured, and a minute later, they are sitting down with Captain von Rauffenstein for dinner, captured. Where is the scene where they get shot down? They talk about it, but we, the audience don't see it. It was a bad jump cut. Even in the meal scene, the music cuts off pretty oddly to show people do die in this war, as symbolism by the funeral wreath, but still it's awkwardly cut. There are hundreds of badly made cuts in this film. Then, there was a vaudeville-type performance that was pretty weird, that remind me of 1963's Great Escape and 1953's Stalag 17 type humor. I do like the 'LA Marseillaise' scene that remind me of 1942's Casablanca. Still, most of the film felt like watching Hogan Heroes, then a real life movie about prison camps. The different between Great Escape, Stalag 17 and this movie is that this movie fails to make the prisoner-of-war camp look a place, you want to escape. Yes, the guards here were kinda mean, but in no ways, brutal like other two films. The prisoners were living in a castle, no less, better off, then the soldiers living in the trenches at the time. The film loves to say that there is a language barrier between the characters, but throughout the film, the characters understood each other more than I did, watching. The movies go quickly with the French, German, Russian and English dialogue, it does get confusing. The English seem out of place. There is a scene where Boeldieu and Von Rauffenstein spoke English for some odd reason. When did this English speaking came from in the film? I don't know how Maréchal is unable to pass word of the tunnel to an incoming British prisoner, when Boeldieu speak English. Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein, are aristocrats represented as cosmopolitan men, educated in many cultures and conversant in several languages. In true life actor Erich von Stroheim didn't speak a word of German. The film would be easier for the audience to understand if they stick with just French. Indeed, watch the film with sub-titles. You need them. I do like the message that critique the romantic idealization of duty, by showing how the aristocrat old order of European civilization has died in this war. I love the symbolism of the flower in the prison. I do like how the movie fights against the anti-Jewish campaign enacted by Adolf Hitler's government at the time, by making Rosenthal looks like a good man. Overall, this film does one thing right, it shows a realistic interpretation of the relationships of soldiers fighting a politician's war. That is why it's one of the great movies of all time.
