GRAND ILLUSION Movie Review
La Grande Illusion
1937 Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir, son of Impressionist master Auguste Renoir, was virtually a self-taught filmmaker. He was also a veteran of World War I who began the service in the cavalry but left after he was kicked by a horse and hospitalized. After that, he enlisted in the infantry, where he took a bullet in the thigh and nearly lost the leg to gangrene. Finally he served as a pilot. If those experiences inform his brilliant war film, he did not try to re-create them on screen. Instead, Renoir chose to tell his prisoner-of-war tale without many of the conventional scenes, or the conventional conflicts. Even the film's title defies conventional interpretation. It seems to refer to a desire for peace, but that's not clear.
In 1916, before America's entry into the war, Lt. Marechal (Jean Gabin), a pilot, takes Capt. Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) up on an essentially pointless reconnaissance flight. They're shot down by Capt. Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) who tells his aide, “Drive down by the turnip field near the sugar factory. I shot down a Caudron. If there are officers, invite them to lunch.” That moment establishes Renoir's basic ideas. Though the war between France and Germany is important, so are the class differences. It immediately becomes apparent that Boeldieu and Rauffenstein have much more in common than Boeldieu and Marechal. The distance between them is heightened when they're sent to a prison camp, where they meet Lt. Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), the son of a wealthy middle-class family.
Marechal is a rough-edged former mechanic who's been promoted to the lowest level of commissioned officers because he's a flier. Because he's Jewish, Rosenthal will never be fully accepted by Boeldieu and Rauffenstein, whose world is built around 19th century conceptions of courtliness and prejudice. But Renoir refuses to let political, social, or nationalistic stereotypes define these characters. They are fully developed individuals and they are the real point of the film.
Even though the men have been removed from the front lines of battle, the war still affects them. They put on shows; they make plans to escape; they're moved from camp to camp, finally being reunited with Rauffenstein in a remote castle. The things that they do and the events surrounding them—which would be the central focus of many prisoner-of-war films—are used to reveal the men's characters and the changes they undergo. Some of the crucial incidents aren't even shown. The initial plane crash, for example, occurs off camera because it's not important to Renoir's story. Throughout, the pace is leisurely, giving the characters time and space to develop.
As we come to know the men, we learn that there are no heroes and villains. It would be easy to turn Boeldieu and Rauffenstein into the heavies, but late in the film, they are revealed to be much more sympathetic and complex than they might seem. That's an odd approach for a war film, and it's made even odder by the subdued, naturalistic acting style of the ensemble. Though Gabin is definitely the star, every member of the cast has at least one important contribution to make. Renoir was famous for the rapport he established with his actors and every move, every gesture seems unforced and unpremeditated. At times, it's easy to forget that this is a fictional film.
The brutality of the fighting is only hinted at, and some might see that as a flaw, but again, that is not Renoir's point. In the end, Boeldieu and Rauffenstein are representative of a past that cannot be recovered or recreated. Marechal and Rosenthal are Europe's future, but the conclusion suggests that the future is uncertain and just as fraught with war as the present. Years later in an interview, Renoir would say, “In 1936 I made a picture named La Grande Illusion in which I tried to express all my deep feelings about the cause of peace. Three years later, the war broke out.”
Cast: Jean Gabin (Lt. Marechal), Erich von Stroheim (Capt. von Rauffenstein), Pierre Fresnay (Capt. de Boeldieu), Marcel Dalio (Rosenthal), Julien Carette (The Actor), Gaston Modot (The Engineer), Jean Daste (The Teacher), Dita Parlo (Elsa), Georges Peclet (An Officer), Werner Florian (Arthur Kranz), Sylvain Itkine (Demolder), Jacques Becker (An English Officer); Written by: Jean Renoir, Charles Spaak; Cinematography by: Christian Matras; Music by: Joseph Kosma. Producer: RAC. French. Awards: New York Film Critics Awards ‘38: Best Foreign Film; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘38: Best Picture. Running Time: 111 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, DVD.