Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection
by Jean Renoir
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dita Parlo, Erich von Stroheim, Jean Gabin, Julien Carette, Pierre FresnayDirector: Jean Renoir
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 114 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-11-23
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Retrospection on the Great War
Summary: 3 Stars
This story is set in 1916. French soldiers are in a bar. Marechal is summoned to HQ for a mission to photograph the enemy lines. But they are shot down (off camera) and brought to the enemy officer's barracks for lunch. The war does not prevent formal manners. The officer prisoners are then sent to a POW camp. They receive packages of food to supplement their rations. Some of the prisoners are digging an escape tunnel. The details are shown; the same techniques will be used in the next war. There is a problem with getting fresh air into the tunnel. Dirt from the tunnel is dropped in the garden. The conversations tell about their characters. The prisoners put on a show for entertainment. "It's a long way to Tipperary." The news about a battle for Verdun causes the singing of the Marseillaise [as in "Casablanca"].
New orders arrive: the officers are to be moved to a new camp far behind the lines. Three are sent to an escape-proof castle. [Colditz?] The Commandant treats the prisoners with politeness. Soon they plan to escape to Switzerland. Is there a bond between the professional army officers who are of the nobility? There is a large Christmas package that contains a surprise! The guards do not like the music from the prisoners. A roll call creates a distraction. Boieldieu suffers for his distraction. Marechal and Rosenthal escape down the wall. They find shelter. The woman's husband, father, and brothers were all killed in the war - great victories. But they must continue on their journey to Switzerland. The grand illusion is that this will be the last war. You can compare this film to the POW films made after WW II.
In real life "Rosenthal" (Marcel Dalio) escaped to America and played a part in "Casablanca". After WW II the formation of two nearly equal alliances prevented another European war. This changed after 1990, and there was a war in the Balkans (as before WW I). [Reading subtitles detracts from watching the characters.]
Summary of Grand Illusion - Criterion Collection
It's long been one of the revered classics of international cinema, but there is no fine layer of dust over La Grande Illusion. Jean Renoir's film is just as vibrant, exciting, and wise as it has ever been. The story is set during World War I, mostly in a couple of German POW camps, where two very different French prisoners plot to escape: the working-class officer Mar?chal (Jean Gabin, the French Spencer Tracy) and the upper-class de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay). The suspenseful backbone of the story is formed by these escape attempts, but Renoir is primarily concerned with the way people treat each other, and especially with how class and nationality inform human relations. Most compelling of all the film's characters is the aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, unforgettably incarnated by stiff-backed Erich von Stroheim; although he runs a prison camp, von Rauffenstein cannot help but strike up a friendship with de Boieldieu, a kindred spirit from the doomed nobility. There is nothing dewy or naive about Renoir's vision (and two years after the release of this antiwar film, Europe was plunged into another world war), yet Grand Illusion is one of those movies that makes you feel good about such long-outmoded ideas as sacrifice and brotherhood. After it won a prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1937, the Nazis declared the film "Cinematographic Enemy Number One." There can be no higher praise. --Robert HortonOne of the very first prison escape movies, Grand Illusion is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece stars Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay, as French soldiers held in a World War I German prison camp, and Erich von Stroheim as the unforgettable Captain von Rauffenstein. Following a smash theatrical re-release, Criterion is proud to present Grand Illusion in a new special edition, with a beautifully restored digital transfer.
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