La grande illusion (1937)

Note Générale:

8,0/10   

Réalisateur:

Jean Renoir

Scénaristes:

Charles Spaak (scenario and dialogue) &
Jean Renoir (scenario and dialogue)

Date de sortie:

12 septembre 1938 (USA)

Genre:

Drame | Guerre

Intrigue:

During 1st WW, two French officers are captured. Captain De Boeldieu is an aristocrat while Lieutenant Marechal was a mechanic in civilian life...

Plot Keywords:

French | Escape | Aristocrat | Officer | Castle

Récompenses:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 3 wins & 1 nomination

Avis des utilisateurs:

Classic film on the death of ancient regimes

Ensemble

Jean Gabin	...	Lt. Maréchal
Dita Parlo	...	Elsa (farm woman)
Pierre Fresnay	...	Capt. de Boeldieu
Erich von Stroheim	...	Capt. von Rauffenstein (as Eric von Stroheim)
Julien Carette	...	Cartier, l'acteur (as Carette)
Georges Péclet	...	Le serrurier (as Peclet)
Werner Florian	...	Sgt. Arthur
Jean Dasté	...	The teacher (as Daste)
Sylvain Itkine	...	Lt. Demolder (as Itkine)
Gaston Modot	...	The engineer (as Modot)
Marcel Dalio	...	Lt. Rosenthal (as Dalio)

Autre(s) titre(s):

The Grand Illusion (USA)

Durée:

114 min | 94 min (1937 release) | Germany:107 min

Pays:

France

Langue:

Français | Allemand | Anglais | Russe

Couleur:

Noir et Blanc

Rapport de forme:

1,37 : 1

Son:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Classification:

Finland:(Banned) (1942) | Finland:K-16 (1937) | Finland:K-8 (1959) | Malaysia:U | Norway:12 (1959) | Norway:16 (1937) | Germany:12 (f) (1948) | Portugal:M/6 | Australia:G | Germany:(Banned) (1937-1945) | Italy:(Banned) (1938-1945) | South Korea:12 | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated | UK:U (video rating) | UK:A (original rating) (cut)

Lieux de tournage:

Caserne de Colmar, Colmar, Haut-Rhin, France

Société:

Réalisation d'art cinématographique (RAC)

Anecdotes:

The art director, 'Eugene Lourie', was the one who carved the nativity figures out of potatoes for the Christmas scene towards the film's end.

Goofs:

Anachronismes: Elsa's rural farmhouse in the mountains has electric lighting in the 1910s.

Guillemet:

Lieutenant Rosenthal: Frontiers are an invention of men. Nature doesn't give a hoot.

Connexions:

Référencé sur D-I-M, Deus in Machina (2007)

Bande son:

Il était un petit navire

Classic film on the death of ancient regimes

In the old European order, pre-WWI, one nation's aristocracy made war on another's not out of love for king and country or hatred for the enemy, but out of a sense of honor and duty. War was what they did, these aristocrats of l'ancien regime. Their castles in the air, their noble worldview, their time-honored way--all would crumble, as they very well knew, if the line between the rabble and themselves were allowed to continue to blur. The masses had new and different loyalties.

"La Grande Illusion" in 1914 was the hope that that old order could be preserved in the face of surging democracy and noveau-riche power. Jean Renoir's film presents us with an irony: the martial elites of France and Germany needed the war to vouchsafe their very identities, and yet that conflict would prove their undoing. Whatever side won, the hoi polloi would gain the upper hand.

Restored from its original camera negative, the 1937 French film now on DVD sparkles like new. The restoration lets us see that nothing is dated about this work of genius, even if its POW-camp situations today seem stock and its characters stereotypes of nationality and class. The fine acting, the deft pacing, and the fluid camerawork make for a film that could have been produced last year. The whispered subtext, the nuanced conflicts, and the ironic complexity make for a film that is timeless.

The subtext is the eternal tension between "in the air" and "on the ground," "on high" and "here below," "from a distance" and "up close and personal." From a distance, war is no more rancorous than a chess game, with national boundaries as artificial as the squares on a chessboard. Up close and personal, war separates humans from their lives and aspirations, lovers from their beloveds.

The old elites loved nothing but their class and its accoutrements. It was peasant stock and noveau riche who belted out national anthems and honored the borders which in wartime could sever lover from lover but, paradoxically, also shield prison-camp escapees who made it across them to sanctuary. Renoir's genius was that he could show that an emergent new order, manifestly better on the ground, comes at a steep price, tragically, in the air.