La gran ilusión

From Jean Renoir's autobiography, My Life and My Films (1974):

"If a French farmer should find himself dining at the same table as a French financier, those two Frenchmen would have nothing to say to each other, each being unconcerned with the other's interests. But if a French farmer meets a Chinese farmer they will find any amount to talk about. This theme of the bringing together of men through their callings and common interests has haunted me all my life and does so still. It is the theme of 'La Grande Illusion' and it is present, more or less, in all my works."

In a sense, 'La Grande Illusion' is a counterpoint in an argument of stories: in one corner, Jean Renoir & friends singing about humor and good cheer; in the other, a handful of Germans demanding bigotry and murderous pride.

My opinion of the movie is quite high, but I think, from having read that book and a few others, that the real accomplishments in 'Illusion,' artistic and thematic, come directly from Renoir's deep affection of people and our loves.

To live your life with love and humor takes thoughtful delicacy. It's much easier to close your heart, fence yourself in, and never have a true friend in your life: and such closed-hearted people are inevitably the ones who coolly turn the political screws until the world bursts into famine and war.

It was too much to think that 'La Grande Illusion' would prevent the then coming war, as Renoir hoped. But to look at the story again, as a lyrical anti-fascist statement and a call to weigh friendship and good company over nationalism (of any sort), that I think is where the story gets really good.

The modern era continues to give us a real choice. We can kill, without effort, to subdue the stranger. Or we can join the stranger for a meal and a conversation, and become friends. Which of these is the true vision of the world's "leaders"? Cold hearts, cold future.

Something to think about as you watch the movie.

Just saw it again on TCM, and now I see things in the film that make me question my high regard and admiration for it. This classic film has a special glow of humanity, which makes it unique and instinctively accessible. One can understand why it was such a hit in 1937. At the same time, this is not a surrealist film or a satire as the title might suggest, but an interpretation of horrific events from the point view of a humanist, and in that sense you get the inspirational message which seeks to outweigh other issues, but if you stop and think about the whole thing you end up appalled by some of the conclusions you might end up with. If it had successfully advanced the theme that war is hell and that men seek to preserve their humanity under these conditions, fine. But that is not the end result: the balance between the anti-war message and the idea that WWI was a gentlemen's war and that it brought the best out of men somehow leans on screen towards the latter and lends the film to negative interpretations. Renoir refuses to openly condemn war nor show its ugly face but by implication. And you can't say that wasn't Renoir's style, given his in-your-face condemnation of the attitudes of French's aristocracy prior to WWII in The Rules of the Game. Renoir emphasizes the men being pals and patriotic, eating well, joking, and dancing, which is what Renoir as a humanist understands men wish to do instead of fight, but the lack of any substantial sense of horror and suffering makes for an unbalanced film. The suffering is almost all psychological (life away from home and wife, loneliness) but it is hardly felt, except in the part of the story with the German woman, which is very successfully told. The physical suffering is not exposed at all, except for von Stroheimm's ailments, which are discussed tangentially, and even that suffering is mentioned but not felt. Renoir seems to expect the audience to presuppose the horror and the suffering. Renoir's conclusions in this film are confusing, naive and might even be considered downright insulting, particularly in the historic period this film was made. The problem might not be in Renoir's point of view or intentions but in what he actually put on the screen. So all in all, I'm not sure what Renoir is saying in this film, and therefore can not regard it as highly as I once did. I also agree with other reviewers that Renoir's technique is extraordinary but that the script is a mess. All in all, if you trust Renoir and stay with the humanistic theme and try to avoid any other interpretation you will still feel this is a great film, if not, then you will have serious reservations. I for one now have doubts.

Franklin Roosevelt said of it: "Everyone who believes in democracy should see this film". Mussolini banned it in Italy, and Hitler's Ministry of Propaganda banned it in Nazi Germany. The film vanished during WWII, and was thought to have been destroyed. Then it was recovered in 1946, but in an altered state. Decades would then pass before the original negative could be confirmed.

The Nazis hated the film because of its pacifist, anti-war, theme. The setting for the film is Germany in 1914, during WWI. Germans capture several French officers and take them to a POW camp, specifically for officers. After several escape attempts, the French officers get shuffled off to a presumably escape proof castle, run by Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), a flamboyant German officer with a forbidding persona.

Unlike other war movies, "La Grande Illusion" shows no actual combat, and the number of deaths is minimal. The film's tone is surprisingly lighthearted. Writer/Director Renoir conveys a sense of community among the French prisoners, despite their differences in social class. We see them several times sitting around a table eating, and chatting amiably. The cordiality between prisoners and their jailers is also surprising. It's not exactly a hug fest, but the predominant feeling among the men is respect for fellow officers, even if those officers are your enemy. None of the French or German officers want war; it's just their "duty", when called on.

In most of the film, scenes take place in small rooms or in that castle. Toward the film's end, outdoor vistas provide a visual contrast. Except at the film's end, I was amazed at how drab the surroundings are. Room furnishings are unadorned and contain the barest of essentials. Tables and floors are made of simple wood. The clothes are dreary and depressing. The stone castle is dank and forbidding. Music is made with simple instruments, like a harmonica or a flute. Of course, given the time period and considering the setting, such drabness and simplicity are not surprising. But the contrast with today's complex world of modern luxuries, that we take for granted, is striking. The film's B&W cinematography accentuates the drab environment.

The story can be a bit confusing in the first half, because the relationship between the jailers and the prisoners is so unusual. Viewers need to give the film wide latitude on this. Watching the film a second time helps clarify who is doing what to whom. The plot is easier to follow in the second half.

The film's acting is credible. I especially liked the performance of von Stroheim, all decked out in that imposing uniform, that monocle, and with that stiff bearing.

"La Grande Illusion" is an unusual "war" film, one that had real significance during WWII. For this reason alone, it deserves to be seen.

Grand Illusion is a movie about class that doesn't hate anyone. How often does that happen? Yes, there are namby-pamby movies that "show all sides" and bore everyone with their non-existent point-of-view, but that's not what I mean. And, of course, there are plenty of movies about class that reveal their biases from the start; I'm rather fond of Eat the Rich movies, myself. But Grand Illusion is about class without dismissing any of its characters. The aristocrats whose world is disappearing are presented as tragic figures, stuck in a code of life that is rapidly becoming meaningless. Both aristocrats know their time is past; the French one accepts this as probably a good thing, the German one doesn't (and blames the French one's sentiments on the French Revolution), but they both know their way of life is soon to be forgotten. And it would be easy for Renoir, when he made the film in the mid-30s a French communist with proletarian sympathies, to demonize these two. But he doesn't; he allows them their humanity, which is the most characteristic feature of Renoir movies in any event (he is the great humanist of movie history).

Nor does he show the collapse of the old way as an unfortunate preface to chaos. The bourgeois characters are good people. The world might be safe in their hands, as safe as in any other hands at least (except for the propensity among nations for war). All of the middle and lower-class characters in the movie are presented as people, not stereotypes. But Renoir doesn't accomplish this by collapsing all class boundaries into some homogenous universalism. These characters remain trapped within their class, and their class is clear to the viewer. The movie is not about the absence of class but about the crushing ironies of the very real existence of class in the lives of the characters. To show all classes without condescension, while retaining a particular point of view (that while people are good, it's best that the aristocratic world is in decline), is pretty amazing.

In Grand Illusion, the nominal hero is working/middle-class, but the upper class isn't evil and the lower class isn't romanticized or dismissed. And it's all accomplished in such a seamless way that many, if not most, first-time viewers might easily think it was a fine movie but something less than great. It sneaks up on you, and more than just about any film you can name, rewards multiple viewings.

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.