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Grand Illusion
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Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302919639
Format: Black & White, NTSC
ISBN: 6302919630
Label: Home Vision
Languages: English (Original Language), AnalogFrench (Original Language), AnalogGerman (Original Language), AnalogRussian (Original Language), Analog
Manufacturer: Home Vision
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Home Vision
Release Date: May 06, 1993
Running Time: 111 minutes
Studio: Home Vision
Theatrical Release Date: September 12, 1938
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Editorial Review:
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 Maréchal (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 Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Retrospection on the Great War
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 ... Read More
Rating:  - Contradictions and Humanity: A Gentleman's War
Introduction
Trying to make sense of the time period: 1910 to 1920, I referred to various media and formats. I began with Alfred W. Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Using Crosby's reportage as a starting point, I viewed 10 hours of video or a mini series based on the book by Professor Hew Strachan called The First World War (2005), Jean Renoir's The Grand Illusion (1937), and Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory (1957).
Alfred W. Crosby's America's Forgotten ... Read More
Rating: - Essential French Cinema: Renoir's La Grande Illusion.
There's an endearing reference to The Grand Illusion in Woody Allen's Manhattan, which I saw again recently in the theater (in its new 35mm print). That reference prompted me to revisit Renoir's antiwar masterpiece in French cinema last night. The Grand Illusion is among the earliest prison escape movies, and is recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. It tells the unforgettable story of Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay), two French aviators who plot their escape from ... Read More
Rating: - Classic, incomparable (anti-) war film.
This is simply one of the greatest films EVER made. Jean Gabin and Eric von Stroheim and the rest of the cast are priceless. Script and story are brilliant. Direction is masterful. What more can one say? Don't miss it!!
Rating: - Blue Chip
GRAND ILLUSION is the first title in The Criterion Collection, self-described by Criterion as "a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films. By most accounts GRAND ILLUSION fits that bill. But while historically important or technically innovative films such as GRAND ILLUSION may be of great interest and instruction to film artists, students, historians, theorists, and critics, what do they offer the average, contemporary viewer? If I've never studied film, if I have no real grasp ... Read More
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