La Grande Illusion: Difference between revisions

La Grande Illusion is a 1937 French film released in English-speaking countries as Grand Illusion. The film tells the story of French officers during World War I who are captured but are determined to escape. It stars Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay and Erich von Stroheim.

It was written by Jean Renoir and Charles Spaak, and directed by Renoir. It has a very strong anti-war message and portrays both the French prisoners and German captors in a sympathetic light. It is also one of the first films about an escape from a Prisoner of War camp.

One of the recurrent themes running through it is the difficulty that we face in overcoming the barriers of language and class; the optimistic message of the movie is that at least some of these barriers can be overcome with enough persistence. Maréchal, the character played by Jean Gabin, finally learns to speak a few words of German, although not quite correctly; Dita Parlo, who plays Elsa, speaks a few halting words in French.

On the other hand, those characters who already understand each other — the aristocrats de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) — and feel a bond of kinship that transcends national divisions also understand that their days are numbered. One of them kills the other; the one who survives considers his friend and victim to be the lucky one.

The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, the first foreign language film to be nominated in this category. It was thought to be lost in the chaos of World War Two, until a print surfaced some years later.

Cast

Jean Gabin as Lieutenant Maréchal

Erich von Stroheim as Captain von Rauffenstein

Dita Parlo as Elsa (farm woman)

Pierre Fresnay as Capitaine de Boeldieu

Marcel Dalio as Lieutenant Rosenthal

Julien Carette as the showoff

Georges Péclet as An officer

Werner Florian as Sgt. Arthur

Jean Dasté as The teacher

Sylvain Itkine as Lieutenant Demolder

Gaston Modot as The engineer

Several members of the cast were not listed in the film's credits (as was common in early films) including:

Jacques Becker as an English officer

Albert Brouett as a prisoner

Claude Sainval as Ringis

Carl Koch

Michel Salina

See also

• Cinema of France
• List of French language films

External Link

• La Grande illusion at the [www.imdb.com Internet Movie Database]