La Grande Illusion
Jean Renoir
During the First World War, a French plane is shot down by the Germans. Its two occupants, lieutenant Maréchal, flight engineer, and staff officer Boeldieuare initially taken to a prisoner of war camp before being moved to a fortress governed by Captain von Rauffestein, a crippled aristocrat...
With : Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Marcel Dalio, Dita Parlo, Julien Carette
Screenplay : Charles Spaak, Jean Renoir
Image : Christian Matras
Editing : Marguerite Renoir
Music : Joseph Kosma
Screenplay : Charles Spaak, Jean Renoir
Image : Christian Matras
Editing : Marguerite Renoir
Music : Joseph Kosma
Production : RAC
Distribution: Carlotta
Distribution: Carlotta
The big illusion is thinking that the 1914-18 war, the war to end all wars, was really the last... By showing all the difficulties that Renoir had to overcome to undertake a pacifist film at the end of the 1930s: "the story of my approach to finding La Grande Illusion could be the subject of the film. I carried the manuscript around for three years, targeting the offices of all the French or foreign producers, be they conventional or avant-garde". A major pacifist film, La Grande Illusiontalks less of war than of friendship: the friendship which unites above and beyond the chivalrousness of Boeldieuand the unforgettable officer played by Erich von Stroheim, or the improbable duo formed by Gabinand Dalio – the cocky flight engineer abandoning his racist prejudices and the rich Jewish merchant with his class prejudices...