The Grand Illusion

Starring:Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Julien Carette, Georges PÃ©clet, Werner Florian, Jean DastÃ©, Sylvain Itkine, Gaston Modot, Marcel Dalio, Claude Sainval, Albert Brouett, Michel Salina, Carl Koch, Jacques Becker
Director: Jean Renoir
Studio: Home Vision Cinema
Product Type: DVD

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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

Description

One of the very first prison escape movies, Grand Illusion is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece stars Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay, as French soldiers held in a World War I German prison camp, and Erich von Stroheim as the unforgettable Captain von Rauffenstein. Following a smash theatrical re-release, Criterion is proud to present Grand Illusion in a new special edition, with a beautifully restored digital transfer.

Customer Reviews:

Grand Illusion.......2007-06-20

One of the great achievements in world cinema, Renoir's "The Grand Illusion" explores the seemingly arbitrary borders of class, language, and citizenship that divide us. Banned by the Nazis on the eve of WWII, "Illusion" remains a compelling hybrid of the prison-escape genre and Renoir's own brand of warm, humanistic drama, characterized by the easygoing interactions between soldiers and prisoners. Expertly directed and wonderfully acted by Gabin, Fresnay, Von Stroheim, and Marcel Dalio as French-Jewish compatriot Rosenthal, "Illusion" is ultimately a brilliant critique of war itself. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar in 1938.

The mother of all escape films........2007-05-12

The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

The Grand Illusion is the escape movie of all escape movies, the one from which all the rest descend. On that alone, it would be a classic. This is Renoir, though, and so pretty much by default, it is so much more.

During World War I, two French officers are captured by the German army. Marechal (Jean Gabin) is a working-class stiff who rose through the ranks; de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) is an aristocrat. The two are held captive by von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), who sympathizes with de Boeldieu's plight and comes to see him as something of a friend, but the prisoners are concerned with nothing more than escape. Each discovered attmpt lands them in a supposedly more escape-proof prison, until they're reunited with von Rauffenstein in a castle high above a cliff, from which no prisoner has ever escaped.

The obvious sentiments can be found here, both the anti-war sentiment and the struggle between the classes, yet Renoir allows those to come out naturally in the telling of the tale. Would that more modern directors had learned from this approach. Marechal and de Boeldieu are surrounded by some great straight men (The Grand Illusion was an obvious influence over Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, the movie that in turn inspired the TV show Hogan's Heroes), and Renoir's sense of the absurd plays out in some great sight gags.

I have to admit that, despite the great critical affection for Renoir, I've never found him quite as compelling as Luis Bunuel; that said, The Grand Illusion is a fine, fine movie, and well worth your time if you've not seen it. ****

one of the top ten films of all time.......2007-05-06

Some comments on this reissue:

THE SUBTITLE SITUATION: You can opt out of displaying any subtitles or you can select English, in which case the letters are white but with tiny black borders around them to enhance visibility. THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES IN FRENCH, or in any other language. Grrr.

THE AUDIO SITUATION: There is either the original French, or a prepared commentary in English by Peter Cowie, who is immensely informative and interlaces his material with copious quotes from Renoir himself. There are no dubs into other languages.

The thing has been visibly remastered. Dirt and scratches have been removed.

The thing is, unless there's something I'm missing, there's something YOU'RE missing: the screen you see is only TV-sized: 1.33 to 1, whereas the original film was 1.37 to 1. Just a note to irritate the purists out there.

And another to the folks at Criterion Collection: The "filmed introduction by Jean Renoir" isn't rare anymore!

One of the best movies I've seen........2006-12-04

Brimming with tension, suspense, and action, Grand Illusion is one of the greatest war films ever made. Directed by the brilliant Jean Renoir, the movie effortlessly mixes social commentary, breathless excitement, and a subtle, powerful antiwar message. The cast, lead by Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay as two French soldiers who've been captured by the Germans during World War I, is magnificent, a vibrant assortment of complex, dynamic performers who are blessed with an intuitive grasp of their characters.
The story, which concerns the efforts of a group of French officers to escape from German custody, is an archetype, a blueprint for future features such as The Great Escape, Stalag 17, and just about every prison escape movie you've ever seen. If Grand Illusion had contented itself with being a mere military thriler, it would still have been a masterpiece. However, the film is also a brilliant study of human relationships: Renoir is more concerned with the interactions between the soldiers and their comrades, between the French and the Germans, between the aristocracy and the bourgeoise, and between soldiers and civilians than he is with the specificity of war. By studying the way people treat eachother, Grand Illusion reveals the common experiences and feelings that exist onm both sides of any confrontation, and thus reveals the tragic absudity of war. A great movie.

A Masterpiece of French Cinema.......2006-09-26

Jean Renoir's 1938 film "Grand Illusion" is a legendary film on so many levels. It's on a list of almost every film critic's favorite movies (it's listed in Roger Ebert's "The Great Movies"), it's #1 in The Criterion Collection (which isn't listed by greatness, for the record), and it's inspired movies/shows like The Great Escape and Prison Break. The latter, in it's second season of FOX, has a simalar escape plan. Ask most people who've seen this film and they call it a "Prison escape" movie. Technically it is; The main characters spend more than half the film trying to escape from a Prisoner-of-War camp, but it's a little deeper than that. The film opens on an interesting note; We meet Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim, 'Sunset Boulevard'), a German who has just succeeded in shooting down a French plane that holds Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) and Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay). Even though he has just shot them down von Rauffenstein says "If they are officers, invite them for lunch." Sporting a broken arm Marechal and de Boeldieu join von Rauffenstein for lunch and then they are transported to a P.O.W. camp. Once they get there, Marechal and de Boeldieu are told by three wonderfully colorful characters about an escape plan. They are digging a tunnell that leads to a garden behind some buildings (in one scene, while the others dig, one guy sees that a prisoner has been shot. When he asks why, a soldier tells him the guy was found in the garden behind the buildings trying to escape.). Out of the three men that enlist Marechal and de Boeldieu to help them escape, only one becomes a main character. That's the rich Jew Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio), who recieves parcels of food from his family that he shares with his comrades. One of the other men steals every scene he's in and that's Cartier (Julien Carette), an actor who upstages almost everyone in the film. Anyway, when the tunnell is completed and the escape is set in motion; The men get news that all officers are being transported to a different facility. It's Marechal, Rosenthal, and de Boeldieu that end up together at the new camp that has von Rauffenstein in charge. Since they met him in the beginning, he sustained some spinal injuries ending his flying days and causing him to wear a neck/back brace. At the new facility, there's no tunnell to be dug and the walls are to high to scale...But that doesn't stop out protagonists from attempting to escape. Meanwhile, von Raffenstein befriends de Boeldieu which leads to some of the best moments in the film. One of the things that's most overlooked is that almost every scene in this film ends on a humorous note. Some verbal, most physical. I'm going to end my review of the MOVIE with the fact that this film has some incredible performances and is truly a classic film; You might have to watch it more than once for it to hit you, but this is an early masterpiece. Now, for the technical aspects of the DVD. Criterion usually does a pretty good job as far as picture and sound quality and here it's perfect. The film was made in 1938, but the picture and sound here is so clear that it could've been made a few years ago. I stumbled on this movie only because it was at the Library and I'm very glad I did. If you are a film buff or have any appreciation for film, you should see this movie.

GRADE: A-

Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (Original Release) [Import, All-regions] (Dvd - 1937)

Average customer rating:

Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (Original Release) [Import, All-regions] (Dvd - 1937)
Director: Jean Renoir
Manufacturer: DVD Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Battleship Potemkin

Product Features:

Beautifully remastered import from Korea made for dvd players in the USA/Canada/Korea (NTSC, All-Region).
This is the ORIGINAL theatrical version as envisioned by Jean Renoir with the original, enhanced, French soundtrack (English and Korean subtitles.)
"One of the undeniably great films in the history of world cinema," TV GUIDE

ASIN: B000OK3HF6

Product Description

One of the very first prison escape movies, Grand Illusion is hailed as one of the greatest films ever made. Jean Renoir's antiwar masterpiece of French soldiers held in a World War I German prison camp, and Erich von Stroheim as the unforgettable Captain von Rauffenstein. Following a smash theatrical re-release, Grand Illusion is presented in a new special edition, with a beautifully restored digital transfer.

Average customer rating:

Grand Illusion
The mother of all escape films.
one of the top ten films of all time
One of the best movies I've seen.
A Masterpiece of French Cinema

The Grand Illusion
Starring: Jean Gabin , Dita Parlo , Pierre Fresnay , Erich von Stroheim , and Julien Carette
Director: Jean Renoir
Manufacturer: Home Vision Cinema
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00000F0VW
Release Date: 1998-03-24

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Customer Reviews:

Grand Illusion.......2007-06-20

The mother of all escape films........2007-05-12

one of the top ten films of all time.......2007-05-06

One of the best movies I've seen........2006-12-04

A Masterpiece of French Cinema.......2006-09-26

Average customer rating:

The Grand Illusion [Region 2]
Starring: Jean Gabin , Dita Parlo , Pierre Fresnay , Erich von Stroheim , and Julien Carette
Director: Jean Renoir
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Barbie Doll 1997 Grand Ilusion Marsquerade Gala Collection

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Barbie Doll 1997 Grand Ilusion Marsquerade Gala Collection

Manufacturer: Mattell
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Browse Refinements | Refinements | Toys & Games | Gender (target_audience_browse-bin)
ASIN: B000AT00VU

Product Description

Genre: Drama / War Nominated for Oscar(1939). Won Venice Film Festival(1937) and one nomination. Won New York Film Critics Circle Awards(1939). Won National Board of Review, USA(1938)

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