April In Paris Film Festival – Grand Illusion

Director: Jean Renoir

1937, France, 117, NR

Screenwriter: Renoir and Charles Spaack.

Cast: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim.

The discussion after the film will be led by Trinity professor Prakash Younger, author of Boats on the Marne: Jean Renoir’s Critique of Modernity.

 

Don’t miss the chance to see France’s timeless anti-war masterpiece, in a 35mm film print (!), directed by Jean Renoir. Using World War I as a lens to condemn the rise of Nazism, Renoir gives us three French prisoners of war who display the class difference in the French nation: Gabin as a working class aviator, Fresnay as an aristocratic officer, and Dallo’ patriotic Jewish banker willing to die for his adopted home. Von Stroheim is unforgettable as an upper class German Commander, who finds a common ground with his French counterpart (Fresnay). It is no surprise that Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels called La Grande Illusion “Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1” without a single scene of battle, it is one of the greatest anti-war films ever made.

“Grand Illusion looks even more radical today… ultimately defines war by indelibly showing how much it can destroy.” Janet Maslin, New York Times.