Grand Illusion
La grande illusion
1937 · France · 113 min · 1.37:1 · B&W
Directed by Jean Renoir
Introduction
Grand Illusion is a 1937 French film directed by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin as Maréchal, of working-class background, Pierre Fresnay as the aristocratic Boëldieu, and Erich von Stroheim as Rauffenstein, the German officer commanding a prison fortress. Two French airmen are shot down during the First World War and moved through a succession of camps before arriving at the fortress Rauffenstein commands. He and Boëldieu belong to the same declining nobility and deal with each other on those terms; Boëldieu creates a disturbance to cover the escape of the other two and is shot doing it. The film contains no battle scenes. It was banned in Germany and Italy, and its negative was long believed destroyed before being recovered in Moscow in the 1990s.
Titles
- Mainland China
- 大幻影
- Hong Kong
- 大幻影
- Taiwan
- 大幻影
- English
- Grand Illusion
- Original
- La grande illusion