La+Grande+Illusion

//Directed by Jean Renoir (1937)//


 * Plot:** A group of French officers plot an escape during their time as prisoners of war in a very comfortable POW camp.

What the characters **want:** Comfort. Throughout the first act of the film, the characters constantly preoccupy themselves with making their stay at the POW camp as comfortable as possible. They seek to replicate the conditions that existed in their own homes, before the war. Most conversations revolve around what is happening on the "outside world" and their families back home. The POWs convince themselves that the war will be over soon, even when military reports of developments in the war constantly prove otherwise. Their attempts to escape the camp are only a temporary means of convincing themselves that they are in control of their own fates, when in reality, they are powerless to bring the war to an end.

What the characters **need:** The end of the war. While they make do with the relatively cosy conditions of the POW camp, the protagonists Captain de Boeldieu and Lieutenant Marechal eventually realize that the need to escape. As the ending of the film proves, however, freedom from the camp is only a temporary relief. What they really need is out of their control, which is the end of the war. All their efforts into replicating "peaceful" pre-war conditions of their own homes (decorating for Christmas, dressing up in drag when they lack female companionship) are really just demonstrations of their desire to be back home. They could not care less about who wins the war, only that it ends.


 * Tone:** The overall emotional content of the film is kept light-hearted in the soldiers' interactions with one another. This is significantly different from most other war films, which generally carry heavy and dramatic tones.This contributes to the film's idea that the soldiers have fallen to the "grand illusion" perpetuated by the comfort of the prison camp, and their constant self-reassurance that the war will be over "soon". Because World War One was commonly thought as "the war to end all wars" as a result of propoganda, Renoir's illustrates the pointlessness and lies perpetuated by war, and the truth that there would never truly be a war to "end all wars".

1. In this scene, the strategic placement of the soldier dressed in drag with his comrades surrounding him serves to emphasize the dramatic effect of the soldiers' time spent away from home and the company of women.



2. Windows are a recurring motif in the film's mis-en-scene. Characters are often shown looking out of windows, which serve as reminders of their true state of captivity. Here, the captain looks at his comrades engaging in some kind of running exercise outside his window. This is one instance out of many where a character talks about life before the war, and what is going on "out there". The window that separates the captain from the world outside the window serves to symbolize the confines of the prison camp that have isolated the POWs from what is going on in the war. The war, in turn, is what separates everyone that it has affected from returning back home to peaceful lives of normalcy and daily routine, which they desperately try to imitate within the POW camp.



3. In this scene, the soldiers occupy themselves by performing household chores and doing housework such as sewing that were usually associated with female roles at the time. Once again, this serves to emphasize the soldiers' sense of isolation from the "outside world", as they are kept within the confines of the prison camp. The soldiers distract themselves with menial tasks to keep up the illusion of comfort that pervades the prison camp, in order to avoid addressing the issue at hand, which is the ongoing war that they feel powerless to influence in any way.



4 + 5: As you can see, Renoir uses a lot of windows to emphasize the soldiers' true state of captivity despite the cosy conditions. The soldiers are often filmed from outside the window, almost like animals in a cage. They often stand looking out of windows, because they are reminded that they are isolated from the outside world.





6. During the performance put up by the soldiers, the the main performer appear to be "boxed in" by the placement of the stage set behind him on the stage. In addition, the set consists of a fence-like structure which is once again supportive of the theme of imprisonment. On a larger scale, the imprisonment of the soldiers in the prison camp is representative of the imprisoning effect of war on human societies. In this manner, Renoir emphasizes the anti-war sentiment of the film by allowing the prison camp to serve as a microcosm of the outside world affected by the war.

7. In this scene, the bird's eye view of the soldiers' heads makes the soldiers look unified as a whole, despite their different nationalities, ranks, and pre-war social statuses. This contributes to the way the film addresses the theme of class distinction between the soldiers, particularly during several conversations between newly acquainted soldiers that take place in the film. In the film, and particularly in this scene, the soldiers have ignored the previous class distinctions that they had before the war, and are more or less seen as equals among one another.



8. In this scene, the guard looks into Rosenthal's cell through the door's peephole, emphasizing his position of freedom in contrast to Rosenthal's captivity.



9. And in this scene, Captain de Bouldieu is seen admiring a bird in a cage. This is yet another of the recurring motifs of imprisonment found throughout the film, except in this case, it is a bird that has been "imprisoned". Here, Renoir compares the prisoners of war to a bird in the cage,<range type="comment" id="407838806_6"> as a statement on how blissfully unaware they are of their true captivity.</range id="407838806_6">



10. The two wardens that are in charge of Rosenthal are seen speaking outside his cell in a doorway. Like windows, <range type="comment" id="407838806_7">doorways are used in many different backgrounds of scenes to literally "frame" characters. </range id="407838806_7">In this shot, the two wardens who are seemingly "free" are shown to be boxed in by the doorway that they are standing in front of. Despite their positions of authority over their prisoner, Renoir demonstrates through the mis-en-scene that they are, in fact, imprisoned within the very institution that they are in charge of.