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List Price: $39.95Amazon.com's Price: $22.99 You Save: $16.96 (42%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: Image Entertainment
EAN: 9780780020702
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 0780020707
Label: Criterion
Manufacturer: Criterion
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Academy Ratio
Publisher: Criterion
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 23, 1999
Running Time: 114 minutes
Sales Rank: 6406
Studio: Criterion
Theatrical Release Date: September 12, 1938
Editorial Review:
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.
Amazon.com essential video:
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Overrated
Jean Renoir's 1937 black and white film, Grand Illusion (La Grande Illusion), is often bandied about with Citizen Kane on the list of all time great films, but unlike that film, Grand Illusion was a commercial and critical sensation from its initial release. While both are arguably great films, neither is really within sniffing distance of any mythic top spot. Both have flaws, but Grand Illusion has more flaws than Citizen Kane and is clearly the lesser film, although it's still certainly a very ... Read More
Rating:  - "Borders are man-made. Nature couldn't care less"
It's incredible to me that I went over 50 years without seeing Jean Renoir's "Grand Illusion," but such was the case until recently. The only consolation for all those missed opportunities to see one of the greatest films ever made is that I watched the Criterion edition, which took an old negative and, using the latest technology, turned it into a beautifully produced film.
The overriding impression from "Grand Illusion" is the absolute stupidity of war, as expressed in the lives of ... Read More
Rating: - THE GREAT WWI PRISON ESCAPE
The film itself is an amazing story but also the story of how the current print came to be. The Nazis stole the original print from the French as one of their first priorities at the beginning of WWII. It was considered 'Cinematographic Enemy Number One'. All showings later were from copies and pieced together with not so great quality. Decades later the original was found and is now the print used by Criterion, an almost perfect version with sharpness and clarity as if made yesterday. This is the ... Read More
Rating:  - Retrospection on the Great War
This story is set in 1916. French soldiers are in a bar. Marechal is summoned to HQ for a mission to photograph the enemy lines. But they are shot down (off camera) and brought to the enemy officer's barracks for lunch. The war does not prevent formal manners. The officer prisoners are then sent to a POW camp. They receive packages of food to supplement their rations. Some of the prisoners are digging an escape tunnel. The details are shown; the same techniques will be used in the next war. There is ... Read More
Rating: - Essential French Cinema: Renoir's La Grande Illusion.
There's an endearing reference to The Grand Illusion in Woody Allen's Manhattan, which I saw again recently in the theater (in its new 35mm print). That reference prompted me to revisit Renoir's antiwar masterpiece in French cinema last night. The Grand Illusion is among the earliest prison escape movies, and is recognized as one of the greatest films ever made. It tells the unforgettable story of Maréchal (Jean Gabin) and de Boieldieu (Pierre Fresnay), two French aviators who plot their escape from ... Read More
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