Implicit Meaning Of The Grand Illusion

The opening sequence of The Grand Illusion: a scaffold for the message of the film. Adrien Husson UID 403751072 01/27/09

The opening sequence of The Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1937), which extends from the opening credits to the cross-fade to the prisoners’ camp, is an establishment of the major themes tackled throughout the film. However, it consists of implicit clues and the film is a key required to unlock their meaning. Since The Grand Illusion is composed of three acts (‘In the camp’, ‘In the castle’, ‘Running away’), 1 it is logical both structurally and narratively to consider the first seven minutes and a half as the opening sequence; they introduce but do not belong to the main storyline, establish the three main characters and, as it will be shown below, capture the essence of the film’s discourse. The mise-en-scène and the editing of the opening sequence are very formal and for the most part, inconsequential. Renoir’s typical deep focus (Andrew 2004, 103) instils a sense of familiarity while the four opening shots, each one minute in length – nothing unusual for the 1930s (Bordwell 2002, 1617) – consecutively introduce Lieutenant Maréchal (Jean Gabin), Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay), Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim), and finally the three men interacting with each other for the first time.

These made-up titles account for the three main parts of the film, from the first prisoner’s camp, to Rauffenstein’s fortress, and finally to Maréchal’s and Rosenthal’s (Marcel Dalio) journey to the Swiss frontier. 1

The framing, however, conveys meaning on several occasions. The film opens on a vinyl of the song ‘Frou-frou’, an old French song from the belle époque about the virtues of skirts and their ability to make girls cute and men happy. Maréchal is about to go to the city to see Joséphine, a woman he does not mind sharing with his colleagues, but unhesitatingly delays his plans when he is called to “take up a staff officer”. Both the informal mood of the barracks and Gabin’s non-diegetic iconic status of the everyman attached to social justice (Andrew 2004, 98) identify him as a member of the workingclass. Elements of unsophisticated living appear two shots later in the German barracks: scratching one’s ear, mixing large amounts of alcohol, and women too – the final close-up of this shot is that of a charming woman, and the camera movement towards this close-up is the exact reversal of the first shot where Maréchal looks at the vinyl disc of the saucy song ‘Frou-frou’. Similarly, a parallel is established between de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein even before they meet: de Boeldieu had the choice to fly either with a flying suit or a fur jacket. He chooses the latter, and in the very next shot von Rauffenstein is introduced wearing the former. The connection between the French and German barracks is strengthened by the opening sequence’s only noticeable use of editing, a cross-fade from de Boeldieu about to get on a plane to von Rauffenstein declaring he shot a plane down. 2 This editing choice denies the divisions created by war (horizontal divisions) 3 and gives way to class division (vertical divisions): de Boeldieu finds that he is connected to von Rauffenstein through his Germany-based cousin (a typically cosmopolitan encounter) while Maréchal finds a common interest in mechanics (i.e. manual work) with the German soldier sitting next to him. The formality of the shots completes this new division by framing de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein together, then Maréchal and the German soldier. This abolishes the spatial proximity of the two pairs and instead presents them as parallel versions of a transnational encounter, both valid yet incompatible with one another. Still, they both reject “One of the brilliant stokes of the film” according to James Kerans (1960, 13) since by avoiding “a rehash of patriotic hostilities and heroics” (Kerans 1960, 13) it already makes the film more pacifist than its overly graphic successors (Kerans 1960, 10). 3 The editing even seems to imply that war unites people of different countries by making the aerial raid responsible for the transnational meal shown in the opening sequence. 2

the notion that war should separate individuals, and after ceremonial apologies upon seeing the funeral wreath of a dead French soldier they quickly resume their casual conversation. The opening sequence of The Grand Illusion hints at the irreducible differences between de Boeldieu’s aristocratic manner and Maréchal’s working-class ethos which will result in each of them finding their own way out of imprisonment (Kerans 1960, 15). In doing so, and by connecting Germans and French over the gap of frontiers, it reveals the falsehood of war. This is the ‘Grande Illusion’ of the ‘Grande Guerre’: that nations divide men more than class does. Yet about nations and about class one could say what Rosenthal says about frontiers: “They’re man-made. Nature couldn’t care less”.

Works Cited Andrew, Dudley. "French Cinema in the 1930s." Chap. 5 in European Cinema, edited by Elizabeth Ezra, 97-113. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Bordwell, David. "Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film." Film Quarterly 55, no. 3 (Spring 2002): 16-28. Kerans, James. "Classics Revisited: "La Grande Illusion"." Film Quarterly 14, no. 2 (Winter 1960): 10-17.

Films Cited The Grand Illusion, Jean Renoir, 1937