I get your point, Mike, but SOCIAL CLASS is not such a small-scope issue. It is one of the major themes in RULES OF THE GAME.
But it’s also a major theme in GRAND ILLUSION, along with war-peace, nationality, love, loyalty, friendship, and many other BIG ideas that have applicability to “every facet of life.”
I guess I prefer GRAND ILLUSION (which deals with MANY illusions, not just war) because it addresses more ideas and themes. On the other hand, aesthetically, the long takes in RULES OF THE GAME are preferable in many ways.
i prefer “illusion” because it packs more of an emotional punch for me. i particularly remember von stroheim and his flowers.
“rules” will forever be the great cinematic mystery for me. ive seen it a couple of times and still cant see its appeal. though i understand what everyone else sees in it. just doesnt move me.
Grand Illusion is the first film that I have seen by Jean Renoir. And yes, he is the son of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Ridiculous, I know. It came out in 1937 and was hailed as one of the first prison break films. As I ate my Skittles and drank my Squirt and vodka, its influences on prison films throughout time became very apparent. From the playful performance of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke matching that of Jean Gabin’s, to the fantastic prison dinner scene in GoodFellas.
And without this film, Colin Farrell would not have been able to cause me such pain (as he does in every film he is in) in Hart’s War. Besides all of the lawyer nonsense, it is a blatant rip off of Grand Illusion. Maybe if Colin Farrell wasn’t in it I could call it a homage. But he is, so it isn’t.
One fantastic scene where Jean Gabin’s character Lieutenant Maréchal was starting a tunnel in his cell with a spoon when a guard walked in and asked, “what are you doing?”. Lieutenant Maréchal replied, “making a little hole to escape”. And he proceeds to knock out the guard and make a run for it, only to be caught moments later and returned.
I very thoughtful shooting style used a lot of camera movements in and out of windows really keeping the thought of “escape” on the brain. And the theme of antiwar that Renoir was shooting for was captured very nicely with the incredibly respectful relationship between Pierre Fresnay’s French prisoner character Captain de Boeldieu and Erich von Stroheim’s German captor character Captain von Rauffenstein.
Another great scene depicted the prisoners where partaking in a snowball fight in the prison courtyard. Soldiers always!
If there was anything that made me feel any anger (besides having to think about Colin Farell) from Grand Illusion, was the giant, cookie-dusting mustaches sported by the German officers that I am not able to grow myself. I’m German! Come on! My mom says it’s the hairless Native American genes in me. I blame Global Warming.
cinematicidiot.blogspot.com
(Didn’t really know where to post this, and didn’t think it necessarily deserved its own topic, so…)
What’s with the obvious differences in picture quality when the camera changes? Last night I watched Bicycle Thieves and I noticed it has the same thing going on in it too. Sometimes, when it switches to a new scene or camera angle, the picture quality is extremely degraded, and then WHAM it suddenly corrects itself. It looks like it’s done on purpose, as if to say “Check out how well we restored this film! Look at how shitty it looked before we got our paws on it!”
At first I thought maybe it was mastered from different negatives or something, and they probably did the best they could with the poorer negative to fill in the gaps of the better one. However, if that were the case, I wouldn’t expect it to happen conveniently between scenes or dialogue.
Am I communicating this clearly enough? Surely you all have noticed what I’m talking about. If not, I’ll try to explain it better.
I am no expert in such matters but I think I’ve heard that the transitional frame may have taken more of a beating back in the day then the other frames. I see no other reason why what you’re talking about would be the case. I’m sure others could clarify this better.
Hmm…that does make sense.
Mike Spence
“I’m with Bobby Wise and Jake: GRAND ILLUSION is far better than RULES OF THE GAME, especially in terms of its humanistic “message.” It’s a war movie with NO battles,”
But Frank, love and the Game Renoir refers to is a kind of war in itself. I love GRAND ILLUSION but to me the “rules of the game” are more applicable in every facet of life than the “illusions” of war. I suppose my argument could be turned around but for me the smaller the scope the bigger the hit, so to speak.