Word: renoirs
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Even high caliber films from Saving Private Ryan to Platoon embody an overwhelming sense of the uncanny human ability to destroy. Thus, when the gods of film restoration rediscover a masterpiece like Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion, the film's social commentary and reflections on humanity appear dated and escape unnoticed if one is not careful...
Toted as the seminal World War I movie, Grand Illusion often garnishes critical accolades for its anti-war message as well as Renoir's masterful use of landscape shots. In 1938, a year after its release, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, the first foreign film ever to receive this honor. Joseph Goebbles, the Nazi propaganda chief, called the film "Cinematic Public Enemy No. 1." Sadly enough, after another world war, the Vietnam War and the melange of violence at home, Grand Illusion no longer has the sense of anti-war urgency that it possessed...
...This obvious attempt to inject class is not only a shadow of Renoir's leftist leanings, but it also serves to set the grounding for the film's climax. The '90s viewer is accustomed to images of war camps populated with emaciated prisoners living in horrible conditions. Thus, Renoir's attempt to convey a POW camp is incredibly dated...
...viewer must remember that Renoir filmed this before concentration camps and Vietnam POW camps, when war had a distinct code of morality and enemy soldiers had a distant respect for each other's bravery...
...biggest stretch for the postmodern viewer is Renoir's attempt to convey the necessity of escape from the prison camp. For a jaded moviegoer, life in the camps does not appear quite so horrible. The prisoners are isolated from the trenches and the continuous threat of death, are well fed and have each other's company...