Vintage Poster
The Great Illusion
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This superb La Grande Illusion Poster will make you rediscover one of the most famous films of French cinema. Essential for fans!
- Paper characteristic:
- 🎨 Canvas: world standard in terms of printing and imitating a “painting canvas” appearance .
- By default, the poster contains a 4 cm white border for framing (frame not included). If you don't want it, please choose "without white border".
- ✅ Size: several choices available . ✅
- Great UV resistance .
- Maximum color vibrancy, without reflections .
- Recycled paper, guaranteeing respect for the environment.
- Poster carefully packaged and delivered in a protective tube for total protection .
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FREE STANDARD DELIVERY .
⚠️ Frame not included. ⚠️
Description of this Poster The Great Illusion
La Grande Illusion is a 1937 French war film directed by Jean Renoir, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Spaak. It is an adaptation of the 1909 book The Great Illusion by British journalist Norman Angel, which argues that war is futile because of the common economic interests of all European nations. With Jean Gabin, Pierre Freneuve, Erich von Stroheim and Dita Parlo. The film deals with the class relations that develop between a small group of French officers who are prisoners of war during World War I and who plan an escape.
La Grande Chimère is considered by critics and film historians to be one of the masterpieces of French cinema and one of the greatest films ever made. Orson Welles once said that The Great Chimera was one of two films he would take with him "into the ark."
Empire magazine ranked it number 35 on its list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.
During World War I, two French aviators, the aristocratic Captain de Beauldier and Lieutenant Maréchal, take a flight to examine the location of a blurred spot found in photographs from a previous aerial reconnaissance. They were shot down by German aircraft, captured and detained by German forces. In their detention camp, the commander and aristocrat von Rauffenstein sends one of his officers to determine whether the airmen are officers and, if so, invite them to lunch. During the meal, von Rauffenstein and Boeldieu discover that they have a common acquaintance, an illustration of the intimacy, if not solidarity, between the upper classes which transcend national borders.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are then taken to a prisoner of war camp, where they meet a group of French prisoners and put on a vodvillain-like show after the Germans capture Fort Douaumont during the epic Battle of Verdun. During the performance, news arrives that the French have recaptured the fort. Maréchal interrupts the show and the French prisoners spontaneously appear by singing the Marseillaise. Following this disturbance, Maréchal is placed in the dungeon, where he suffers cruelly from lack of human contact and hunger, while the fort changes hands again. Boeldieu and Maréchal also help their compatriots who are digging an escape tunnel. But shortly before it is completed, they are all transferred to other camps. Marshal, because he does not speak English, cannot report the existence of the tunnel to an arriving British prisoner.
Boeldieu and Maréchal are moved from camp to camp and eventually end up in Wintersborn, a mountain fortress prison run by Rauffenstein, who was very seriously wounded in combat and left the front.
In Wintersborn, the two men find a fellow inmate, Rosenthal, a rich French Jew who generously shares the food packages he receives. Boeldieu gets an idea after carefully observing the German guards' reaction to an emergency situation. He offers to distract the guards for the few minutes necessary for Maréchal and Rosenthal to escape. After a disturbance among the prisoners, the guards herd them into the fortress courtyard, where they discover that Boeldieu has disappeared. He appears at the top of the fortress, attracting the attention of the German guards who start chasing him. Maréchal and Rosenthal thus find the opportunity to jump out of a window with a rope and escape.
Rauffenstein forbids the guards from shooting Boeldieu and asks him to surrender. Boeldieu refuses to surrender and Rauffenstein shoots him, aiming at the legs, but ultimately hits him in the stomach. In his final moments, Boeldieu laments that their usefulness to society (as aristocrats) ends with this war. He pities Rauffenstein, who will have to find a new purpose in the emerging social order.
Maréchal and Rosenthal walk through the German countryside, trying to reach nearby Switzerland. Rosenthal injures his leg, slowing down Maréchal. They take refuge in the medieval farm of a German woman, Elsa, who lost her husband in Verdun, as well as her three brothers, in battles ironically described as "our greatest victories". She hides them and does not betray them when she comes across a German army patrol. Maréchal begins to fall in love with her and she responds to him, but the two eventually part ways out of a sense of duty in the war effort after Rosenthal recovers from his injury. Maréchal declares his intention to return to Elsa and her daughter Lotte after the war.
A German patrol approaches the two fugitives as they cross a snowy valley. The soldiers fired a few shots, but the leader of the patrol ordered them to stop, claiming that they had crossed into Switzerland. Finally, we see them in the distance, in the deep snow, walking towards an uncertain future.
