The Art of War Katie Atkinson | FDMA 426.001 | Angela Beauchamp | December 12, 2021

Though set in World War I, La Grande Illusion seems to be cautioning the brutality of the upcoming war with Germany. However, while other films of the era about World War I center the carnage of the battlefield, La Grande Illusion focuses on the civility and adherence to rules of engagement. Furthermore, it comments on the art and theatrics of war, the waning power of the aristocracy, the rise of the middle class, and language as both a unifier and separator. By examining the cinematography and languages of one of Jean Renoir’s masterpieces, we shall see how the aforementioned themes are expressed, with foreboding implications for the upcoming war.

Renoir’s cinematography techniques are said to realize the mind’s eye rather than the human eye. He frames shots in the style of Renaissance paintings, long shots that pan and zoom, as well as cutting within the frame, so the audience feels the story as opposed to just observing it. One of the prime examples is in the scene in which the French prisoners are preparing for the performance for their German captors. Graham Cairns notes, for example, the similarities between Renoir’s use of distinct planes of action in the same frame with the depth of plane and special unity of Renaissance perspective painting (24).

While this technique is used repeatedly throughout the film, another tactic Renoir uses is more engaging to the audience and expresses the feelings of the prisoners. While the prisoners are rehearsing for their performance, they are given Parisian style dresses and wigs. After one young prisoner is asked to dress in a costume, his resemblance to a woman enthralls the rest of the prisoners:

The camera pans from the dancers to the main cast searching through the costumes. When the young prisoner returns from changing into the dress and wig, the surrounding soldiers are aghast with the closest thing they have seen to a woman, likely in months if not years. This feeling is expressed by the camera pulling back from the young “woman”, panning across the rest, then pulling out to show the soldiers circled around “her.” The audience can relate to the man dressed as a woman, trying to reassure the others, and himself, that he "looks funny.”

Finally, Renoir cuts within the frame. “Traditional Renaissance perspective allows Renoir to set up complex narratives in one continuous space, in a manner that formally contested the artifice of classical cutting" (Crain 24). In the following scene, the prisoners are performing for the German officers. During the performance, Maréchal (Jean Gabin) learns the French army has taken back a territory, and then he leads the prisoners in singing “La Marseillaise,” the French National Anthem.

The camera pans from the band playing the anthem, to Maréchal leading the singing on stage. Then it pulls back to the German officers discussing the revelation and pans between the audience of prisoners and performers before landing on a shot of the audience that fills the frame. Here Renoir “cuts” from the prisoners to the officers back to the prisoners in a set of fluid motions. The diversion from traditional cuts keeps the audience in the perspective of the prisoners, feeling the pride and pleasure of being in direct defiance of their captors.

While the camera is used to delineate the perspective of the prisoners, the structure of the armies is used to comment on the waning power of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle class. After World War I, European countries adopted a democratic philosophy, replacing the power of long-lasting aristocracies with elected officials. Renoir uses Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) as representations of this shift and their relationship to define their status. The fact they are able speak each other’s language, as well as English, is the first signal to their royal status, but more on that later. At their first meeting after the French officers have been captured, Rauffenstein mentions knowing a Count de Boeldieu in Hamburg in French, but then they quickly switch to English, confirming their elitism. However, just down the table Maréchal is speaking with a German officer who is of the same profession as a civilian. Maréchal comments about the surprisingly good quality of his French, suggesting that outside of the war the two soldiers would be colleagues, rather than enemies.

From the beginning of the film, the audience is shown that while war is a great equalizer, in the case of Maréchal and the German officer, it also shows that the aristocracy separates itself from civilians. Once Maréchal and Boeldieu join the other officers at the prisoner’s camp, we see that most of the officers come from varying backgrounds: a banker, an actor, a vegetarian, among others. While some of them distrust Boeldieu because of his royal title, Maréchal defends him. Boeldieu further closes the social gap using disease as a metaphor for the middle class gaining more power, but also that disease and death do not discriminate based on class.

Language plays a significant role in identifying likenesses and differences between class and nationalities, as well as its importance in relationships. French, German, and English are used interchangeably by the main characters but as previously mentioned, it speaks most about Boeldieu and Rauffenstein’s relationship. The two switch between French and English, first expressed in the dinner after the French are captured. Jeremy Triggs explains the meaning of the switch, observing that Boeldieu and Rauffenstein presume the other’s knowledge of English as a language common to European aristocracy, something that gives them a “privileged intimacy” that talks over the heads of others (72).

Triggs further notes Rauffenstein’s regret when he Boeldieu, Maréchal, Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) and others to the castle prison in Holland. Rauffenstein talks with Boeldieu in a more familiar way than he does with the other officers, including the Germans, but at this moment they are lamenting the lack of usefulness their class serves.

However, the most narratively important example is when Boeldieu is helping Maréchal and Rosenthal escape. While Boeldieu makes his way up the tower as a distraction, Rauffenstein begins speaking to him in English, their shared language. Triggs makes another astute observation of this moment: "When Rauffenstein learns of Boeldieu's dangerous escapade, he makes a final personal appeal to Boeldieu to surrender. Interestingly, the appeal is in English, unintelligible to his own men and the various prisoners" (72).

Rauffenstein in English: Boeldieu, have you really gone insane?

Boeldieu in English: I'm perfectly sane.

Rauffenstein in English: Boeldieu, you understand that if you do not obey at once and come down, I shall have to shoot. . . I dread to do that. I beg you ... man to man, comeback.

Boeldieu in English: It's damn nice of you, Rauffenstein, but it's impossible.

Rauffenstein must shoot Boeldieu, and after learning that Maréchal and Rosenthal have escaped, he still speaks to himself in English. “So that is why.” He may only use English with himself now and has to shift into German to give commands to search for the escaped prisoners (Triggs 73).

Spoken language is the most prevalent example, but Renoir also emphasizes the use of “universal” languages, mainly music. There are several key moments where music is used as a universal language: the singing of “La Marseillaise” (seen above), Maréchal’s time in solitary confinement, the escape from the castle prison (also seen above), and the Christmas celebration at Elsa’s (Dita Parlo). After an undetermined amount of time in confinement, Maréchal begins to crack, exclaiming his frustrations to the guard:

The German guard seemingly does not understand Maréchal, offers him cigarettes and a harmonica. Maréchal ignores the gifts at first, but once the guard leaves, he begins to play the harmonica and the guard sings along to the tune. This unifying moment transcends language barriers. The guard can hear the pain in his voice and gives him a different way to express his frustration and hear a familiar language in music.

The final example is coupled with another universal language: love. Though Rosenthal translates for Elsa and Maréchal, the time they spend together is the only time Maréchal attempts to learn German. In spite of the two speaking different languages, they fall in love to the strains of music from a Gramophone record on Christmas day and Maréchal tries tentative German phrases with both Elsa and her daughter Lotte.

The themes and devices used in La Grande Illusion could be endlessly discussed, and the topics above are only a fraction of what the film has to say. However, the style of cinematography and various forms of language offer a glimpse into Renoir’s views on war. With classic art translated onto film, the camera as a narrative and emotional driver, an understanding of language as status symbol and its ability to unify and divide, the universality of music, and love transcending barriers of language and war, Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion shows the humanity in war.

In post-war America, what should have been a film renaissance became an outlet for the paranoia of Communism. Hollywood was imploding. Studio systems that once reigned were collapsing, stripped of their monopolies, and with dwindling theatre attendance, studios grasped frantically onto their old ideals rather than adapt to the burgeoning television industry. While history tells us it was mostly the fault of studios and their executives, in a post-World War II America, the conservative studio heads shifted the focus to its liberal creatives. Studios had already begun paring down their rosters of contract writers, favoring acquiring scripts on spec, but the formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee gave studios an advantage of being able to purchase scripts from prolific writers at nearly a tenth of their worth. Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard uses the Film Noir style to examine the treatment of writers in Hollywood and the studios' complacency in the HUAC attacks on talent. Characters Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and Joe Gillis (William Holden) represent Hollywood’s willingness to sacrifice talent and its unwillingness to adapt.

Post-war America birthed a booming economy and pride of being the world leader in democracy, but American fearlessness was short lived.Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunism campaign and “wild assertions and unsubstantiated charges created an atmosphere of such terror that the term, ‘McCarthyism,’ came to define the decade” (Giglio 98).

McCarthy and HUAC targeted many in the government, arts and academia, but Hollywood used it to its advantage. The practice of “blacklisting” was part of discouraging unionization and blocked employees and artists from working.

Hollywood power was diminishing with the rise of television, and rather than adapt, they kept recycling through the same plots and trying new ploys to regain audiences like 3D and Cinemascope (Giglio 101). With studios rapidly falling into debt and losing much of their real estate holdings, they opted for cutting their most problematic employees: writers. Janet Staiger notes that “between June 1945 and August 1948 the number of writers on term contracts fell from 189 to 87” and with the Hollywood Ten and the Unfriendlies making national news, writers had minimal bargaining power under the threat of the blacklist. The lucky few writers and directors who still had sway used film as a way to expose Hollywood’s wrong-doings. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett’s Sunset Boulevard tries to express solidarity with those who were discarded.

Film Noir, possibly the most impactful genre of the Golden Age of Hollywood, was able to express unconventional themes under the guise of a crime story. It was able to address the anxieties of military personnel readjusting to civilian life, along with topics such as masculinity, sexuality, gender, and morality. Sunset Boulevard uses the style to address the anxieties of Hollywood talent as they were targeted by HUAC over political beliefs. Colin Arason calls Billy Wilder and Charles Bracketts’ Sunset Boulevard “a script dealing with the plight of a desperately unemployed screenwriter presented an ideal opportunity to pull back the curtain and expose the sordid reality that Hollywood scribes were increasingly exposed to in a hostile environment where they were beset by accusations flying from all sides" (4). Pulling back the curtain is the desired effect, but it is achieved by Joe Gillis in post-mortem narration. Voiceover narration is a common technique in Film Noir, but since the audience knows that Joe will die, the mystery lies in the how. This could also be symbolic of the death of the writer as Hollywood knows it. Joe’s narration is the representation of the how of the demise of writers in Hollywood.

In classic Film Noir structure, the film has a “femme fatale” and a “good girl," but not in the typical sense. Norma Desmond is the femme fatale in Sunset Boulevard; however, she is no Rita Hayworth, but an aged Silent Film Era star. Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) is also not the typical good girl; she’s more assertive, wittier, and in pursuit of a career rather than a family life. Another departure from the typical Film Noir is Norma’s butler, Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim, who also appeared in La Grande Illusion.) While he does Norma’s bidding, he also tries to warn Joe of his inevitable fate, and we learn that he is the husband and previous victim of Norma’s attempt at regaining her stardom. These characters play not only their Film Noir archetypes, but also representations of the Hollywood system.