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, 16-
17) – 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.

1These 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.
 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 working-
class. 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

2 “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.
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