1 Grand Illusion

[James]

Does anyone know if there's a R0 Blu-ray of this in the works?

[Drucker]

From blu ray.com:

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=7349" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Grand Illusion coming to blu ray via studio canal.

[jbeall]

Jean Renoir's Timely Lessons for Europe

[HistoryProf]

Here's the schedule for Rialto's tour of the SC 4k restoration that's going on right now:

May 11 – 24 NEW YORK, NY Film Forum
May 18 – 31 LOS ANGELES, CA Laemmle’s Royal Theatre
May 18 – 31 PASADENA, CA Laemmle’s Playhouse 7
June 1 – 3 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Castro Theatre
June 8 – 14 DALLAS, TX Angelika Film Center
June 16 – 17 AUSTIN, TX Paramount Theatre
July 6 – 12 PORTLAND, OR Cinema 21
July 13 – 19 SEATTLE, WA Northwest Film Forum
July 27 ST. LOUIS, MO Cinema St. Louis
Aug 8 – 14 HARTFORD, CT Cinestudio

[Brian C]

It's also playing here in Chicago from June 29 to July 5 at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

[PillowRock]

It's currently playing at the newly opened Angelika in Fairfax, VA (suburban DC).

I just noticed it today. Tomorrow (Thurs, 9/27) is the last of the evening showings; but they have matinee showings listed for another week (through 10/4), I think with latest showings being at 16:30 each day.

[Mr Sausage]

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[Mr Sausage]

The winner of the Jean Renoir portion of the Jean, Jean, and John mini list project is our discussion topic for this round.

[colinr0380]

It is also a very timely film for all of the centenary commemorations of the First World War that are going on at the moment. It is a film with very defined class divisions involving well bred, aristocratic officers of opposing sides having perhaps more in common with each other than those they command (in some ways the prison camps end up feeling a bit like a public school, even to the extent of being all male and putting on plays, with the well bred officers as the Prefects and Erich von Stroheim's character pressed into service as the strict corporal punishment threatening stern Governor!), though the sadness of the film is that this more refined connection between Captain de Boeldieu and von Rauffenstein has to be put aside for everyone to play their part expected of them in war to be loyal to their countrymen above all, and Boeldieu even uses his more 'trusted' position to put on a shockingly out of character display as a means of distraction from the escape attempt of the others in his final scene.

That then gets replaced in the final section of the film with the 'earthier' working class (and urbanised) Maréchal and nouveau riche (anticipating the character of the Marquis de Chesnay in The Rules of the Game to follow) Rosenthal together on the lam and their encounters with a German woman who shelters them which, ironically for wars to come, seems to try to suggest that while the aristocratic class governed by strict rules of behaviour has been swept away with this more brutal war, that a common bond of humanity and decency between all sides amongst the working class, the women left at home and between religions could potentially be formed. But there is some ambivalence there about whether that would be particularly possible (focused on more thoroughly in The Rules of the Game), as Maréchal and Rosenthal are soon back to bickering at each other as they cross the border to safety in the magnificent final shot where the arbitrary political border between Germany and Switzerland is marked by nothing more than a snowy, empty field.

I suppose my main question about the film is: "Qu'est que c'est Cadastre?"