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Film · France · 1937

Grand Illusion

Name: Grand Illusion scores 63 — Live Historic
Item: Grand Illusion
Rating: 63
Author: Live Historic

63Watch it awake.

Officers share a class across the wire, and the Nazis banned the film later.

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The review

Renoir puts French officers in a German camp during the first war. There is an escape. The war is not a parade, which I was glad of, having sat through plenty. An aristocratic German commandant understands the aristocratic Frenchman better than either understands his own men. Class crosses the line the armies are supposed to hold. A house can watch it without turning the camp into sport.

The Nazis banned it later. That is a fact about the film, not a decoration. What stayed with me was the rank: the men in the camp are the ones their officers do not quite see. The escape matters. The ease between those two gentlemen matters more, and it is not a comfort. I kept them recognizing each other over the heads of their own men.

Journal

Keep Grand Illusion in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household is the thin one.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Best Years of Our Lives

76 instead of 63

The Best Years of Our Lives is still a war film, and it scores 76 instead of 63. What you gain is household: The banker's children have grown, and the bombardier's wife is now a stranger.

The eight

6
Industry
The officers' rank is the subject; their own men are the ones at the war.
2
Household
A camp of officers is not a marriage, a parent, or a child.
6
Piety
A shared code links the enemy gentlemen and still misses their own men.
8
Courage
The escape risks the camp, the life they would otherwise keep.
8
Republic
Each aristocrat understands his enemy counterpart better than his own men.
7
Temperance
The war is not a parade, so glory is not what the picture is selling.
8
Truth
Class crosses the battle line, the fact a patriotic story would skip.
5
Stewardship
The Nazis banned it later; the class line is what the war did not erase.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Grand Illusion · 63IMDb

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Film · United Artists · 1977

A Bridge Too Far

63Watch it awake.

Worth the evening for the cost of a vanity operation. It is a day of duty, and then it is a defeat.

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The review

Richard Attenborough's film is three hours because the operation was a chain, and a chain is the only way to see where it breaks. Paratroopers are dropped to take bridges in the Netherlands. The last bridge, Arnhem, is the one the armor does not reach in time. Radios fail. A road is a single road. Men hold a position because the plan says the armor is coming, and the plan is wrong.

Older teens and adults. You do not need to love a general to learn from this. Ask, at the end, which warning was already in the room before the first aircraft took off. A house that only watches victories will think courage is a guarantee. This film is the correction.

Journal

Keep A Bridge Too Far in the record.