“La Grande Illusion” (1937)
Now comes one of Renoir’s most readily recognized and fondly remembered films, a masterpiece with the kind of magnitude and far-reaching vibrancy that brought him his first taste of international fame. Adored by Orson Welles, who picked it as his desert-island movie, and the first foreign film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, “The Grand Illusion” is one of the greatest POW films ever and probably the greatest film about international and interclass brotherhood. Renoir re-teams with his biggest star player Gabin, and conducts themes so close to his heart and anti-war persuasions that the legacy of the film is hardly surprising. French Aviators Marechal (Gabin) and Boeldieu (a fabulously posh Pierre Fresnay) go from one prison camp to another, mixing with fellow inmates, plotting escapes and running into aristocratic German captain von Rauffenstein (a fantastically rigid Erich Von Stroheim). The way Renoir films these interactions —be it a discussion about the preference of restaurants between prison inmates, or the honor behind upholding one’s nobility between two aristocratic generals— is where magic dwells in “The Grand Illusion”. And whenever one of the three actors mentioned is featured, the film’s legacy is reinforced that much more. Its three-part structure has been endlessly analyzed by film scholars, its overarching theme of compassion amid the senselessness of war has influenced countless anti-war films to come, and its graceful rhythm (think of the dramatic tonal shift when Gabin interrupts the vaudeville show) remains unmatched. You’d think a film with so much testosterone would strong-arm any female performance, but “L’Atalante“‘s Dita Parlo makes a late appearance, and in a few short scenes wrings out whatever is left of your heart.
“La Bête Humaine” (1938)
Anxious to continue their successful collaboration after ‘Illusion,’ Jean Gabin brought the idea of adapting Emile Zola‘s celebrated novel “La Bête Humaine” to Renoir. It’s a unique Renoir picture because it’s his darkest (“Toni” is a close second), featuring a macabre storyline involving murder, the unhappy marriage between Severine (Simone Simon) and Roubaud (Fernand Ledoux), and an unlikely anti-hero in train engineer Jacque Lantier (Gabin), a man plagued by violent outbursts due to a corrupted bloodline. With the exhilarated rush evoked in the opening moments that follow a speeding train arriving at a station, “La Bête Humaine” simultaneously bridges the stark poetic realism permeating the pre-WWII cinematic milieu with the incoming wave of film noir pictures in the ’40s and ’50s. This film sees Renoir working with an atmosphere of unaccustomed and irregular intensity, all gloom and pessimism amplified even further by Curt Couran‘s austere cinematography and the omnipresent locomotive fumes that never seem to entirely dissipate (the train is often a sinister presence, an unstoppable machine cutting through the frame and invading the otherwise peaceful serenity). Despite its subject matter and the impending dark cloud that will cover much of Europe looming closer, Renoir still manages to sprinkle the picture with his signature pathos, through characters like Pecqueux (Julien Carette) who takes life as it comes, or the dance towards the end which no other director would spend as much time on. Nevertheless, the three tragic characters at the centre of “La Bête Humaine” are doomed from the start, and all three actors (most especially Gabin, delivering perhaps his career-best performance) do an impeccable job of evoking their innermost fears and demons, thus helping Renoir carve yet another unforgettable celluloid gem.
