Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 267: Thu Sep 25

La Grande Illusion (Renoir, 1939):
The Russett, 17 Amhurst Terrace, London, E8. 7.45pm



CINÉ-REAL is a non-for-profit film club with the aim of bringing together film makers, actors, writers, directors, producers, photographers, cinephiles etc, to enjoy classic films as film and share their passion for filmmaking.. The films shown are all 16mm prints.

Chicago Reader review:
For many years this 1937 tale of brotherhood and escape, set in a World War I German prison camp, was considered Jean Renoir's official masterpiece. It's an excellent film, with Renoir's usual looping line and deft shifts of tone, though today the balance of critical opinion has shifted in favor of the greater darkness and filigree of The Rules of the Game. Francois Truffaut described it as"the least eccentric of all of Renoir's French movies," and for that reason it has long been the most popular. But to imagine this same material in the hands of any of the cinema's more naive, more didactic humanists—a Capra or a Stevens, say—is to appreciate the measure of Renoir's genius and honesty.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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