Goose or duck lever pâté ?

Goose or duck lever pâté ? « Grand illusion » or « The rules of the game » ?

« La grande illusion » (1937) and its tale of prisoners of war in Germany during WW1 ? Or « La règle du jeu » (1939) and its affairs of masters and servants during a hunting party at a manor house.

Arguably the two best French films ever, both by Jean Renoir.

« La règle du jeu » may give more pleasure to watch, but I shall always pick « La grande illusion ».

If you believed the odds, « La grande illusion » should not have been a masterpiece. The film should have been marred by the same cheap sentimentality as certain of Jean Renoir’s father, Pierre, paintings or the director’s later works.

One constantly fears that the movie turn ridiculous, but it never does ; this may best define a great film.

The film should also have delivered stodgy political statements. « Front Populaire » had come to power in France, Renoir was a communist sympathiser and had shot the year before a documentary film, « La vie est à nous », for Communist trade union CGT.

The film title supposedly exposed two illusions rather than one : the illusion of borders, as men were not divided in countries but social classes, the illusion of brotherhood, as men brought together by war and captivity returned, with freedom and peace, to their original classes and prejudices.

Film was to close on a table with two empty chairs at Paris Maxim’s restaurant : Gabin’s lieutenant Maréchal, the working man, and Dalio’s Rosenthal, the banker’s son, were to celebrate their escape together, but neither shows up.

Scene was never shot and film ends on Maréchal and Rosenthal crossing into Switzerland. « La grande illusion » is less clever but better for it. As the characters manage their escape, Renoir too lets them free, and the audience as well ; no lesson is forced upon us. All characters are given fair treatment, each has their reasons -even if « that’s what’s so awful in the world » added Renoir- and the film stops short of judging them.

« La grande illusion » is magnificently restrained, « La règle du jeu » is all brilliance, an outstanding calling card for a director, if Renoir had needed one.

The latter film may be more formally perfect, less miraculous and better controlled than « La grande illusion ».

« La grande illusion » structure is somewhat loose : its three parts -first prisoners camp, officers camp, escape- move from location from location, as the story focuses on increasingly few characters and eventually only on Maréchal and Rosenthal.

« La règle du jeu » is compact and tight, like a gymnast’s body, and beautifully respects the rules of classical unity : time, place and action, here a maze of plots and subplots which intercut between the worlds of masters and servants and build an intricate pattern of mirror effects.

Film succeeds only too well as it fulfils its « programme » to expose the shallowness of French upper classes.

In « La règle du jeu », Renoir’s « bourgeoisie » (the party’s host, Dalio’s marquis de La Chesnaye, is Jewish by his mother) wines, dines and cheats with less style, panache, and of course, nobleness, than his aristocrats die in « La grande illusion » : de La Chesnaye is no de Boëldieu or von Rauffenstein.

Film wonderful cruelty and cynicism entertain more than they move and its more positive characters lack the acting talent that would endear them to the audience.

As André Jurieu, the aviator, the hero, the lover, the no-class outsider and therefore the party sacrificial lamb, Roland Toutain is an absolute miscast : he looks so dull and weak that his death his nearly welcome.

His love interest, Nora Gregor, de La Chesnaye’s wife, is equally delicate and devoid of charm.

As their friend Octave, Jean Renoir the actor is no match for Jean Renoir the director.

This may be the film devilish streak that we eventually side with Dalio’s de La Chesnaye, for the honesty of his hypocrisy and cynicism : contrary to his wife, he dos not try and delude himself about what he is. He is also the one who crosses over most naturally to the servants (under)world and finds a kindred spirit in Marceau (Carette), the poacher.

You can watch Renoir’s 1939 dance of Death from the outside, as a great piece of filmmaking, while « La grande illusion », screening after screening, will always pull you in.

« La règle du jeu » is also the better candidate for scholarly discussion : one more hint that « La grande illusion » is the greater film.

As to goose or duck lever pâté, there is a tough call.