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Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Over 350 editions available in the archive.

Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Search the extensive archive for interviews, debates and reviews. Go to Free Thinking for the new home of arts and ideas on Radio 3.

Night Waves: Landmarks - La Grande Illusion

Landmarks - La Grande Illusion

05/04/2012

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Landmarks - La Grande Illusion

Anne McElvoy presents a Landmark edition examining Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion.

Anne McElvoy presents a Landmark edition examining Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion. Is this 1937 French war film one of the greatest ever made?

Anne McElvoy presents a landmark edition on the Jean Renoir film La Grande Illusion. 

Popular with the audience and critics on its release in 1937, this masterpiece of French cinema tells the story of French officers trying to escape from a World War One prison. The film examines the themes of nationalism, duty, class and politics and has influenced a number of subsequent films including Casablanca and The Great Escape. 

However La Grande Illusion had a troublesome history: it was declared Cinematic Public Enemy Number One by Josef Goebbels - who ordered all prints to be destroyed - and it was banned by the French authorities too. For many years it was thought lost forever, until a copy of it was re-discovered in the 1990s. 

Film historians Ginette Vincendeau and Ian Christie and professor of French History Julian Jackson join Anne to examine what makes this one of film's classics.

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