Nationalist Scope of the Movie La Grande Illusion

Nationalist Scope of the Movie La Grande Illusion

La Grande Illusion is a critically acclaimed movie that takes place during World War One. It depicts the life of French prisoners of war in a German officer camp. Although it would be expected to be a war movie, very few action scenes are present in the movie. Jean Renoir, the director, presents more the psychological and social aspects of the camp and the prisoners, as opposed to just the violence of war. This essay will attempt to analyse the film under the scope of nationalism. Nationalism is an important part of the movie and therefore will need to be defined. The movie can be used as a tool to understand better the concept of nationalism, but reversely, nationalism can also be used to get a better understanding of the movie.

Nationalism

To fully understand the concept of nationalism, which will be used in this film analysis, it is primordial to begin with an acceptable definition of the concept of nation. The definition presented by Anderson (1991) will be used here, which presents a nation as, “An imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” It is also,  as Mearsheimer (2011) puts it, “A large community of people who share the same culture”. The word community should be stressed here because it helps with the understanding of nationalism. The world is divided into all cultural groups (nations) that seek to create their own state. In fact it is nationalism that brings people together, ready to sacrifice for their state (Walt, 2011). People within those imagined communities are linked by their loyalty to their nation even if they will never know most of the people that make up their community. If individuals have several identities, Mearsheimer (2011) underlines that their national identity supersedes the other ones and Walt (2011) goes as far as placing nationalism as, “The most powerful political force in the world”. In summary, nationalism is the identification and devotion towards the interest of a nation by a large group that shares a common national identity. This devotion towards the interests of their nation is often done to the detriment of those of other nations (‘Nationalism,’ 2003). Nationalism is considered to have a dual dynamic, in the sense that states create nations, and nations create states. More specifically, states promote a national identity to preserve its national security and at the same time a national identity can lead to the creation of state. Nationalism is a relevant concept in international relations because first it leads to the creation of states, but also because it has been identified historically as the leading cause of war.

La Grande Illusion and Nationalism

The movie La Grande Illusion helps in understanding the concept of nationalism in several ways. A first example of how this is demonstrated would be when the group of French soldiers start singing the French national anthem during the play they are performing. This scene is probably one of the best examples of nationalism in the movie, both for its use of an obvious representation of nationalism and for its underlying component. The obvious representation is that the national anthem itself, anthems being a tool used by states to boost the nationalistic spirit of its population, in this case of its army.  As Kyridis et al. (2009) point out, national anthems are a patriotic tool used to bring the population together, in this case the prisoners, toward a common objective, in this case the defeat of the German enemy. The scene shows the victory in a battle by the French, which results in a bonding moment for the French prisoners who consequently sing the anthem as an exemplification of their national pride. Secondly, the prisoner are shown to have little or no animosity toward the German guard, which in a time of war could be seen as a lack of nationalism and love of their country; however, the scene with the national anthem shows that nationalism is something the state efficiently incites in its population. This is made even clearer with the reaction of the German guards who put into solitary confinement the initiator of the group. Nationalism clearly is in this case something the Germans want to repress in the French.

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