In 1937, Jean Renoir directed this profoundly moving and perceptive study of human needs and the subtle barriers of class among a group of prisoners and their captors during World War I. The two aristocrats, French and German (Pierre Fresnay and Erich von Stroheim), share a common world of memories and sentiments. Though their class is doomed by the changes which have produced the war, they must act out the rituals of noblesse oblige and serve a nationalism they do not believe in. The Frenchman sacrifices his life for men he doesn't really approve of-the plebian (Jean Gabin) and the Jew (Marcel Dalio). These ironies and ambiguities give genuine depth to the theme-fraternization, and the artificial barriers of nationality. La Grande Illusion had an immediate, idealistic aim: to reawaken in the German people the spirit of comradeship that had marked the last days of the war; but Goebbels did not allow the film to be shown in Germany. (The French film historian, Georges Sadoul, records that Goebbels put "maximum pressure on Mussolini to prevent its being awarded a prize at the Venice Film Festival.") It was selected at Brussels in 1958 as fifth among the greatest films of all time.