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Kenneth McIntyre
History of Film I
Professor James Stone
November 14th, 2023
Themes of War in Film: Vámonos con Pancho Villa and La Grande Illusion
Since the beginning of cinema, filmmakers have explored a wide variety of themes.
Anything from tranquility to grief have been the focus of films for over one-hundred years. One
real-life event that has let artists explore different themes has been war. Throughout history,
some of the most acclaimed pieces of art have come out of times of war. Film offered a chance to
show war in a way that allows audiences to experience the ferocity and brutality of battles. As
our own wars became more bloody, so did our films. After World War I, war pictures became
more poignant and contemplative. Two films that highlight this change and the changes to war
pictures yet to come are Vámonos con Pancho Villa (1936) and La Grande Illusion (1937). These
films are both wildly entertaining and grapple with themes surrounding war, but, fortunately,
they are both wildly different. The purpose of this essay is to highlight how Vámonos con
Pancho Villa and La Grande Illusion are, and how they helped marked a change for the war film
genre as a whole.
In 1936, Director Fernando de Fuentes released Vámonos con Pancho Villa. The film
follows a group of friends joining Pancho Villa’s rebel group out of personal duty during the
Mexican Revolution. The film itself stands out for its depiction of Pancho Villa. Villa, who was a
general in real life during the Revolution, was normally depicted with an idealistic and patriotic
lens, but in Fuentes’ film, he was shown to have a much more cruel side. The film focuses on the
group of friends as they go battle to battle with Villa. Slowly, the group begins to lose members.
The first sequence of this, is when one of our protagonists gallantly rides out to lasso a machine
gun. He is successful, but is mortally injured. In his final moments, he salutes Pancho Villa and
falls onto him. Villa pushes the body off of himself and leaves it in a trench. Early on, Villa’s
personality is shown to be harsh and focused on the war effort. While Villa’s character is a
criticism of how he has been portrayed in other films, his action represents authority throughout
the film. As the group begins to dwindle in numbers, the deaths start to become more
meaningless. One member is shot by an ally during a rescue operation. This death helps highlight
a turning point in the film. Something special about Vámonos con Pancho Villa is how it makes
war seem fun. For the first half of the film, banter and humor surrounds the soldiers. However,
after the friendly fire incident, the humor begins to fade away and the film becomes more quiet
and contemplative. This is how the film eases audiences into a new way of going about war
films. Gone are the fun patriotic stories about heroes and villains. The film ends with one of the
last two in the group contracting Small-Pox. The other person is ordered to kill his friend and
burn the body. He complies, but when he meets with Pancho Villa to leave for battle, Villa tells
him to go home. The final shot is the sole survivor walking along train tracks in the dead of
night. No last battle. No final victory. While Vámonos con Pancho Villa is about the Mexican
Revolution, the film looks and feels more like a WW1 picture. The use of No-Man’s land and
trenches allowed Fuentes to explore universal images of war in 1936. Vámonos con Pancho Villa
focuses the themes on comradery and loss.
Only a year later, esteemed French director Jean Renoir released La Grande Illusion.
Often cited as one of the original prison break movies, the film takes place during WW1 and
follows a group of POWs escaping from their prison camp. Unlike Vámonos con Pancho Villa,
La Grande Illusion has no sequences of battle. Its overall tone and mood is much more hopeful
and uplifting. However, tragedy still exists. The film is split into three sections. The first section
takes place in a relatively average POW camp. The main group of characters are trying to dig a
tunnel out of the camp. Unfortunately, they are split up and moved to a new POW camp. The
second section is what makes this film a phenomenal piece of art. The next camp is run by Major
von Rauffenstien. While Von Rauffenstein is considered the antagonist of the story, his tragedy
lies in how he grows close to his prisoner, Captain de Boëldieu. The two become friends,
highlighting the film’s anti-war messages. However, their friendship is doomed when Boëldieu
helps the two protagonists of the film escape, forcing Rauffenstein to shoot him. Boëldieu’s final
scene is him telling Rauffenstein that he will have a hard time adjusting after the war. The rest of
the movie follows as the two escapees, Maréchal and Rosenthal, evade soldiers and police on
their way to Switzerland. They seek shelter from a widow, who Maréchal falls in love with. This
segment, while feeling somewhat detached from the themes of the rest of the film, highlights the
largest difference from Vámonos con Pancho Villa. La Grande Illusion takes time to focus on
what war has done to society, while Vámonos con Pancho Villa focuses on what it does to
soldiers. This difference is what makes these films so strong. La Grande Illusion is able to show
how communities are able to support each other during times of war. The film uses an optimistic
lens when looking at WW1 by having characters talk about plans for after the war. On the
contrary, Vámonos con Pancho Villa widdles down the audience's optimism with each death;
slowly deconstructing pre WW1 films.
Looking at both films side-by-side, similar themes are found. Comradery, loss, and duty
are three that come to mind. The duo show how groups are formed and how that bond is not
broken, even in death. After World War II, war films became much more focused on the horrors
and atrocities of war. The fear of nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction have changed the
way we as a world look at war.
Overall, Vámonos con Pancho Villa and La Grande Illusion offer a look at how the world
looked at war prior to WW2. The tone of these films are much lighter compared to war films
from two decades later. As society looks at war differently, the art that is made about war
changes as well. Currently, war films are starting to look at how technology progresses. It is
quite likely that cyber defense or offense films will be made in the next few decades. Even how
we look back to previous wars in films like Oppenhiemer (2023), which takes a look at the
creation of the atomic bomb through a very mainstream scientific lens. It will be fascinating to
see how else we use our own modern perspective to look at war as a theme.

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Kenneth McIntyre

Professor James Stone

November 14th, 2023

focuses the themes on comradery and loss.

slowly deconstructing pre WW1 films.

way we as a world look at war.

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