The Great Escape
Cinema has always been fond of escape stories. Whether epic or intimate stories, war or prison film, tragedy or comedy, these tales reflect the injustices, violence and conflicts that tear people apart, as well as their propensity for solidarity and compassion. The inventiveness the characters devote to escaping is reminiscent of that of filmmakers who stage their imprisonment in order to better break it down: an always meticulous game, set against a backdrop of spatial constraints and a race against time.
During the Second World War, Allied airmen who had already tried to escape are sent to a Luftwaffe prison camp. Together, they plan a major operation and organize the escape of 250 people via three tunnels.
John Sturges
John Sturges is an American director and producer. He began his career in Hollywood as an editor in 1932. During World War II, he directed documentaries and training films as a captain in the United States Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit. His true cinematic career took off in 1946 when he directed the first of several B-movies: The Man Who Dared. Highly active from the 1950s to the 1970s, he directed numerous westerns including Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), and The Magnificent Seven (1960) — an adaptation of Kurosawa's film Seven Samurai — both of which were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for their cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance. Sturges reunited with McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson in 1963 for another international triumph, one of his most popular films, The Great Escape.
