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La Grande Illusion – 1937 Renoir
- It is an intelligent prison-film and drama—the most common words used by critics heaping praise on it are “humanist”, ”anti-war” and “graceful”. Graceful is the only one that refers to style- putting it candidly it’s a masterpiece because of Renoir’s tracking shots
- I’m stealing from ebert here- he says “the camera doesn’t point or intrude—it glides”
- Behind the intelligence in the narrative, the great acting by Gabin, Fresnay, Dalio and von Stroheim, there is some great parallel editing, especially in the beginning, mirroring the mise-en-scene of the French with the German (poster slogans, posters of women) to show how alike they are
- A brilliant shot framed in window and then Renoir pulls back to resume action- this is certainly a Renoir stylistic trademark
- A brilliant film
- Masterpiece
Drake2022-04-13T20:57:46+00:00
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I just caught up on this massive blind spot and was blown away. There is so much to say about it – Renoir’s camerawork, the class divisions, the formal parallels in the relationships between French and German characters. I’ll just leave this here though for anyone with 50 minutes to spare. I’m a huge admirer of David Thorburn and his lecture on La Grande Illusion is utterly wonderful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO3RNUAFtDE&t=2561s
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