Grand Illusion

So this journal entry is about a week late, but as always, better late than never right.

Today we watched Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion. I actually quite enjoyed this film. We were asked to pay attention to this movie in terms of Bazinian's theory of realism, and since I kept an eye out for this throughout the movie I thought I'd note on it. I especially noticed that Grand Illusion had a lot of long takes. For example, in the beginning when everyone is sitting around the dinner table talking, rather than cut to shots of each individual person, the camera did a 360 degree pan. And later when the camera was at the head of the table it was able to record the groups reaction to the news as a whole rather than single out specific people's reactions. Most of the scenes also had clear fore, middle and backgrounds. One of the main things I noticed about long takes is that it conveys space much better. Rather than cutting to different angles all the time (ike in Battleship Potemkin) the camera usually filmed scenes in one shot. To me it was much less confusing and as a member of the audience I wasn't as confused about where the actors where in relation to each other, and the setting. The size and scale of rooms to me was easier to convey. For example the scene where everyone is getting their parcels from the post office room, the camera just stayed at one angle and continuously panned left and right. The audience could see the entrance to the room on the left, and when the employee went to the back to get their parcels, the camera followed him and we were able to see the back of the room. The action for sure is easier to follow with long takes, but it's certainly not as interesting without editing.
Another thing I'd like to comment on is the usage of comedy in this film. I thought Grand Illusion was absolutely hilarious at certain scenes, and the comedy parts seemed absolutely effortless. All the hilarity was implied through actions and reactions and I thought this was especially nice. Sometimes movies try to hard to be funny but I thought the comedy in this film was great. For example the scene were one of the soldiers dresses up in a skirt and all the other men in the room stare at him. Aside from the man in the dress mumbling about 'how silly he looks', there is no other dialouge. Only shots of him and the crowd of men staring at him longingly thinking that he doesn't actually look that bad. This scene was hilarious, when in actuality there wasn't really much going on in the scene, just implied meanings.