Symmetry, repetition, reversal and interruption.
The film uses parallelism, repetition, and interruption to simultaneously create a familiarity for the audience, while disturbing that sense of familiarity so we stop and consider why we are being show this image or camera shot again.
For example, Renoir’s scene of the formalistic, highly-structured Germans eating in the mess hall under the hierarchical paintings of the Kaiser are then contrasted with the casual, easy eating style of the French prisoners.
Using the camera’s eye to contrast confinement with the need for freedom, characters are repeatedly shown in windows, doors, small rooms, inside barbed wire fences. Yet, in that tightly, confined space, the camera and the characters are constantly moving, and eventually Maréchal is shown in completely wide open space (see image at far bottom). It should be noted that Renoir’s common framing in windows and doors is also a red flag to the viewer that this shot will help us better understand both individual and collective states of mind.
Renoir also uses posters to monitor French and German progress and as a means to show the shift among the prisoners and German soldiers from initial patriotic enthusiasm to eventual weariness and wonder at the futility of the war. For example, Renoir’s use of Verdun, which was an empty fort thousands of French and German soldiers died trying to defend or take, was an apt symbol of the futility of nationalism. Many French people were disillusioned and embittered by the enormity and senselessness of lost, young lives, symbolized by the 300,000 French casualties at Verdun to defend an empty fort. An excellent cinematic portrayal of Verdun is Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2004 film, A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles).
Finally, Renoir cleverly uses the repetition of songs in very different situations to compare and contrast mental states and meanings.
While the use of parallelism and repetition created a familiarity and analogies for the viewer to explore, Renoir ends songs and scenes abruptly, never letting us truly reconcile or fully understand what we are seeing (Macdonald, 32). Given these abrupt endings and interruptions, , just like the characters, we must work to reconcile races, classes, religions and nationalities if we want relationships to be anything other than temporary. Yet, as described below, the final abrupt interruption resolves these ambiguities for the viewer.
In the final scene, we watch Maréchal and Rosenthal track through the snow as Germans track them. As two German soldiers raise their rifles to shoot, the score stops suddenly. Renoir leads us to believe that this is the end of their lives. Then, realizing the Frenchmen have reached Switzerland, the one soldier reaches over and stops the other from firing. The score returns loudly and we know immediately that the two men are still alive. Moreover, the openness and freedom of this final scene reminds us that the future is not set in stone but free for man to create (La Grande Illusion).
Source: La Grande Illusion, 1937. Other sources consulted O’Shaughnessy, 14. For a good discussion of the parallelism of the three primary acts, see Sesonske 238-239.
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