In Grand Illusion, Renoir made a movie about WW1 (right before WW2 started) that made fun of it, humanized it, revered it, and contemplated it's affect on history and the future. There is a comment in the movie about how this would be the last war and another guy tells him not to be stupid, that there will always be war. Of course, this is more of a commentary on the times and the illusion that "the great war" would be the last war instead of just a 1. This is even more poignant because Renoir fought in WW1 and because he knows the book in which he borrowed the title from "The Great Illusion" was all about how a giant European war could not happen, and here in a span of 25 years the world would get two. I choose the picture of the p.o.w.s sitting around a table working on their costumes because of the absurdity of the actions in the picture due to their present location during a very tumultuous time. Also, the little French man with a cigarette in his mouth resembles Napoleon Bonaparte a great deal, which is very significant because that was probably the last great European war as it involved so many different countries. The idea of him being Napoleon in the forefront of the scene, could work as a reminder of how much people didn't want another war like that, and if you truly trace it back enough, could be seen as the precursor to WW1 as it would eventually lead to the use of treaties between countries to stop great powers like Napoleon Bonaparte or Germany or Austria. Also, looking away from the men, the audience sees a giant window with broken glass, but the window does not look onto some great scenic views, but onto another building. In this picture alone, you have the duality of the absurdity of the costume making with the repetitive view of the same thing, as if this has been done before and it has never once been for a good reason. Renoir's use of mise en scene works to show his views on not only "the great war", but also the budding tension growing in Europe which people can foretell leading to another "great" world war. Which is precisely why he chose the title, and the actions of the men in these holding camps, to show how these wars are nonsensical and any notion of peace or friendly cooperation is some "grand illusion".
At RIFF, I saw the experimental block on Friday. My friends and I were originally going to see "Think tank" and a "Marine story", but couldn't find it so we showed up late and caught the tail-end of the second short. However, this did not stop us from enjoying some of the shorts. The one that most stands out to me (for being good) is Sunday. The short about what a man is doing on his last day (which turns out to be wasted, basically him drinking) coupled with stop-motion animation of these things controlling him from the inside was really visually striking, especially when death came for the "mind-workers" and their death was spliced with the man lying on his couch dying. The animation was really good for this level, and it was obvious they put more work into that as the man walking through his life was pretty standard fare. There were other shorts like the German music one where it basically looked like you were watching music playing on windows media players, was just rather pointless as I could have saw it on my own computer, although I thought there was some message about the destruction of the environment as the only colors they used were orange and green and when it was green the images looked like trees and then in orange it was chaos, but I might be reaching there. The absolute worst of the shorts was the last one, which I have been told the title so many times, but I really do not care to remember it, as it was just long (they say 11, but I really thought I was in there for 30 minutes) and it basically amounted to the director throwing everything he could think of on screen, and then every time the audience thought it would end, he would go, oh wait I forgot about this and the movie continued. It was just nonsense, cliched, and boring. All in all, minus that short I really enjoyed them and a few of them were real keepers while others were just pieces of work.
Some interesting comments on Grand Illusion, Greg. I think there's more to be said about the specific elements of mise en scène, however, such as the lighting, the arrangement of actors across the image as well as in depth, the narrative context, the framing, etc. This would provide a clearer look at the thematic content of the image, and might also reveal a bit more complexity in Renoir's vision of the war's significance and his commentary on the European situation.
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