Word: viewer
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...most moviegoers, World War I might be a distant bleep on the grand spectrum of wars; World War II stands out not only because it is more recent but also because its brutality documented relentlessly. Grand Illusion asks the modern viewer to make the leap back into the pre-World War II and appreciate the depths of human devotion from a less jaded perspective, a task that ultimately proves impossible...
...incredibly well-preserved picture greets the viewer, and the opening scenes appear both surreal and promising. The film is set in 1916, before war-weariness had begun to be epidemic among troops and their homelands. The Germans shoot down a French reconnaissance plane that holds two of the movie's main characters, Lieutenant Marechal (Jean Gabin) and Captain de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay). The film almost prompts laughter, for Erich von Stroheim's Captain von Rauffenstein invites the captured parties for a meal before sending them off to a prison camp...
...etiquette of war is entirely foreign to the modern viewer; for the enemy to eat lunch with his victims almost borders on the ridiculous. Von Stroheim, normally in the position of director, pleasant surprises in the role of a stiff captain serving the German Imperial Army...
...This obvious attempt to inject class is not only a shadow of Renoir's leftist leanings, but it also serves to set the grounding for the film's climax. The '90s viewer is accustomed to images of war camps populated with emaciated prisoners living in horrible conditions. Thus, Renoir's attempt to convey a POW camp is incredibly dated...
...Blur the photo ever-so-slightly. The eye naturally strays to the most focussed area of an image, so if the model has legs that aren't stellar, a slight blur over the knees will appear as a printing defect, going unnoticed but subtly drawing the viewer's eye away from the problem area...