Rene Clair's Entracte 1924

This is a very playful early experimental film that I appreciated for its technical manipulation and its use of composition. The film is intended to read as a short piece meant to go in between a larger film as an intermission, but it is far from a typical intermission. I particularly enjoyed the way Clair used double exposure with shots of architecture because it really abstracted the rigidness of the buildings and allowed them to be scene in a beautiful way in terms of the composition. Clair also turned the camera upside down when looking at the silhouette of various buildings which had a nice, somewhat disorienting effect that was similar to the use of double exposure. His sense of composition made these manipulations very successful and interesting. When filming a ballerina, Clair placed the camera directly underneath her which was really nice simply because it gave a different perspective. Another really nice use of the camera was to pair the shaky effect of hand held and double expose the shot with images of a paper boat. This made the shot almost look like rolling water. Anyway, this is a really nice little film that anyone can see at the 100 years of performance show at Boston College which is totally free. I don't know how much longer it will be up, but the whole thing is worth checking out.