Why This Scene Matters

One of the most disturbing scenes in cinema from one of film’s great humanists.

Filmed on the verge of WWII its direct symbolism and visceral shock cannot go unnoticed.

In a film that in some respects was a stately drama of manners and introduced such technical firsts as deep focus (a year before Citizen Kane) to suddenly switch to a scene that is almost documentary-like in execution (pun intended) was so modernly in your face as to be nothing short of astonishing (and chilling).

If you can’t already tell I love this film and can pretty much write a novel about what I think it means to me specifically and life in general.

And when I say “life” I mean life and not just the life of art which is the greatest measure of a work of art.