Director’s Commentary of Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles:
References and Allusions
Event in Long Dimanche Source
Plus things in italics which aren’t really allusions as such but
things I wanted to note down just because they interested me
Hanging crucifix Real WWI photographs
Horse blasted into a tree
The ‘small gag’ at the very beginning An artistic allusion to Delicatessen (Jeunet and Caro;
1991)
A boy hanging by his suspenders from a tree An anecdote from Jeunet’s own military service
Use of High-to-Low panning shot of characters The films of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovski,
passing under ‘the wire’: Ange Bassignano falls to especially The Mirror (1975)
his knees
Bassignano stabs a knife into the right buttock of an Artistic/stylistic reference to gangster classic The
unnamed character with whom he feuds Godfather: Part II (Coppola; 1974)
The fact that some soldiers begin digging the mass ‘Les Croix de Bois’ (‘The Wooden Crosses’), a 1919
graves before combat ‘to get a head start’ novel by Dorgelès presenting the author’s first hand
experience of World War One (Note consultation of
The concept of the wire being the only means of a primary source to inform art)
contacting the outside world; receiving Pointcarre’s
pardon
Use of the musical watch for dramatic effect A dramatic device used as a motif; stems from A
Fistful of Dollars (Leone; 1964), a masterpiece of the
Spaghetti Western genre
The stylistic influence of the combat sequences Jeunet loves Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg; 1998);
if he felt the special effects or cinematography
teams were not producing the desired effects in
combat sequences, he made them watch the film
again.
→ On YouTube, Nerdwriter1 has a video entitled
Saving Private Ryan: How Spielberg Constructs A
Battle Scene which is really excellent for pulling
apart the revolutionary way Spielberg created the
Omaha Beach sequence.
The use of the camera to ‘track’; almost becoming a Recalls Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci’s
character itself at certain points iconic cinematography
The re-use of sets in the ‘Commandant Lavrouye in Jeunet happened upon the same sets that had
a bath’ scene previously been used for filming by Sally Potter’s
film The Man who Cried (2000), another film set
against the backdrop of war
References and Allusions
Event in Long Dimanche Source
Plus things in italics which aren’t really allusions as such but
things I wanted to note down just because they interested me
Hanging crucifix Real WWI photographs
Horse blasted into a tree
The ‘small gag’ at the very beginning An artistic allusion to Delicatessen (Jeunet and Caro;
1991)
A boy hanging by his suspenders from a tree An anecdote from Jeunet’s own military service
Use of High-to-Low panning shot of characters The films of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovski,
passing under ‘the wire’: Ange Bassignano falls to especially The Mirror (1975)
his knees
Bassignano stabs a knife into the right buttock of an Artistic/stylistic reference to gangster classic The
unnamed character with whom he feuds Godfather: Part II (Coppola; 1974)
The fact that some soldiers begin digging the mass ‘Les Croix de Bois’ (‘The Wooden Crosses’), a 1919
graves before combat ‘to get a head start’ novel by Dorgelès presenting the author’s first hand
experience of World War One (Note consultation of
The concept of the wire being the only means of a primary source to inform art)
contacting the outside world; receiving Pointcarre’s
pardon
Use of the musical watch for dramatic effect A dramatic device used as a motif; stems from A
Fistful of Dollars (Leone; 1964), a masterpiece of the
Spaghetti Western genre
The stylistic influence of the combat sequences Jeunet loves Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg; 1998);
if he felt the special effects or cinematography
teams were not producing the desired effects in
combat sequences, he made them watch the film
again.
→ On YouTube, Nerdwriter1 has a video entitled
Saving Private Ryan: How Spielberg Constructs A
Battle Scene which is really excellent for pulling
apart the revolutionary way Spielberg created the
Omaha Beach sequence.
The use of the camera to ‘track’; almost becoming a Recalls Sergio Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci’s
character itself at certain points iconic cinematography
The re-use of sets in the ‘Commandant Lavrouye in Jeunet happened upon the same sets that had
a bath’ scene previously been used for filming by Sally Potter’s
film The Man who Cried (2000), another film set
against the backdrop of war
