Theory of the film : (character and growth of a new art) (1952)

142 PANORAMA means can be found in one of Charlie Chaplin's short burlesques, Shoulder Arms. Chaplin appears as a soldier in the first world war. After many tragi-comic scenes we see this comico-tragic one : Charlie in the bottom of a deep trench is standing with his comrades at the foot of the steps, waiting for the order to go over the top. The others are grim, motionless. Charlie is so frightened and trembles so much that in his clumsy fumbling he drops a little pocket mirror and it breaks. The men next to him see it and draw back from him in superstitious fear, as from one who had been marked for death by fate. Standing in a row in the narrow trench they cannot draw back very far, two short paces at most. But Charlie has understood why his neighbours drew back and looks after them like a man abandoned by his friends in the hour of peril. The camera pans, following his sad and terrified gaze, and shows a greatly increased distance between Charlie and the other men. The panning is so slow, the camera takes such a long time in turning that the few feet seem an endless, empty desert. For what Charlie sees is a great void between himself and his fellows, who have left him alone in his misfortune, an orphan left alone in the world. We have often seen the infinities of desert and ocean, of distant horizons dipping into space in other films, but never before, in films or in any other art, such solitude in so narrow a space. This is the subtle lyricism of the panorama shot.