A Film Canon

Le Million provides an unusual vision of Paris, shifting it vertically so that streetscapes become roofscapes (most spectacularly in the opening tracking shot) and apartments take on a subterranean quality, incapable of leading anywhere but other similarly enclosed spaces. This produces a strong sense of social entrapment, epitomised by the protagonist's confrontation by his creditors prior to his search for the lottery ticket that will allow him to repay them. However, Clair employs a number of strategies to ensure that it never descends to claustrophobia, including bright, whitewashed sets and objects, and frequent choric interludes. Not only do the latter widen the action, as if the entire city were singing, but they fulfil a syntactic function, effecting narrative transitions that are too fantastic or complicated to be conveyed in a single fade. This functional approach means that the comedy proper tends to outweigh, or at least qualify, the overt eruptions of theatricality - clearest in the final sequence, which takes place on and around an opera stage but, apart from a brief aria, consistently directs the viewer's eye away from its ostensible point of focus, most memorably in a number of uncanny point-of-view shots from the stage itelf.