The journey […] from the text to images – from Remarque to Borzage – has caused many semantic shifts, among which one of the most unusual comes from the function of space (as an illusion connected with material existence) in relation to time (superior because it is more immediately connected to the subtle and psychic world) in a perspective of a spiritual voyage. Everything in Three Comrades tends to obliterate the space, well-defined as geometrical space of action. Straight away, the first shot captures the spatial reality with its expressionist quality and establishes a sort of cosmic hierarchy, because in the sky above the military barracks the date “11th November 1918” stands out in giant letters of fire. We might be in an undefined place, but it cannot be any time. Events do not take place in a particular geographic location. It is likely that the place is Germany because the uniforms and names are German and Erich hopes to “drink champagne from Hamburg to Munich”. But the action is taking place in a city, at the sea or in the mountains. The city (too provincial to be identified as Berlin or Hamburg) is 200 kilometres from the sea and only a few hours from the Alps; the geography is therefore invented. South America represents the ‘elsewhere’, in all senses of the word. Borzage takes away everything that is outside his characters’ worries and without any embarrassment uses painted landscapes, transparent backgrounds and studio stuccos immersed in unreal light. In short, he uses artifacts that make the situation theatrical, while at the same time maintaining some likelihood, unlike Liliom. The visible is nothing more than a facade, which is becoming less and less of a physical obstacle. The spatial distance does not really exist; it is no accident that the Pat and Erich’s telephone conversations always take place with a split screen. The dissolve that passes from Pat on the right of the Christmas tree in the sanatorium to Erich on the right of a tree at Alfons’s house, suggests a link that unites the main characters, beyond the distance. On the other hand, everything comes together to evoke the passing of time, because they are dead and they are waiting […]. “The summer is so short” says Pat and being such a romantic, Borzage gives time a mystical strength: the seasons pass, the wind blows in the trees, carrying the leaves away, the camera follows a piece of flying paper, stopping on a deadly accurate date, “20th October 1920” (the entrance to the sanatorium).

Hervé Dumont, Frank Borzage – Un romantique à Hollywood, Actes Sud- Institut Lumière, Arles-Lyon 2013