Expressive movement unit 2

Through the interplay of gestures and the sequence of shots as well as the musical timbre, in this unit an image of suffering and alleviation segues into an image of separation and mourning. Lassiter can be seen in front of an ambulance, a wounded man holds tightly to his rifle as an orderly tries to take it away from him. A close up places the body of the suffering man in a diagonal, created by the horizontal position of the lying man and the vertical of the raised camera. The cramped stiffness of the fingers holding the rifle correspond to a prolonged staccato of a repeated note that forms the musical motif. The suffering face is visually surrounded by the orderly’s hands. Lassiter’s hands pat the wounded man on the shoulder in an alleviating manner.

With a cut to the three soldiers, the motif of suffering (melancholy quiet strings and deep bass notes, the improvised field hospital with cots set up among ruins) is pushed to the background. The scene now stages the spatial separation of the sexes, which takes place in steps. While in the previous shots men and women were shown together in one image, these edits frame the four men together.  Then Dane can be seen, who leaves the frame into off-screen and in the next shot comes in from off-screen. He helps the nurse, who has been left alone in the shot, into the ambulance. Moving his hands carefully he helps her and her luggage into the car and closes the door.  The entire time she gazes fixedly off-screen, her line of sight points towards the direction of the three soldiers. The shot is prolonged and holds back the reverse shot for a while, explicitly pausing the continuation of the woman's gaze as well as the plot and the casual movement of the hands. Then the car, on which USA is written, turns off from the linearity of the street, the woman sitting in it.

A reverse shot shows Lassiter, his line of sight connects his brooding facial expression to the ambulance driving off-screen.