Last man fighting*

Classification in categories

• Battle and nature
• Battle and technology
• Suffering / victim / sacrifice
• Injustice and humiliation / moral self-assertion

 

The temporal segmentation of this scene is structured as a three-tiered transitional movement realized through the construction of the figure of Dane. This figure transforms from a half-dead warrior in a state of complete exhaustion (>EMU 1) to a berserk soldier in a hopeless battle (>EMU 2).Finally the scene ends in a figuration of the ultimate sacrifice (>EMU 3). The dominant level of the three-step approach is that of shot composition by movement in three spatial coordinates: 1) A horizontal movement along an implicit x-axis, formed by the camera movement, Dane’s movement and the direction of the expanding fog (>EMU 1). 2. A movement along a vector into the depth of the image, marking a z-axis and composed of geometrical forms, enemy movements and the direction Dane’s machine gun is aimed  (>EMU 2). 3. A vertical rising movement along a y-axis, composed mostly of the text moving from the bottom to the top of the frame (>EMU 3). This movement contains two subdominants, their compositional interplay with the dominant patterns of movement are shaped as variations of transitional movement. On the one hand there is the changing mode of how Dane is staged, divisible into: 1) the focus on gestures as an image of a late stage of total exhaustion (>EMU 1), 2. the focus on Dane’s facial expressions as the image of increasing anger up to raging fury (>EMU 2) and finally 3) the dissolution of corporeal appearance as a literal ascension and the sublimation of the individual  (>EMU 3). The second subdominant is the non-diegetic musical accompaniment which corresponds to the three-stage movement by entering a specific relationship to the three phases of movement, whereby it either anticipates or accompanies the segmentation.

With Dane's death, the repetitive logic of the entire film, the principle of dying one after another, is brought to an end.    DG

Expressive movement units

01 02 03 

Materials about the scene

Position of the scene in the film