Togetherness and the experience of separation*

Classification in categories

• Transition between two social systems
• Homeland, woman, home

Metadata

In the film’s dramaturgical construction, this scene is between the representation of military drill in boot camp and the staging of an address to the soldiers. It contrasts these two scenes with indoor civilian space and the entrance of a female figure. The dramatic tension between these two scenes is however neutralized by the comic tension between two figures within the scene.

This scene subverts the separation of military and civilian space (outdoors : indoors) being prepared on the dramaturgical level (> Drill and merging und > Address 3) and the separation of the sounds of service and home (orders/roll call : music) and soldierly, male forms of movement and those between the sexes (march : dance) by presenting interior spaces, music and dance as a comic staging. (This method of countering drama with a comic staging can be found elsewhere within a scene: > Separation from civilian life and the girl)

Thus at this point the dramaturgical position of the scene is a large part of the scenic composition. Seen in this dual aspect, the dynamic pattern can be described as a movement of superimposition that in the end has a comic effect. After a space is developed on the level of shot composition (> EMU 1), ), tension is staged on the level of the characters. Finally, the character constellation and space are related to one another in such a way that there is one character too many in the shot (> EMU 2).

The most important levels of the staging have thus been named: Shot composition (in combination with music and camera) is joined by character constellation in the second half of the scene.

Simultaneously to the superimposition described above, there is also a shifting of the staging. If in the first part of the scene, the construction of space is at the fore—and its contrast to the scene preceding it (the dramaturgical aspect of the dynamic pattern, > EMU 1),—what follows is the genuine comedy of the scene based on this foundation (> EMU 2).

The affective course of the scene also only becomes clear in combination with the dramaturgical position and audiovisual composition. The scene’s comedy unfolds in contrast to the surrounding scenes, by—and this is its purpose—undermining the elegiac mood of a staged separation.    ML

Expressive movement units

Materials about the scene

Position of scene in film