Expressive movement unit 1

Metadata

Increasing tension is developed through the interplay of camera and sound design, culminating in the image of military sacrifice.

The duration and dynamics of the camera movement create tension that is paralleled in the editing by the opposition of two spaces. In the beginning, an establishing pan, a long shot, sets up this principle. The even movement of the pan in combination with the ducked soldiers and cautious movements create the anticipation of danger. Twice during this pan, a long shot of activity on the ground, there is a cut to a reverse, medium long shot of the tops of the palm trees. In the second cut an enemy soldier can be made out in the palm fronds, thus connecting the space “above” with the build-up of the anticipation of danger. The third pan begins on the ground and ends with a top view that lifts the opposition of the two spaces and creates a common narrative space. A series of shots of Japanese soldiers taking aim in the trees and waiting American soldiers on the ground in a noticeably faster editing frequency makes the image more dynamic until finally a renewed top view that connects both spaces shows the first gunshot as the culmination of the staging.

This dynamic process is generally supported on the level of sound design. The long period without music intensifies the duration of the tension conveyed on the visual level. The culmination in the moment of the shot finds its acoustic expression—alongside the sudden sound of the shot itself—in the simultaneous start of the music, a mixture of shrill, prolonged strings and dramatic brass passages. The following moment of the battle, a series of shot/reverse shot edits, is staged in both senses of the word. It ends with a close-up of a dying American soldier, the simultaneous change of the melody to the Marines’ Hymn raises this final image to an audiovisual figuration of military sacrifice.