Expressive movement unit 2

After the scene’s first unit has defined two distinct spaces this unit begins with a shot that for the first time shows both spaces in one frame, a clearly defined front. The motif of ecstatic excitement is developed during the machine gun fire leading up to triumphant overpowering as the long distance effect of throwing hand grenades. In the course of this process, the front becomes increasingly mobile—heading towards the merging of the two spaces. The step from excitement to distance can be seen in the shift from the dominance of the editing rhythm of audiovisual overpowering to character choreography and the ensuing chain of actions and reactions..

The first shot shows both spaces—the Americans at the bottom of the frame, the jungle at the top—divided horizontally by sand sacks. After the command “Okay” there is a thick layer of the sound of rounds of shots and undifferentiating clouds of smoke that blur the line between and prepare for the fusion of the two spaces. The close-ups that follow of soldiers shooting directly “into the camera” are on the one hand merely rhythmic elements interspersed between intense bursts of light. On the other hand, individual character’s varying facial expressions now no longer reflect the fear and expectation of the horror jungle, but rather reflect the explosion and lightning of battle, different sides of this overwhelming figuration of experience: fearfully hidden, angry, serious and dogged, grinning with enjoyment. There is a clear separation between the space of overwhelming violence of audiovisual delimitation—gunshots and blasts of light—and the space of the undifferentiating effect of this violence in reverse shots of the jungle.

The spatial separation of frontally colliding spaces is at first retained—in the contrast of the Japanese movements in natural camouflage and the American group, stationary even now—while the forms of interaction become increasingly differentiated. Variations on throwing hand grenades, in five blocks of almost the same length, create a development from the chaos of simultaneous explosions to increasingly clear forms—visible and audible chains of cause and effect, action and reaction. (First block: simultaneous, concerted group attack and chaotic effect; second block: individual throws in close-ups and the individual explosions connected to them in medium long shots; third block: machine gun volleys, a grenade thrown by the enemy and thrown back by the Sergeant; fourth and fifth block: short shots of enemy action and the Sergeant’s fast reaction followed by a prolonged shot of the effect of the reaction.)

The differentiation of individual interactions between the two spaces and the dissolution of a clear front between them mark the approach of another space, the result of the fusion of the two. The last stage before this fusion in the following unit is accompanied by an interruption and a pause as the last block of hand grenade throws focuses on the echo and there is a long shot of a Japanese soldier in a torn uniform falling through the fog and a moment of silence. Three short shots are interspersed—the enemy charging the foxhole, a close up of the machine gun and the enemy being hit—before this complex is closed.