Expressive movement unit 4

The feeling of inner tenseness in the preceding EMU is followed by an outburst of the desire to fight. It is staged as the externalization of the dynamics in interplay with the sound volume and the frequency of edits. After the acoustic crescendo reaches its highpoint however, the image space is again reduced and once more focuses on an “inner” movement of facial expressions, which refers to the feeling of uncertainty that now arises.

With a quick change between three shots that are identical in framing and shot composition, showing first Epps, then Sailor and finally Todd firing their guns, the explosion of the machine gun fire seems to spread. The rhythmic structure is now dominated by the increased frequency of cuts while on the level of sound design, previously inscribed with a kind of rhythm, the increasing noise unfolds to become a spatial dimension. The beginning of the noise and with it the spatial dimension sets the entire image in a movement of externalization or spreading.

The started airplane engine brings a new sound to the fore. The volume increases further. This sound too is permeated and made quieter by the noise of the enemy fire and the high whistle of the ricochet shots. Dane’s hand grenade finally ends this sound climax (the Japanese machine gun is no longer part of the soundscape). At the same time, the length of the shot that shows the Japanese hit by Dane's hand grenade introduces a reduction of the frequency of edits.

The erosion of the dynamics is staged as a kind of backwards movement. Just like at the start of the machine gun fire, there are three individual shots of Epps, Sailor and Todd ceasing their fire. Because of the connection of sound and spatial dimension, the movement of this series of shots can be described as the image space sinking acoustically into itself. The audiovisual composition is reorganized: In the space which has been made smaller by the sound design, a facial expression becomes visible - Feingold's emotion develops in the last shot.