Expressive movement unit 3

The scene ends by playing different types of appeals against one another, whereby the repetitive structure of trading one impulse for another takes on a closed dynamic unity. Invocations and impulses follow one another on the level of sound design, creating reactions that make the character choreography active or passive. These alternating fade ins and fade outs on the acoustic level correspond to openings and closings of the frame by means of editing and camera movement.

The sentimental violin solo overlaying the close-up of the wounded man and his caretaker is in synesthetic interaction with the moving tarp in the background. The music and the name “Cathy” spoken by the dying man are a hopeless appeal to missing figures,  taken up in the caretaker’s cry for another man in the next shot. In a medium long shot, which becomes a medium close up shot after a pan, we see how the movement of one of the figures—an answer to this appeal—is taken up by the other figures. The gloomy music and the short sentences (“He’s gone.” - “That’s tough.”) while the group remains unmoving mark a moment of passivity. With the cut that shows the German at the edge of the frame passivity transforms into the quick activation of anger, cut off—as is the music—by a radio message. Again this appeal causes one figure to move, the others follow and there is a renewed narrowing of the frame and passivity ensues as a result of listening and following orders.

The scene concludes after this military appeal with a short series of more frequent edits. Scratching noises and the command “Hurry!” as well as the closing gesture of the dark shovel thrown into the light sand, an impulse of closure, are underscored by the surrounding silence.