Grief In War Films

The same applies to a dramatic scene where the music may be deep and frantic to convey to the audience the feeling of anticipation. A scene i would like to focus on is the scene in which Garry and his father have a final ‘showdown’, if you will, at the front of the house. The scene consists of the father imposing himself on Garry and proceeding to continually beat him down time after time only for Garry to rise up and face his father on each occasion. This scene evoked a feeling of pride and admiration from the audience as to Garry’s courage and determination to convey the message to his father that he is ready to stand on his own two feet and defy him. This is a very powerful scene within the movie which initiated powerful emotions within the audience. All of this was accomplished with the notable absence of music of any form. The omission of music in this scene created an atmosphere in which the dramatic affect was amplified due to the silence.

Non-diegetic sound is also used fittingly in The Tall Man. In interviews, often there is subtle instrumentals playing. When the film is detailing more of the distressing components of this case, suspenseful and tense music is playing. One key scene where non-diegetic sound is utilised, is when a picture of Doomadgee is focused slowly zoomed to and in the background the song, “(San Francisco) Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair,” is playing. Not only was it one of Doomadgee’s favourite songs but the jovial melody forces viewers associate him with it. Effectively, emphasising that a good man wrongfully died.

The rambunctious behavior of the soldier’s triumphant victory is a strong message visually for the viewer. These soldiers struggle to find their identity and once the war ends, the identity they’ve build at war vanishes, (McCutcheon, 2007). As a result, they essentially lose a part of them selves, (McCutcheon, 2007). When they return home, many soldiers struggle with psychological issues that prevent them from resuming their once regular lives, (McCutcheon, 2007). The images of soldiers celebrating at the end of war give the viewer a taste of this problem. This also allows the viewer insight to the deeper issues surrounding an American soldier’s mental stability and mentality. Through this image, along with many others throughout the film, the viewer is able to dig deeper and truly analyze what they are seeing.

In the fictional novel The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien vividly explains the fear and trauma the soldiers encountered during the Vietnam War. Many of these soldiers are very young and inexperienced. They begin to witness their acquaintances’ tragic demise, and kill other innocent lives on their own. Many people have a background knowledge on the basis of what soldiers face each day, but they don’t have a clear understanding of what goes through these individual’s minds when they’re at war. O’Brien gives descriptive details on the soldiers’ true character by appealing to emotions, using antithesis and imagery.

For the seventeen Soldiers portrayed in “The Things We Carried” by Tim O’Brien, the physical pain was very minimal weight to carry compared to the emotional scars that they will carry throughout their entire life. This story does an amazing job portraying full human emotion that anyone put into a situation would feel, such as heavy guilt, sadness, anger, lack of motivation, perseverance, horror, and false security. All of these are notorious feelings that every soldier back in history, and now still feel when they are on a mission. “The Things They carried” shows a deep vulnerability of everyday human’s thought process during times of great stress, that before, wasn’t considered by the general public and media when speaking about what it

Many people say that war is worse than Hell because innocent people die in it. In Beah’s life, this is most definitely true. Throughout the war, Beah goes through many hardships and witnesses the deaths of innocent loved ones, and Beah’s writing reflects how he felt during these times. Beah uses rhetorical strategies like diction, imagery, and detail choice to convey the emotional process he had to undergo in order to survive.

The psychological burden that plagues the soldiers the most is fear. The fear of death. Even though the soldiers’ experience fear at some point, showing that fear only reveals vulnerabilities to the enemy and sometimes the crueler fellow soldiers. “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing – these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight.” (O'Brien, 1990) The

The reader will get an increasingly detailed image of how the soldiers emotionally respond to the happenings throughout the war due to this composition.

The horrors of war were depicted by the constant threats to the characters lives, the brutal conditions of the bad weather, hunger and combat. Soldiers had to battle the enemy along with nature. Soldiers would become stressed, paranoid and start losing their personalities. As Captain Miller says, “I just know that every man I kill, the farther away from home I feel.” This quote shows the mental toll on these soldiers.

The wartime lives of the soldiers who fought in the war were in a state of mind of mixed feelings. Happiness and devastating are two adjectives that can describe the soldier’s feelings in the war because at one second they can be happy that they succeeded on a mission, but on the other hand, it can be very devastating because one of their own soldiers could have been killed during the war. Aside from physical danger losing one of your own soldiers or having your family worry about you every day and night are some negatives and unpleasant parts about fighting in a war. For example, soldiers loved ones worried each day, and hoped that they would not get a knock on their door by someone who was going to tell them that their fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers have died in the war.

The mental implications of war on the soldiers challenged the way they functioned day to day. In the ‘Next War’ Owen demonstrates the mental implications through personifying death and engaging the responder with sensory imagery.

This clearly explains the significance of music and the role that has in motion pictures. Music has to match the emotions that the actors are showing and the environment they are in. If fail to do so, the movie could be a dreadful thing to watch.

“The effective war film is often the one in which the action begins after the war, when there is nothing but ruins and desolation everywhere…”

The diegetic sounds are people shouting and crying from the battle that’s just happened, this helps the audience know that it is a sad day; but this makes them want to keep on watching to find out what happens, to see if it gets better or worse. As Clara enters the TARDIS, the music changes to a dark and wary sounding piece, which again creates a whole new atmosphere for the audience. The music carries on throughout the sequence but changes as the characters mood changes. For example, when Clara sees the doctor and knows he’s okay, the music changes to more of a relived and relaxed feeling. The music in this sequence is one of the most important features of creating emotion, this is because of the way the director has placed the music and how loud or quiet it is made.

It is possible to claim that these films provide ‘salves for a wounded nation’. In each film the extreme slaughter of war is