The Movie Apocalypse Now Is Directed By Francis Ford Coppola

Sound is something quite special, impactful, and adds layers of elements and complexity to a film. As with the progression of the movie making medium, sound has grown and changed drastically over the decades. However, sound cues in the form of effects, dialogue, and everything in between, shapes our perceptions of a scene and movie.

Wind instruments accompany drums to create an uncanny aura. The absence of sound effects until the girls reach the forest focuses the attention of the audience on the characters. Sound effects are introduced immediately after they set foot in the forest. This technique creates a contrast in the girls' mood - previously being sinister and silent,

The waves give off a really eerie effect, the whole scene just seems to bee too calm.

The beginning shots of the movie are of an African American man walking alone at night through a suburb while talking on the phone. The audience can hear the external sounds that are associated with night-time. As the man walks the neighborhood is quiet, you can only hear the ambient sounds crickets chirping and the sounds of him talking and breathing. Peele combines sound effects and dialogue initially here to start to develop the scene and provide realism. The quietness demonstrated through these sounds in the scene creates an eerie tone. Peele creates

Even though the film is essentially a visual experience, the use of sound has become extremely important in modern film. The modern viewer hears a complicated soundtrack that is as meaningful as the image on the screen. Three elements comprise the film's soundtrack: the dialogue, the sound effects, and the musical score. The proper balance and mix of these elements produced the essential emphasis required, which created the desired effects. As explained by Joseph Boggs and Dennis Petrie,

In both The Things They Carried and Apocalypse Now, transitional archetypical roles are used to show the degradation of innocence, as a result of the conflicts of war. In The Things They Carried, Mary Anne Bell, the young girlfriend of solider Mark Fossie, is brought to Vietnam in the heart of the war to be with him. In the beginning of her visit, Mary Anne is extremely soft, kind, and ignorant to the nature of the conflict taking place around her (O’Brien 91). Her relationship with Mark is one that appears as overly romanticized: “Mary Anne Bell and Mark Fossie had been sweethearts since grammar school. […] [someday] they would be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three healthy yellow -haired children.

Along with background music, sound effects play more of a role on the way we feel than many moviegoers think, and "although the function of sound effects is primarily atmospheric, they can also be precise sources of meaning in film" (Giannetti, 225). When the

Scene 3: As the crew approaches the island natives, the music crescendos and the drums are very prominent. They speed up as the crew gets closer and closer signifying the anticipation of meeting the natives. The strings, percussion, and brass instruments can easily be heard throughout the scene. These

In the opening scene with the jets, the orchestral background music painted the picture of the jets being spontaneous and unpredictable. The music especially designed their personalities well with the random loud burst of accented notes from the brass. The mood definitely changes

“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.

There was also a sizable presence of lighting and color and the way it was used in the film—especially darkness. Repeatedly, in Apocalypse Now the slaughter scene was in darkness which was then accompanied by a bright light further out. This helped illustrate the continuous seeking of power or greater goal. Once they reach their destination the lighting is extremely bright. The dark/light contrast is heightened when Willard reaches Kurtz’s compound.

As Ali's face dissolves to a flashback, non-diegetic music accompanies the overview of Algiers. The musical motif which begins as the camera starts to pan is exemplary of the parallel relationship between the aural and visual elements in the film. As Joan Mellen has highlighted, the arabic soundtrack, as if from another world, expresses the

As the music goes on, the constant loud bang of the drum adds that scary effect that you don't know what's going to happen next. The sound of a train and furnaces firing up are amongst a few which add a heavier eerie feel to the sequence. The editing can be seen that throughout the sequence a filter was put on top of the film, as well as this many of the shots have a blur around the edges. This effect could connotate the feelings of the main character when he first comes out of the coma. A time-lapse shot has also been used from 0:09 to 0:11 to convey the many years that have passed since he has been in the coma. Many of the cuts are raw and sudden, the shot will go from landscape (wide shot) to a extreme close-up. Once again foreshadowing the events to come, this could mirror the act of the zombies suddenly appearing. lump cuts are also used In scenes of an abandoned house, giving a Jarring effect to the pace. The titles appear amongst the scene, sometimes moving. The final title 'The Walking Dead' flickers into shot over a green background that fades to black at the edges. The use of mise-en-scene in this sequence evokes anticipation in the audience. The post-apocalyptic world is conveyed through micro elements such as, the bare and dirty decor of the abandoned house and the low-key dingy lighting. The contrast of natural and low key

Another aspect of sound in this film was how it affected the story. By using sound dramatically in certain parts and not using it at all in other parts, sound gave this story an entity of its own. For example, during long stretches of film with mostly dialogue, there was no music played in the background, only a phone ringing in the distance, or the men's voices during their deliberation. These long silences also took place during editing shots of the town and images that surrounded this German city. This dramatic difference in sound was a revelation of how mood can be made by images and sound put together to make an incredible component.

These screams have an interesting connection to the rhythm of the film; each scream happens at a different point in time. In the first scenario, it happens in the beginning, then in the middle during the second scenario, and at the end in the final scenario.