Composers of distinctively visual texts are able to manipulate the emotions of the audience to influence the response of a collective group. This is demonstrated in John Misto’s play ‘The Shoe-Horn Sonata’ and Jason Van Genderen’s short film ‘Mankind Is No Island’ whereby distinctively visual techniques enable the audience to clearly imagine, form meaning and understand a composer’s unique perspective.
Misto’s Shoe-Horn Sonata (S-HS) demonstrates numerous heroic acts that engage the audience through distinct visuals. The play itself centres on two fictional characters, Bridie and Sheila, whose stories have been obtained from female survivors of the Prisoner of War (POW) camps. Sheila’s calm voice provides a distinctively chilling visual image
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as she retells how a nurse hanging off a six-inch ledge’ as the ‘Japanese watched and laughed at her’ washed out bedpans laden with human waste. Sheila’s retelling of the story emphasises the great fortitude displayed by this individual female prisoner thus evoking sympathy within the audience through highlighting the distinctively visual image of determination and human spirit. However, it is prior to this during scene 8 that the true idea of heroism is displayed when the truth behind Sheila’s sacrifice of her body to obtain quinine to save Bridie’s life, is revealed.
As the audience hears the sound of crickets rising to a crescendo the suspense increases and allows the audience to experience the engaging climax. The scene ends with a dramatic representation of the two character’s separation through the use of isolated spotlights, which distinguishes that they are at opposite ends of the stage. This visual technique consequently shapes the audience’s interpretation of the two character’s relationship as reinforced by Sheila posing ‘would you have gone to the Japs for me?’ to which she receives no responses providing an emotional appeal to the audience. These heroics depicted in in S-HS consequently shape our perspective to position the reader to interpret the intended reading due to the distinct …show more content…
visuals. This unjust treatment in the POW camps can be similarly reflected in short film ‘Mankind is no island’, which alludes to the inequality faced by those homeless in Sydney and New York through distinct visuals.
To convey his point, Van Genderson constructs the film through camera phone shots to force a point in reference to societies attitude of ignorance towards the homeless. A low angled shot a red heart balloon powerfully symbolises both love and hope are forfeited due to the nature of the balloon floating away. The composer carefully contrasts high-level shots against eye-level shots of the homeless to provide a distinctively biased visual image of the neglect faced by those less fortunate. We later notice the deflation of the balloon rolling along the street that indicates the fragility of hope and worthless felt by those homeless, which is reinforced by the repetition of the phrase ‘no standing’ to portray how they have nothing and societies obliviousness to this fact. The use of soft melody which transitions into a fast paced melody is carefully juxtaposed alongside the rhetorical question “when did you last see you dad, boys mother?” thus engaging the audience and evoking a sense of empathy by alluding to the family they may have once had. The way the composer complements the visual and dialogic aspects with music illustrates several interpretations of society, all which by distinctively visual techniques alter and manipulate our perspective to that of the composers
upon society. Misto’s play is able to explore interpersonal relationships between the characters, which are enhanced through the use of distinct visuals. This strain is seen following the commencement of the war as Bridie loses touch with Sheila who experiences abandonment and betrayal considering they had gone through so much together “… I couldn’t believe you would leave me”. The stage direction “Sheila takes the shoe-horn out of the drawer and throws it onto the bed” symbolises Bridies self-awareness of Sheila’s sacrifice during the war. However, these two characters are able to reconcile through Bridie’s emotional imagery regarding Sheila ‘…a beautiful, kind and brave young women…she is-the other half of my life’ which portrays her affection for her friend and but more importantly the stage direction of ‘Squeezes Sheila’s hand and tries to smile gentle’ demonstrates to the audience the strength of their relationship thus showing that this mateship and loyalty is what got them through the war. This comradeship is symbolised by the shoehorn, as Bridie used it to keep Sheila awake from drowning in scene 3 as described by the onomatopoeia “Tap-tap-tap”, to show their will to live. During this scene, the pair begin to sing the hymn ‘Jerusalem’ which alludes to biblical connotations of hope and survival. This mateship demonstrated between the women consequently identifies the preferred reading through distinctively visual techniques. Conclusively, both these texts effectively use distinctive visuals to convey the preferred context of the text. Misto’s play ‘Shoehorn Sonata’ and Van Genderson’s film ‘Mankind is no Island’ both enable the audience to clearly interpret and draw meaning from to understand the composers preferred reading.
This film captures this class distinction without subduing the atmosphere through the use of a variety of cinematic devices. “A good film is not a bag of cinematic devices but the embodiment, through devices, of a vision, an underlying theme” (Barnett, 274). The audience can see this theme of the realities of the oppression, poverty and despair of this time period through the use of the things mentioned, but also through the character development that is driven by the character’s hopelessness. Each of the characters associated with the lower class is motivated by the conditions, which are viewed through the cinematic devices mentioned above: color, spherical lenses, long shots, and high angle shots. Sources Cited:.
Ascher speaks to her readers through the use of pathos. As she portrays the homeless – wretched, stained, and noxious – Ascher is permitting her audience to imagine them. Depicting the experiences between
It is true that the essence of any story is emphasised through distinctively visual images created for the audience. The ability of any composer- an artist with paint brushes, a musician with chords or the writer with words- to entice and evoke is at the centre of a narrative. Both Peter Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro and Beneath Clouds by Iven Sen evoke emotions in the responder through distinctively visual elements and exploration of the concepts appearance versus reality and influence of environment.
It is imperative to understand the significance of the profound effects these elements have on the audience’s response to the play. Without effective and accurate embodiments of the central themes, seeing a play becomes an aimless experience and the meaning of the message is lost. Forgiveness and redemption stand as the central themes of the message in The Spitfire Grill. Actors communicate character development through both nonverbal and verbal cues; their costumes serve as a visual representation of this development by reflecting the personal transformation of each character. In the case of The Spitfire Grill, set design is cut back to allow for the audience’s primary focus to be on the actors and their story. Different from set design, the use of sound and lights in The Spitfire Grill, establishes the mood for the play. In other words, every theatrical element in a play has a purpose; when befittingly manipulated, these elements become the director’s strongest means of expressing central themes, and therefore a means of achieving set objectives. Here again, The Spitfire Grill is no exception. With the support of these theatrical elements, the play’s themes of forgiveness and redemption shine as bright as the moon on
Statistically, over 670,000 Americans are homeless with a growing number. 48 million people go to bed hungry every night. Although we do provide shelters and opportunities in America, millions of people are homeless worldwide. Even on a more minor level there are still hundreds homeless within hometowns. Everyday we encounter the homeless whether by seeing them holding their personal signs at stoplights, confronts with beggars, or viewing them from afar under bridges. In her essay titled “On Compassion”, writer Barbara Ascher uses rhetorical techniques detailing some of her personal homeless experiences within the city life, Asher does effectively use logos, pathos,
Literary theorist, Kenneth Burke, defined dramatistic explaination by the prescence of five key elements. This list of elements, now popularly known as Burke’s Pentad, can be used to asses human behavior as well as dicipher literary themes and motives. The five elements; agent, purpose, scene, act, and agency, have been found highly useful by performance study practitioners in translating texts into aesthetics. When systematically applying Burke’s Pentad to “Burn Your Maps,” a short story by Robyn Joy Leff published January 2002 of the Atlantic Monthly, the analyzer can realistically grasp the emotional and logical motivations and tones of the text. By doing so, the performer becomes an enlightened vessel for the message Leff wants to communicate. The Pentad can be described with simple questions like: Who? What? When? Where? How?, but asking the small questions should always lead to more in depth analysis of the element, and it should overall, explain the deeper question: Why?
Distinctively visual language and cinematic techniques highlight to the responder the particular literal and metaphorical experiences characters are faced with, within a text. Peter Goldsworthy’s novel Maestro, Don McLean’s song ‘Vincent’ and the intriguing film Australia by Baz Luhrrman, explore the ways in which the human experiences of an individual’s connection to landscape is fundamental in shaping one’s sense of identity, personal growth and development. Composers further explore the realisation that our lives can be enriched by an understanding and appreciation of art as well as a deeper understanding of the importance of love and lust. The depiction of characters is conveyed through distinctively visual images to highlight the subsequent development of courage and resilience leads responders to a deeper understanding of how human experiences can create a sense of individuality.
Composers of texts repeatedly have the common aim of persuading the audience into agreement or seek to gain empathy. The deliberate intention of the composer to inflict an incongruous perspective through the use of medium is represented through personalities, events and situations. Particularly, in both Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s infamous 1941 Four Freedoms speech, composer perspectives presented on historical events can be distorted, shaped, and reshaped to uniquely evoke a passionate response in the audience. Subtleties in the presentation of form overt a strong authenticity to text and provide a sustained theatrical license for the composer.
Therefore, the distinctive visual techniques employed by the composer provide a vehicle for the respondent to understand the ideas and themes prompted by people and their experiences. Tykwer’s film, Run Lola Run demonstrates the effect of the distinctive visual in Lola’s exploration of the themes of chance and time, whilst Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’ provides the audience with an evocative experience of the Australian environment.
After the completion of WWII, survivors that were still being held captive were pedometerly Australian Nurses in Japanese prisoner camps. Not only did the nurses survive the brutality and horrific traumatic experiences of war they also survived the brutal and unimaginable living experiences of the Japanese prisoner camp. Little to no food or water and the sleeping and living conditions were next to unbearable. There were Australian nurses in prisoner war camps in, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and other Asian countries.
Mr. Berger states in his essay, “The reciprocal nature of vision is more fundamental than that of a spoken dialogue. And often dialogue is an attempt to verbalize this- an attempt to explain how, either metaphorically or literally, “you see things” (120). This statement is a use of the rhetorical strategy, ethos, which is what Mr. Berger uses to gain influence and trust with the academic audience that he is intending to instill new knowledge in. This is a strong use of ethos that leads into how art is viewed so
In conclusion, the poem “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine” by Charles Alan Sylvestri can be set to music in wildly different ways to accentuate different aspects of the plot. The first text setting described portrays a dramatic story of Leonardo conquering his dreams of flight (or so it seems), and the second, by Eric Whitacre, telling the same story in a less dramatic and more ethereal style. This text provides a great example of how the musical setting can completely change not only the listener’s experience, but the story itself.
Intro: In Steven Connor’s ‘Ears Have Walls: On Hearing Art’ (2005), Connor presents us with the idea that sound art has either gone outside or has the capacity to bring the outside inside. Sound work makes us aware of the continuing emphasis upon division and partition that continues to exist even in the most radically revisable or polymorphous gallery space, because sound spreads and leaks, like odour. Unlike music, Sound Art usually does not require silence for its proper presentation.
For this essay I will be looking at the work of Hans Zimmer to discuss how music in film engages the viewer and evokes emotion and pulls the viewer toward the film. Hans Zimmer is a German born music composer. Hans Zimmer’s love of music stems from his childhood when he learned how to play various instruments. Before Zimmer began composing music for films he was in a well-known band. The band was called The Buggles whom were famous for their song Video Killed the Radio Star. After the Buggles Zimmer played in other bands but never had another hit. As Zimmer has progressed as a film composer so has his list of nominations and awards. Zimmer has won 4 Grammy Awards and 2 Golden Globes and many more for his outstanding film scores. The reason I chose to write this essay on Zimmer was that his genres and music score are extremely versatile ranging from animations to comedy to dark thrillers. This is important to highlight as it shows Zimmer can create almost any atmosphere with his music whether it be sad or creating tension that all cause us to engage with the film. Zimmer's use of themes and introduction of different instruments allowed him to create these wonderful engaging film score. In this essay I will look at three films by Hans Zimmer these are The Holiday Rush and Rain Man.
As an audience we are manipulated from the moment a film begins. In this essay I wish to explore how The Conversation’s use of sound design has directly controlled our perceptions and emotional responses as well as how it can change the meaning of the image. I would also like to discover how the soundtrack guides the audience’s attention with the use of diegetic and nondiegetic sounds.