SOUND - HUNGER CLIP 9

Activity 1 - The first task for us was to listen to the sounds that you hear in the clip and write about them. The sounds in the clip were very harsh and loud. Here are the sounds that I heard in the clip: Birds, breathing, doors opening and closing, foot steps, singing on bus, chairs moving, keys jangling, children laughing, silence and metallic (scraping, banging). All these sounds make us think about how strange the clip is and quite deep and confusing. There is barely any if any speaking in the clip which makes it extremely hard for us to connect to the clip and find it interesting.

Activity 2 – Now we are asked to write about the silence in the clip. When there is silence we are generally shown close up shots of the Bobby Sands dying. This is very disrupting and hard to watch. I think the reason why the camera focuses on the dying man when it is silence is to show us about his life and just before he is going to die he is in a heavenly place. We are told that this man has starved himself in prison to prove a point. This makes us think about the character and his emotions. The man is so weak he is unable to stand up. We are also shown in this clip the man blinking and you can hear him blinking which adds to the strange, weird, disturbing effect on the clip.

Activity 3 – In this activity we are asked to show how the main two keys sounds birds and breathing relate to the story. Firstly the heavy breathing of Bobby shows us that he is really struggle with life and his painful death. The breathing gives us a stronger feeling about him dying and makes us feel that Bobby is in pain. At the end of the clip we are shown Bobby as a child running through the woods. It starts to get dark and Bobby turns around, looks back and then carries on running. This is foreshadowing what is happening in his last few days of life. He has realised his life is up and he is not backing out, he is going to dye but he just has to get on with it and carry on like carrying on running instead of turning back. As Bobby carries on running we are shown lots of birds fly out of the trees and up into the sky. This could show that he has had a good life and now is going up to heaven. When he is running through the woods his breathing is also very loud and heavy which links in with him now breathing heavily, struggling before he dies.

Activity 4 – This activity we are asked to study the flashback at the end of the clip when music is introduced. The music played seems to be really disturbing and loud. As I listen to it more closely it could be resembled as funeral type, depressing, and sad music. It sounds as if it played by a horn or pipes which links to him dying and having funeral type music played.

Conclusion – The filmmaker using silence very well, it makes us concentrate more on what is filmed which is Bobby Sand’s dying. When something is died it is completely silent and peaceful this is why the filmmaker has used silence and breathing to really emphasis the death. The Loud, harsh sounds that the filmmaker used would show the pain and struggle Bobby has been through in his life but now he is put to rest is peace.