Bloody Sunday Analysis

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CINE 286L Take-Home Final Paper

1a-) Bloody Sunday (Greengrass, 2001) shows the story of the peaceful march incident on 30 January 1972. In Blaney’s essay, she states Bloody Sunday presents itself as a counterfeit document. The main reason of her statement is that, Bloody Sunday specifies itself to viewers as a docudrama style film. In order to make Bloody Sunday a counterfeit document, Greengrass replicates the real footages and iconographic photographs. Photograph is a frozen moment without story however in Bloody Sunday, the Greengrass injects time to particular iconographic photographs such as the moment of the marching crowd or the moment of the father waving white and bloody handkerchief as a peaceful
In this case, particular film style means docudrama style film. In addition the transition techniques are crucial for docudrama style films in order to convey the message. In Bloody Sunday, Greengrass gives role to unprofessional actors to re-enact the historical moment and performs the scenes where soldiers film without knowing how the scenes are going to be or without any former knowledge. This kind of acting makes film more professional because the real job of nonprofessional actor is being soldier and they already know how to act as soldier and also this kind of acting show the historical credibility of Bloody Sunday. We can see the benefit of using real soldier in radio talk scenes and we can see how unprofessional actors act perfectly as a soldier. In Blaney’s essay she states that the decision of Greengrass which is casting professional soldiers that are unprofessional actors is the most important key the success of Bloody Sunday. This decision that made Greengraas gives viewers historical credibility and make Bloody Sunday more authentic. All these factors above increases the quality of docudrama style film and make Bloody Sunday different from other nicer versions. Besides the acting, conveying the action of incident is essential for docudrama style films. Greengrass transmits the action with using camera style. The
Klimov uses close-ups and low-angle shots frequently as cinematography technique. He also uses lots of diegetic sounds as sound technique. Come and See also has a characteristic of a perturbative and ruined landscape which filmed in blurry color. Come and See is stunningly sincere with viewers due to close-ups and low angles. In one particular scene when Flor becomes numbs by the portrait of Adolf Hitler which is floating in a pond, Klimov uses low angle shot. Showing the dominance of Flor against Hitler to viewers is the main strategy here. With the close up shot viewers can see the anger and hate of Flor against Hitler. Klimov also adds bunch of German military montage to film while Flor is shooting portrait of Hitler. At the end of montage Flor stops and viewers see the baby Hitler Klimov shots Flor’s face with close ups and viewer can see his emotion. At the end of scene, question raises in viewers head “Does Flor have a right to shot baby Hitler?” The cinematography technique that Klimov uses leaves the answer to viewers. Moreover Klimov uses tracking shot with Steadicam in scene that Flor walking towards his burned dad and viewers watch the scene from his point of view. The main strategy of tracking shot with Steadicam is to integrate viewers with the scene here. All the strategies that Klimov uses above explains how he uses cinematography,