Shoe-Horn_Sonata

English Assessment 2: Distinctively Visual. The Shoe-Horn Sonata and Paradise Road Distinctively visual can be defined as an image which portrays meaning by emphasising the use of visual imagery. It is used by composers through what can actually been seen, for example, props and costumes. It can also be shown through what the responder uses to visualise things which cannot be visually seen, for example, symbolism and descriptions. John Misto, composer of The Shoe-Horn Sonata and Bruce Breseford, composer of Paradise Road use different forms and language to create images that affect the interpretation and shape meaning for the particular purpose and audience. Both composers use the techniques to create visual imagery in the texts. John Misto was inspired by the most famous recounts of the experiences of the women in World War 2, titled White Coolies written by Betty Jeffery. This same book formed the basis for the movie Paradise road. There are four main themes illustrated through the play The Shoe-Horn Sonata. These themes are evident throughout the play. These themes include; the healing power of truth, Mateship and Resourcefulness, The power of art and revealing injustice. The play was written to remember the harrowing ordeals the women went through and an attempt to gain recognition for the women caught in these situations. In the first scene of the play, Misto uses stage design, lighting and music to explore the theme of revealing injustice. The play beings in darkness, ‘Out of silence comes the voice of Bridie.’ Misto uses this beginning to allow the audience to imagine Bridie before the audience actually visually see her. This gives the audience a chance to visualise what they think Bridie might look like. Bridie then caps her hands twice to grab the audience attention. “Bridie stands in a spotlight. She bows stiffly from the waist, and remains in this position.’ This gesture and use of lighting sets the scene. It also shows the audience the control the Japanese, and emperor, had over the women, ‘This kowtow is a tribute to the Emperor of Japan. Any bow that’s less than perfect is a blasphemy against him.’ This is an example of Bridie’s recollection of what she was taught during the camp. Through scene 1, photographs of poster’s for the Women’s Army are projected behind Bridie, followed by photographs of the Australian army nurses disembarking in Singapore. These images are displayed while the song ‘Fall in Bother’ a popular marching song of the period. These images are examples of the propaganda used at the time. The government used poster’s like these to try and get women to join the army. These posters being juxtaposed with the women disembarking make the audience visualise the war as it was portrayed to the women at the time. It was portrayed that the war was a glorious time, and they would be greatly recognised once it was over. This image is slowly changed throughout the play. Photographs of the war displayed accompanied by a song is also used in the movie Paradise Road. Beresford uses black and white photographs of the war in the opening scenes of the movie, accompanied by music to establish the context. These images are photos usually associated today with the memory of men who fought in the war. ‘Bridie slaps Sheila’, in scene 8 of the play, the tension is built to the point where Bridie slaps Sheila. This is the only part in the play where the audience actually she violence. Throughout the other scenes Misto uses descriptions or uses lighting such as black out to make the audience visualise violence. Misto also uses, for example, ‘The sounds of machine guns- and the cries of women’, to help the audience visualise the violence. Bridie can see there is a secret which Sheila has been keeping from Bridie and its hurting to Sheila. Bridie wants Sheila to confide and trust her, just as she did in camp. Throughout different scenes in paradise road the audience can see the harrowing violence the women were confronted with. The movie is more visually confronting than the play as the audience is visually seeing the brutality and the effects it had on the others observing. One scene shows several close up shots of a prisoner being burnt alive in front of the rest of the women and children, as she was trading there only possessions for medicine. The audience is also confronted with the scenes of women being hit with different objects and the cruel punishments they were subject to. There is only one instance where the audience is not subjected to. When one of the main protagonists claims to have been raped by the guard she is beaten and then the screen goes black. The next scene then shows her locked in a cage with shaven hair. The audience does not see the events that lead to her being put into the cage, or the shaving of her head. After Sheila reveals her secret to Bridie, Bridie and Sheila are ‘isolated in spotlights’, this use of lighting shows the audience the different opinions the women had on the issue and although they were both in the camp, their stories and outcomes were very different. This lighting creates tension, isolation and separation of the women. It has an overwhelming effect on the audience and creates empathy for both women. The Shoe-Horn is a symbol of survival and of the women’s friendship throughout the play. The shoe-horn was originally given to Bridie from her dad before leaving Australia. In scene 8, Sheila tells her story of how she swapped the shoe-horn for medicine for Bridie. “Male Voiceover, so that shoe-horn ended up saving you both' You in the sea- and Bridie in camp.’ This becomes clearer in the play that this was not the exact truth. The first images displayed in second act are photographs of ‘row upon row of captured women British and Australian women bowing to the Japanese.’ These images are projected on the screen to make the audience feel a sense of empathy for these women. They are another example, as the first scene, of the power and control the Japanese had over the women. The power of the Japanese is also shown in Paradise Road. A truck is backed into the camp and dumps food on the ground in front of eagerly waiting women and children. The women and children fight over the food which had been dumped on the ground. The Japanese are shown through a close up shot; there body language showing amusement and content of the women and children foraging for food. This also shows the appalling things the women were put through and contributes to the audience feeling a strong sense of disgust towards the Japanese. Another set of images are displayed in scene 9, ‘two photographs of war-time Prime minister John Curtain appear on the screen looks quite distressed,’ this is juxtaposed two photographs of emaciated male prisoners of war, starving, dying and covered in tropical ulcers.’ These images as well as the message which was sent by the Australian government to the women saying ‘keep smiling, girls,’ was used by the composer to show that the decisions which was made by these politicians affected normal men and women like Bridie and Sheila. The saying ‘keep smiling, girls’ is a type of black humour. ‘They were skin and bone and covered in boils, and they’d just been told to keep smiling’, Sheila tells the male voiceover. The Shoe-Horn Sonata and Paradise Road display the harrowing events which took place in World War 2. Both use visual texts to engage the audience and show the events which lead to the women coming so close to death. Both texts shape their meaning by using visual techniques, either through what can be seen or what can be visualised, in an attempt to gain recognition for the women, who have all been forgotten. By Rebecca Ciuffetelli