Below zero temperatures. Coldness biting at your nails. Day to day life turning to frantic survival. Thrill seeking turning to frantic survival...
Good morning Mrs Crook and fellow peers. By reading the novel touching the void, written by Joe Simpson, and viewing the film the day after tomorrow, we can further grasp the technicalities of true survival,such as the sacrifices that may be confronted and the choices which are made. We can observe such survival values through the usage of techniques.‘You gotta make decisions. ’ ‘If you don't make decisions, you're stuffed.
’ Throughout each of our lives, we go through many trials. The choices we make can affect the people around us for the rest of their lives. In Touching The Void, readers are informed of Joe’s ‘experience of that long, long night, expecting to fall at any time’ before the climbing of ‘the majestic 21000 ft Silua Grande’, the mountain which the book is set.Joes ‘terrible fear and insecurity’ of climbing, shown through repetitionof ‘long’ and factual language, displays the hard choice to climb again. When Joe gets a bit anxious before they ascend up the mountain, Simons laid back casual language‘you survived the last one’, characterisesSimon, but also indicates Joe is easily swayed in his decision making processes, ‘Right! I was just being cautious’.
Opposed to the novel, the day after tomorrow film characters are forced into climatic atrocity and made into heroes.Shown through high angle shot, we can establish the feeling of vulnerability when a tidal wave swept through the city, levelling buildings and destroying significant landmarks such as the Statue of liberty, symbolising the downfall of America and also the frantic loss of peace/calm through a nation. The wave clearly demonstrates terror struck into people, displaying that the people of Manhattan couldn’t run from essentially, the end of the world. The use of non- diegetic music foreshadows the destruction about to come with a sense of danger approaching, making audience’s feel emotionally attached to the characters.In the film, Jack, the main protagonist and hero, says to his son by phone, that it was too late to go south away from the brutality of the storm; they just had to bear it. This shows viewers that the personalities had no choice but to pray to god and hope, spreading the feeling of defeat and despair .
Sacrifice is often thought of as someone putting others first, acting the hero. But between the novel and film audiences are enabled to see both sides of sacrifice, selflessness and self-preservation. Touching the Void shows a story of sacrifice of the kind that readers don’t often think about, self-preservation.They come into a situation, when Joe‘felt a shattering blow’ in his knee and ‘felt bones splitting’. The realistic description ,imagery and sensory language of ‘the impact’ which had driven his ‘lower leg up through the knee joint’ enables readers to feel the pain the character is going through.
Exclamatory language is prominent when Joe breaks his leg, ‘My leg! Oh Jesus. My leg! ’ ,forcing readers to hear the urgency in his voice, despair and severity of the break. Joe depends on Simon to haul him back to safety but Simon, turns into an antagonist when he cuts the rope, ‘the taut rope exploded at the touch of the blade.’This part in the novel is written in italics to show that it is written from Simon’s perspective in 1st person narration. After Simon cut the rope he didn’t worry ‘whether he was alive’ and describes Joe as a ‘weight’ gone from him. ‘There was no guilt, not even sorrow.
’ This makes responders somewhat think, would I cut the rope? Roland Emmerich, director of The Day after Tomorrow, skilfully portrays sacrifice as an act of selflessness and friendship contrasted to Touching the Void where it was an act of self preservation.Sam ,jacks son, is trapped in the storm and is told to stay put. Jack, puts his life on the line to save his son, ‘I will come for you’, characterising him as the hero, but also using exclamatory language when told he couldn’t save him, ‘I have to do this! ’. Frank also sacrifices his life by cutting his own rope while hanging over certain doom. Extreme close up, helps audiences to see the realisation in franks face, that Jack couldn’t save him.
Contrasted to Touching the Void, Jack saw his friends face, which was through a high angle shot making Frank look helpless.Viewers can’t help but feel emotional connection which is somewhat lacking in the novel because they don’t have the visual effects only our imagination. Diegetic sounds such as frank dropping the bag down and it crunching on a hand rail below, symbolizes what would happen to franks body, foreshadowing the sacrifice that ends his life. Therefore in summary, the text and film that we have studied in class, explore the notions of choice and survival through a variety language and film techniques.
