The 1996 game “Ignition” lets you pick different vehicles, like a school bus, a monster truck, or a police car, for example. And then you need to chase up and down different landscapes to win the race. Kind of like Mario Kart, without the bananas and turtle shells. In the level called Yodel Peaks, you go through a snowy winter landscape and need to steer clear of a bunch of snowballs rolling by before going through a quaint little winter town. There, while going for the last stretch of the level, there is a clear bell sound. It sounds a little bit like the one in “The Flying Classroom," the 1954 film based on the book with the same name by German author Erich Kästner. In the movie there is also a snowball fight.
The interesting thing about Ignition is that the mechanics of the game allow you to keep on driving (if you change directions, go the wrong way, and don’t finish). Not only that, you are also able to manipulate the other cars and rearrange them. The point of the game, naturally, as with most racing games, is to keep on driving, as fast and efficient as possible, to score and advance to new levels with faster cars and better equipment. It is a very straightforward plot. Win the race, get the cup, and move on to the next level. After a while the difficulty increases, and you do the same tracks with harder obstacles, faster opponents, and tougher controls. While racing you don’t think about much else, you need to go faster, around every corner, up and down the snowy slopes.
But then there is the bell.
It’s a sound that signals a break. A cease of activity. Or the start of a new one. In the Flying Classroom, the bell signals the start of another school day, the break, the end of it. The conflicts stay around and develop even after the bell rings. Erich Kästner also makes an appearance in the movie, as a narrator that tells the viewer the story about the boarding school kids and the locals in the little school town as well. And he does so in the middle of the postwar Wirtschaftswunder landscape with a cold beer and a cigarette and a calf walking on the pasture, also with a bell attached, announcing its arrival.
The word "bellwether" has that sound ingrained. From the sheep that announced their arrival by the bell a few centuries ago on the British Isles. The bell is present on notifications, on phones, in tramways, in bars to signal a new round, and in softer variations from post offices to hospitals. A small sound that notifies the beginning, the middle or the end. In the theater, in the movies, in life.
In Breaking Bad there is a significant scene (MAJOR SPOILERS & GRAPHIC CONTENT)
Hearing the bell ring can be damnation and salvation. Or just a signal to grab some salad or a coffee break.
In a movie you can rewind and watch it again, but the bell will always ring at the same time. At the same spot, the same distance from the camera, and so forth.
In the racing game, it will also ring when you pass it by, but sometimes that might be by yourself, or closely followed or overtaken by another vehicle. You might hear it ring in 1st position, or 2nd or last. And if you decide to stop the race and just stand in the little village space of the game map, you can hear it ring again and again, every couple of seconds. Simulating the experience of passing through once.
“And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls” by John Donne, a few years after the bellwether, and famously in and on the book by Ernest Hemingway.
Those are the bells you hear ringing.
But then there are the ones you ring yourself. The doorbells that serve a purpose, or the thrill of a well-executed ding dong ditch.
The bell you ring for Christmas or when you step up to a reception or a store desk and ring the bell after coughing and trying to get some attention.
And all the bells and whistles that are part of performances.
Or you could argue: The cowbell is a bit more than just a great comedy sketch.