Film Analysis
The film I decide to analyze is “Saving Private Ryan” directed by Steven Spielberg that takes place right in the middle of World War II. The movie follows Army Ranger Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks), and his squad of 7 men following orders by looking for Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who has been ordered to return home after all three of his brothers had been killed in action. As they travel through warfare and bloodshed, they eventually find Ryan but must stay in Ramelle (where they found Ryan) after he decides to stay and fight with the only “brothers” he has left. After a battle with the Germans at Ramelle, Ryan, and the remainder of the American soldiers set off to go home (IMDb, “Saving Private Ryan”). This movie vividly shows the hardships soldiers went through and how gruesome the war was.
One scene that examples this is toward the end of the movie when a tank fires a round into a building right next to Captain Miller. Miller falls to the ground and becomes disoriented and confused as he looks around and see his fellow “brothers” getting shot or others sitting in fear. This scene is really powerful because it shows a little snippet of why war is horrifying: fear and death. The battle takes place in the fictional town of Ramelle, where the squad first met up with Private Ryan. All the lighting of this scene is suppose to be projected from the sky since the scene takes place outside in the town. The props of the scene are mostly rubble, ditches, and fallen debris to show the damage that the battle has caused. All the actors portrayed in this scene are all wearing army outfits; greenish or grey depending on what role they played. Also during the scene, Captain Miller has blood all over his face from the explosion. The sound in the scene is faded to let the audience experience how Captain Miller feels since he got the wind knocked out of him from the explosion. The camera angle also lets us experience how Captain Miller is feeling. One angle is his point of view so the audience can experience what he is seeing and the other angle is a medium close up shot so we can also see his reaction to all the stuff that’s happening within the scene. The shot is also blurred in the scene and shakes around quite a bit to represent his disorientation and confusion from the explosion.
Another scene that shows the hardships and misery that soldiers had to go through is when one of the squad members gets shot multiple times and dies slowly right in front of the rest of the squad members. This scene is really emotional and really shows how soldiers had to go through the torment of losing one of their own. The setting of the scene takes place in the middle of a hill in a ditch previously used by the Germans before they were killed. The medic of the squad Wade, is laying in the ditch shot up while the rest of the members try to patch his wounds. Again, all the lighting of the scene projects from the sky since the scene takes place outside. There is a ton of props and fake blood used in the scene to show how bad Wade’s injury is. In the scene, the audience can see first aid kits, canteens, needles, rags, etc used by the actors to try and save Wade. All the actors are still in their greenish, dusty army uniforms and have dirty faces to resemble how long they’ve been out at war. The sound in the scene mainly is overtaking of the other soldiers and Wade gurgling on his own blood. The camera angle let’s the audience see and experience what the other soldiers are feeling and sensing. The angles that were mostly used in the scene were close-ups, medium close-ups, medium shots. The camera also shakes a little bit to represent one of soldiers shaking in fear seeing Wade in that state of condition.
Spielberg directed this movie to specifically change the way people may see war after watching Saving Private Ryan. According to an interview done by CNN’s Paul Vercammen, Spielberg stated “I wasn’t going to add my film to a long list of pictures that make World War II ‘the glamorous war,’ ‘the romantic war'”. There weren’t many World War II films that actually showed the awful events of World War II during the 20th century. Instead, they glamorized it, made it heroic, or even sometimes humorous. Spielberg has definitely changed mine and many others’ perception of war with just this one movie. He put in all the scenes of soldiers getting shot up or blowing up into pieces to show his audience that World War II was brutal and serious. At the very beginning of the movie, the audience’s emotion could already be changed as we can see hundreds of thousands of soldiers being shot up at Omaha Beach. The actors also make facial expressions mostly consisting of fear for the audience to relate to.
There are many other great camera shots, angles, props, sounds, etc within the movie to let the audience experience the war effect as well. The way this movie was set up and directed perfectly showed what could have happened in the war. This movie is one of the many great war films that shows how awful World War II was and what many soldiers had to experience during the war.
Works Cited
Barsam, Richard Meran., and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. 5th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. Print.
Saving Private Ryan. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Prod. Steven Spielberg. By Robert Rodat. Perf. Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, and Tom Sizemore. DreamWorks Pictures, 1998. DVD. Web.
“Saving Private Ryan.” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2016.
Vercammen, Paul. “CNN – Spielberg Aims to Tell Truth about War in ‘Saving …” Spielberg Aims to Tell Truth about War in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ CNN, 23 July 1998. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
