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 Ryan 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.

Spielberg directed this movie to culturally represent how awful the war really was. There weren’t a lot of movies at the time of the 20th century that actually showed the awful events of World War II. Instead, many directors and film makers made the war heroic, glamorous, and sometimes even humorous. 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.'” Spielberg noted that his goal while making this film was to show young people what they’re getting into when they’re sent off to war. For example, the first 27 minutes of the film showed to the audience is thousands of American soldiers storming Omaha Beach and being blown up to pieces, and that was just the beginning. The movie actually almost earned the “NC-17” rating instead of the current “R” rating it has.

The mise-en-scene was something also was very good in the film. The setting of the film is almost always taken place outside and rarely was filmed indoors. The lighting of the film normally always is project from the sky since most of the scene’s settings take place outside. There are so many props that were used to make this movie as realistic as possible. The most common props used in the movie were weapon replicas, sandbags, rubble, ditches, military trucks, etc. The makeup on the actors was also really well done. they would either have really dried blood on their faces or  massive amounts of dirt of their face to represent how long they’ve been out at war. For example, in a scene where the medic of their squad gets shot multiple times, we can see the large number of props used and the lighting of the scene change for the scenario. The audience can see the actors use first aid kits, canteens, needles, rags, anything they have to try and save his life. Unfortunately, the medic eventually dies and the sky starts to darken to represent their loss. Everything is set up to look exactly how it would look like in war and there is so many props used in every scene. Matt Damon said that Spielberg “packs the frame with so much and the frame is moving and you say ‘Wait a minute. Did some guy’s arm just get blown off?'”

The cinematography and sound of the film was wonderfully done. Many of the camera shots were handheld with the exception of a few different camera angles (long shot, close up, medium shot, etc). Spielberg stated he used the mind-set that combat camera crews used in World War II and the Korean War which was get the best footage you can and then get out before getting shot. We can see this within the movie in many different scenes as the camera shakes viciously to resemble that war effect. The sounds of the movie are what you’d expect in a war movie but are well made and timed efficiently. Sounds like machine gun fire, explosions, continuous yelling are common in every war movie but the way they were used in Saving Private Ryan was amazing. All of them sounded realistic, clean, and well produced. For instance, one scene towards the end of the movie where a tank round hits a building right next to Captain Miller and falls to the ground shows the audience some great sounds and camera shots. After he gets back some balance from the explosion, he starts to look around at what’s happening to the rest of his fellow brothers. This part of the scene gives the audience a medium close up of his reaction of what is happening at that very moment. However, Captain Miller is still very disoriented and the camera angle transitions to a POV angle (that shakes quite a bit to resemble his disorientation) to show the audience what he is seeing. Even Tom Hanks said during filming “From my perspective it was as real as real could be, it was loud, scary, smoke-filled, and it was chaotic” (CNN, Spielberg Aims to Tell Truth about Was in ‘Saving Private Ryan’).

Besides Spielberg doing a great job directing this movie, the actors did a great job showing emotion and personality. In many of the scenes, the audience can see fear, angry, sadness, stress, etc in actor’s faces. For example, One scene shows two of the squad members relaxing a bit before the Germans arrive at Ramelle and you can see the stress in their faces and how hard they’re trying to stay positive and happy. Even one of them says “I didn’t use to smoke before this war” as the other one hands them a lighter to light their cigarette. Spielberg even sent his whole entire cast to 10 days of boot camp to get them prepared for the reality of war before filming.

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.