Saving Private Ryan Research Paper

English Essay
‘Saving Private Ryan’
By Holly Towler

Steven Spielberg's masterpiece Saving Private Ryan earned itself 5 academy awards, including the best director award in 1998. The all-star cast starring Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and more brings to life the horror of war. Seen through the eyes of an American soldier; the story begins with World War 2’s historic D-Day invasion. We follow captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and his soldiers as they battle their way on to Omaha beach. In the past war films were all about shocking horror and a hero-based movie. But this movie is different it captures the true chaos of war. Saving Private Ryan brings back to life the real heroes that fought in the war.

The film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ opens with an establishing shot, which includes a close up of a muted American flag. The flag is muted because it is a sign of patriotism and respect. This is accompanied with somber music to make the scene very emotive and serious. This opening shows us that the film is not going to be like the rest, it is unique. Spielburg also said “ the last thing I wanted to do in this picture was use the war simply as a spring board for action adventure. I was looking
for realism all the time”. The next shot we see is a panning shot, following an old man. Spielburg uses this shot to make us concentrate on the old man, and to make us form a relationship with him. As the panning shot follows the old man and zooms out, we see he has a family behind him, supporting him. The old man comes to a cemetery. With the camera still following him, he hesitates. We then see a long shot of graves/crosses. The old man then collapes, and we see an extreme close up of his eyes. This is used to show the intensity of the old mans feelings, and pain.

The next scene goes back into the past after seeing the old man’s haunted eyes. It opens with an establishing shot telling us that we have gone back to June 6th 1944. This is used to tell us the date and to show us the setting. A handheld camera is used to make us feel like we are one of the soldiers. We close up’s of different men, which shows us different emotions of the soldiers. We are shown that all of them are afraid even the captain. Then we see an extreme close up of the captains shaking hands. The shaking hands inform us that not only were the un-experianced soldiers scared but their captain was terrified too. There is a shot of a soldier with a cross. The soldier prays and kisses the cross. This shows some people are turning to god for help. A man also shouts “God be with you!”, this shows us God is very important to the men. The boat is full of fear, and chaos, withmen that have never been to war. Some men are even being sick. In the background we can hear gun shots, explosions and very violent waves. The diologe is very quiet. This hsows us that the men on the boat could hardly hear each other, all the could hear was destruction and violence.

Next we see a close up of the men opening up the boat, and seeing how they are just shot down like a shooting line up. As the soldiers come off the boat we see a close up of a man struggling to get to the surface. Whilst he is fighting his way to the surface he suffocates. It tells us that not only were people shot but there were other reasons to why they died. Whilst we see the man drowning, we are shown two men making their way to the shore. On their way to the shore they are shot. The sea is a crimson red from the amount of men that have been killed. The film colour is muted apart from the colour of blood and fire. This is to show the audience the intensity of death and destruction. As we get onto the shore, the handheld camera is used , again to put the audience into the shoes of a soldie. It gives us the impression that we are protecting our selves from the natzi’s. Also it gives us a relationship with all of the men on the beach, like they are out team. It makes us feel like we are seeing our team mates, our friends, even our family being killed. During the scene the only thing you can hear is the sound of guns, explosions, death, basicly destruction.

Then we see a close up of captain miller.
The music and sound stops, and we see all of the men being shot and all we see is death and fear. A man looking for his arm a trying to find someone to put it back on is shown. The captain see’s a boat and several mean on fire, this shows American soldiers seem to be nothing compared to the German’s. German’s control the beach. The captain puts his helmet on, and we see a soldier trying to say something but we cannot hear him. As the sound returns, the soldier asks the captain again, “what the hell do we do now sir ?” there are men turning to the scared and confused captain miller for help. There is a panning shot which follows the captain as he makes his way further into the beach. Next a long shot is shown whilst the captain is explaining the
plan.

Then we see a close up of a man with his organs coming out, he is screaming for hi ‘Mumma’. The camera shoots in several different directions to show the conditions of many soldiers. Captain miller is shown, in a long shot, dragginf a body across the ground. As he is walking another explosion goes of and the sound of destruction stops again. When captain miller falls over the sound of gun shots and explosions come back. The hand held camera follows captain miller as all the soldiers