In the opening scene of the film we witness a old man who we come to find out is private Ryan walking down what seems to be a path with a group of people with cameras walking behind him. As the man reaches the end of the path we see a large war cemetery with all the crosses lined up in a row. Soon after we see him fall to his knees and break down in tears. This whole scene is very powerful and gives off a great deal of shock to the audience as the scale of death is shown through the mass of white crosses witch practically covers the whole site and the music that sets the mood is very dull and the camera angles portray the scale of death perfectly. The audience should feel a sense of pity for the man as he has clearly lost someone in the terrible tragedy of war. This scene will also make sense of the rest of the film. At the end of this scene we have a close up of the mans eyes and the sounds of waves crashing and then it cuts to the d-day landing which is the transition from present to past.
The scene opens with a panning out shot of Omaha beach with the waves crashing up on the empty beach apart from the hoards of tank traps. You hear a faint sound of an engine above the waves and then it cuts to one of the landing vehicles which contain nervous soldiers who are not talking at all. We then get a close up of a man’s hand un-screwing his canteen for a drink and his hands are shaking rapidly from the nerves which shows they are very scared for their safety and others around themselves .This scene will be repeated through out the film to show it is not just then they are nervous. Then the camera zooms out and a man is vomiting from the nerves. This confirms to the audience that nearly all of the soldiers are nervous or scared of war. Next lots of orders are shouted out which sets upon the audience that blood shed is about to follow no matter what. Next the door comes down and the camera moves outside the boat and bullets hurtle down to the soldiers and nearly all of them are slaughter. This makes the audience feel for those poor people stuck on the boats.
As people are getting shot others are bailing out over the side of the boat trying to escape from the gun fire but in doing so the soldiers are getting pulled under, and drowned by there own equipment . The camera follows them down to show the audience every bit of pain and anguish they are going though. As the soldiers are advancing up the beach, there is constant gun fire and explosions so everyone is shouting if they need to say something which adds to the creation of the realism of the atmosphere, so the audience get the sense of the extensive noise level. The gun fire is apart of the atmosphere in its self, as the ‘whizzing’ and the ‘thud’ made when a bullet hits a soldier so the audience knows when someone has been shot. As the battle rages on more and more people are having limbs blown off and are being picked off by the German machine gunners in there bunkers. This shot of the Germans massacring the allied troops breaks the habit of the typical war film were hardly anything happens to the allied soldiers, which is stereotyping, but this film shows both sides of the landing and is fair and realistic with the casualties taken on by either side. The constant switch over views either from over in the German bunker or the hand-held camera on the beach it shows the soldiers are maybe fighting for a lost cause and that no one can survive this onslaught.
As Captain Miller arose from the blood red sea and falls over then we the audience witness the shock and confusion he is going through as we have the effect of the hand-held camera put to good use as we see everything from his point of view which gives the audience a taste of what each and every soldier is seeing on the beach. As Captain Miller stops for a moment he obtains a helmet from the sand and places it over his head not caring about the blood, water and sand it contains that then makes him look blood splattered. Thus illustrating how the shock is taking over how he thinks and reacts normally. As the bombs are going off around them people are getting shell-shock ( temporary loss of hearing ) and we see a soldier of a lower rank shouting at Captain Miller for what they should do next , but Captain Miller can not hear them due to the extent of the shell-shock. After a short while his hearing comes back along with the sound of gun fire, bombs exploding and the thudding of bullets entering peoples bodies. With this scene, the audience are plunged into the horror of war along side the brave soldiers, and witnessing the senseless carnage they suffered. These series of events are used to shock the audience beyond belief and give a true in sight to the atrocities war.
In this last scene of the opening battle we witness Sergeant Horvath say ‘that’s quite a view’ which is then repeated by Captain Miller. Then we have a close up of his hand shaking which is repeated to give effect then switches to a close up of his eyes then it goes to his view point to show the audience what he could see. Light airy music fades in to add to the peacefulness now that the carnage is over so the transition from death to calm is portrayed to its full potential. We are shown a long shot of bloody water washing over the masses of bodies then a close up of a soldiers boots. The sea is now red with the blood of the dead and wounded and then eventually zooms in on the wording of a soldiers backpack – RYAN.
In my opinion Spielberg has done exceedingly well to illustrate to horror of war in such a distinct way . All of the other war films I have watched the allies seem to have a super human figure as there main character whereas in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ the main character seems to be a normal individual . Spielberg has taken in the facts and made a interesting interpretation of how it may have seemed but not making either side look to have any advantage or disadvantage over the other.
This opening sequence prepared me for what was to follow as you could actually sense how the soldiers might have felt from the well illustrated feeling put up on the screen for example the repeated scene of the hand shaking or the vomiting in the boat but the whole thing put together this more than prepared me for the film.