Compare and Contrast the media techniques used to produce d-day landing on the "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Longest Day"

Compare and Contrast the media techniques used to produce d-day landing on the “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Longest Day”

Seung-wook Lyeo

The D-Day landing must have been one of the most brutal battles between the Americans and the Germans during the World War 2. Both “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Longest Day” were produced as films to represent the brutality of what the D-Day was like. However, although both films were similar in the perspective of the factual storyline, their standards of filming and production were different due to the time they were filmed. Darryl F. Zannuk filmed “The Longest day” in 1962 and Steven Spielberg filmed “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998. Zannuk created the film only after 18 years after the Second World War and the international affairs were still at its worst due to the cold war crisis. Therefore the brutality and the accuracy of the fighting in the film were more vague than Saving Private Ryan. From the information I gathered the movie seemed quite accurate. The German High Command was extremely confused during the early hours of the invasion. Also the scene showing an immense number of troops and the number advantage over the Germans turned out to be quite accurate rather than implying that, that scene was there to show patriotism of the Americans. The information I gathered said that the invasion force consisted of more than 5,000 ships, 1,200 warships and 13,000 airplanes. Some 90,000 U.S., British, Canadian, and Free French troops landed on the beaches of Normandy while about 20,000 more came by parachute or glider. There are as I mentioned, scenes, which de-emphasised the horror of death in combat. There are also some scenes in which were altered dramatically. For example, during the WWII, the landings of the assault crafts were more difficult than shown in the movie. Soldiers were dropped off in water over their heads and had to use life jackets to keep afloat until they reached the shore, where they collapsed with exhaustion. The famous Spielberg film Saving Private Ryan was far more brutal and descriptive in showing the difficulty and pain that the soldiers experienced. However Spielberg was only able to do this, as there was a big difference in time between the last major battles that implied major effect on the public. Before Vietnam, Spielberg could not have made Saving Private Ryan as the public wouldn’t have accept or allow it due to the major effect media of the war had on the American public. However the Vietnam War gave Spielberg how real it felt using hand held cameras and up-close details of blood, fear, pain and trust.

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In “The Longest Day” the shots were firstly taken of the German’s perspective. The shots were taken from two separate cameras changing scene to and fro throughout the conversation, showing the fear of the Germans. Then the shot changed to the departure of the American troops (from interior to exterior) on War ships. When the camera filmed a shot of the American troops it had low modality because there was an evident screen behind the set. As a composition of a shot (mise-en-scene) “The Longest Day” mainly has a focus on a subject, such as the captain, the warships and the beach. The particular focus, of the captain in the centre commanding the troops, communicates to the audience the patriotic and military atmosphere. “Saving Private Ryan” does have a central focus of the captain’s hand at first but at the site of the battle there is no central focus, except a set of shots where it displays the captain’s thoughts and his perspective of the havoc that was being created. The beginning starts with an angled camera shot of the shallow waters and the barricades showing a sense of forthcoming havoc. Then a shot frame of the captains shaking hand is shown, focusing on a small area and expanding outwards revealing the other soldiers on board. Using this technique provides a tense atmosphere and a sense of fear and helps the audience to appreciate the effect of war on individuals. When the soldiers land at the shallow waters the camera performs a tracking shot of the way that the soldiers move and produces high modality shots, for example there is a shot of soldiers in water, struggling to escape from continuous fire from the German Base.

In “The Longest Day” shows a long shot of the beach before the landing of the American troops. The American troops are filmed from a quite a height (i.e. with a panoramic/aerial shot) and the camera didn’t zoom in to show detail of the events in the battle, so there is no focus on individuals. The camera also shows a distant shot of the Germans struggling to fight off the Americans. There is a scene where the camera follows a group of soldiers running up the beach, but again it is from a height so it didn’t fully involve the audience in the scene. “Saving Private Ryan”, unlike “The Longest Day” Spielberg uses several angles and a lot of tracking shots, which involves the audience. They use the shaky hand-held camera effect to completely involve the audience, giving the feeling of being one of the men at the battle site. The most significant part of the battle scene is when Tom Hanks stops next to a barricade and looks around the view the chaos that was surrounding him. The hand-held camera is positioned from Tom Hanks view to deliver a clear image to the audience of what Tom Hanks is feeling and viewing.

Due to the lack of advanced equipment, the editing of “The Longest Day” isn’t up to the standard of “Saving Private Ryan”. It is not as upbeat and does not create a sense of terror in the battle. The pace is slow which does not give a sufficient battle like atmosphere. “The Longest Day” is evidently biased towards the Americans as it was not long after the Second World War and it showed the bravery of the Americans and the cowardice of the Germans. For example the Americans cheer as they attack the beach and the Germans struggle to put them off and start panicking. In “Saving Private Ryan” there is a fair-paced edit, which gives a sense of havoc. Also as it was produced in 1998, it revealed what a soldier really would have felt during the war. It shows the Germans like a killing machine brutally denominating the Americans, for example when the door of the ship opens for the soldiers to jump out to the sea bank, the Germans demolish the whole unit straight away, inflicting the horror of the war.

“The Longest Day” is black and white, therefore it is hard to detect any sort of significant colours and lighting in the film but it could be said that the whole scene in the battle zone was very bright and sunny showing no signs of terror and showing a more peaceful atmosphere. Whereas in “Saving Private Ryan” Steven Spielberg deliberately chose gloomy colours to represent an atmosphere of great sadness and terror and according to the survivors it was also a gloomy day. Also in the film it originally shows quite peaceful weather, but when the landing starts it turns gloomy and starts raining to add to the gloomy settings.

The dialogue in “The Longest Day” is upbeat, fast and represents contrasting emotions; fear and joy, ‘Ah yes, there it is Omaha Beach’. When the Germans gets the call that the Americans were attacking, there are clear signs of panic in their voices and the speech becomes faster which also displays fear. However the dialogue in “Saving Private Ryan” is different, we don’t hear the Germans speak (as if they were some sort of machine) and whenever the Americans speak fear is conveyed, even in the captain’s (Tom Hanks’) voice, such as when he shouts ‘clear those murder holes’

There are many differences in Sound effects in the two films. In “The Longest Day” there is military music when the Americans depart to attack the Germans as if it was their victory already. During the war there are very little sound effects that can be significantly recognised, apart from the bombing and the shooting. But during short speeches by the officers in battle, there are no sound effects but just silence to make sure the audience could hear the actors. However in “Saving Private Ryan” there is no music but silence with very slight noise of water slapping against the ship as they departed showing isolation of the soldiers, as if they were departing for their judgement day. Also when the shooting and the bombing begin there are a lot of cries and screams. There is a significant use of silence in the battle scene. For example when the camera goes under the water to show what is going on under the water level, there is only silence except for the slight slicing sound of the bullet cutting through the water. When Tom Hanks looks around the beach to observe what is going on, every sound is blocked out apart form his heavy breathing and the tunnelling noise as if he can’t believe what was going on. All these sound effects accurately represents the chaos that is going on in the battle and in the soldiers mind.

The overall differences between the two films are that The Longest day is quite an upbeat and positive army movie, which wanted to show confidence in victory, and that America was totally indestructible, while “Saving Private Ryan” wanted to point out that War is horrible and ruthless and has the odds against survival. It also engages the audience in the movie to show the real feelings and the fear of soldiers going to war. The treatments of Germans were different in both films. As “The Longest Day” was positive about victory it showed the bravery of the Americans and the cowardice of the Germans, whilst “Saving Private Ryan” showed that they were like some sort of machines, unforgiving, creating havoc and chaos.