Saving Private Ryan VS The Longest Day - How do these two representations of the same historical event differ from each other?
Saving Private Ryan VS The Longest Day.
How do these two representations of the same historical event differ from each other?
Both of these films, Saving Private Ryan (1999) and the Longest Day (1962), are representations of the D-day landings on Omaha beach in France.
The war film genre was chosen due to its popularity, historical interest and the excitement and adventure involved in battle.
The longest day could have easily been an English propaganda film, as it gave a very un-realistic view on the D-day landings, glorifying the British, and making the Nazis look incapable of winning the war. In contrast Saving Private Ryan was an attempt to make sense of history, which was as realistic as it could be. Also the creation of a heroic figure gave the audience a character to follow the film with.
Saving Private Ryan was far more realistic than the Longest Day. I will be looking at how all the different factors of making a film make the films more realistic. I will be commenting on, shots and angles used visual effects, sound effects, mise-en-scene and lighting.
In Saving Private Ryan and the Longest Day camera shots and angles are totally different. In Saving Private Ryan the director chose many different camera shot to bring different effects, like the underwater shot, this shot brings the effect of fear, struggling and panic; it is in slow motion whilst under water, and when the camera comes out of the water, to exaggerates the soldiers need for air, everything speeds up again to exaggerate how serial it is to be trapped under water.
You can see many dead bodies floating around, as well as soldiers fighting in the struggle of men and bullets to stay alive. Extreme close ups (XCU) are used to show the soldiers emotions, like close ups of fearful eyes and soldiers physically shaking with fear.
In the Longest Day the camera shots and angles obviously were not as advanced as Saving Private Ryan, this is because of the technology of that time. In the film, due to the technology available to him, the director used mostly long shots (LS) and a few low angled shots.
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You can see many dead bodies floating around, as well as soldiers fighting in the struggle of men and bullets to stay alive. Extreme close ups (XCU) are used to show the soldiers emotions, like close ups of fearful eyes and soldiers physically shaking with fear.
In the Longest Day the camera shots and angles obviously were not as advanced as Saving Private Ryan, this is because of the technology of that time. In the film, due to the technology available to him, the director used mostly long shots (LS) and a few low angled shots.
In Saving Private Ryan, when the soldier move up the beach, a 'stead cam' is used, this has a very good effect and I think the director would have wanted to show the audience what the war was actually like and the 'stead cam' helped to do so.
In the Longest Day the soldiers arriving on the beach was not as dramatic or realistic, the actors were smiling and not looking terrified at all, and a camera following soldiers up the beach does have a far more dramatic effect and the longest Day lacked this.
Saving Private Ryan uses more sophisticated camera techniques such as panning whereas The Longest Day uses very little of this.
In both films seamless editing is used. Seamless editing is where the join between two shots cannot be seen, as apposed to fading and merging where it can. In the Longest Day editing is very slow and the shots are very long, whereas is Saving Private Ryan many of the shot are quick, this makes things that bit more dramatic and makes you feel you have no time to look away, enticing you into the film. Not only does this emphasise the hectic ness of the battle field and the exhaustion of the soldiers, it also makes the audience excited by what they are seeing.
The sound effects in The Longest Day are repetitive. The gunfire for the machine guns is the same all the time with occasionally a few breaks. Although there is the sound of waves crashing in the background, there is very little contrast between the sound levels.
In Saving Private Ryan the sound levels are varied there is a lot of contrast between the ocean, the dialogue speaking and the machine gun fire and explosions sounded as though some were close and some were far away. Many of the sound effects in Saving Private Ryan are quite disturbing like vomiting and bullets penetrating soldier's bodies.
Dialogue in The Longest Day is very calm and when some one is speaking the sound level for the background noise is lowered so much it is hard to hear, this is not very realistic. In Saving Private Ryan dialogue has emotion, codes are used and swearing and cursing within combat gives a great amount of effect. Also the level of sound is balanced and it is much easier to differentiate between things far away and thing close by.
In The Longest Day there is a scene where some of the soldiers are sat in a circle on the beach, not only is this really unrealistic, but there is no fear in their voices and the background noise is stopped. This does have an advantage as the audience can clearly hear what they are saying, but by totally wiping out all the background noise effect is lost and the shot is made completely unrealistic of war.
The Longest Day has no swearing or cursing throughout the whole of the extract we saw, this may have had something to do with the period of time in which this film was made, the audience would have found it offensive and it may have put them off watching the film.
There is no music in either of the two extracts, this was done because not only would there not have been music in an actual war but the silences make the audience feel aware of and exposed to what was going on. There is also no voice-over, I think this is because there is no need for one as the picture explains everything, voice-overs can also distract the audience from what is going on and can sound very 'cheesy'.
Mise-en-scene is very important; it is everything you can see, the set, costumes, props and any other major or minor details. This is important especially in Saving Private Ryan as it wasn't filmed at the same time as it was set. A lot of research had to be done to ensure that all costumes and props were perfect, as anything that was not of the correct time period could have completely ruined the whole effect of the film.
This was just as important to the director of the longest day, although he did not have to worry so much as much of the stuff, e.g. watches, that the actors had would have been much the same, as the making of this film was so close to war time. But considering this the costume wasn't all that realistic, the soldiers who had supposedly been wearing their uniforms for weeks looked completely spotless.
Also the film being in black and white did no help the effect as it could not show the colour of explosions and blood, the film being made so long ago proved a disadvantage as the directors and editors did not have as much technology to play around with.
The use of colour of colour in saving private ryan proved very effective, the blood, explosions and the contrast in colours when the blood contaminates the water makes this scene very effective.
In The Longest Day as it was set shortly after the war the Germans were made to look evil, dangerous and as it they were enjoying killing all those innocent soldiers, where as in Saving Private Ryan war was made to look realistic, frightening and what it was really like. File technology and graphics are used to show special effects with human limbs and organs, Germans were made to be in equilibrium with the British.
Personally I prefer Saving Private Ryan out of the two films it is realistic exciting and the technology and effects are far superior. I found The Longest Day very boring and dragged on, I think this was partly because of the time gap; it restricted the directors ability to make the film really realistic.
If I had the chance to watch the rest of one of the film I would undoubtedly chose Saving Private Ryan as it is more enticing and I found it more exciting, convincing and generally altogether a better film. I may be interested in watching the whole of the two films just to compare them further.
Gabrielle Glover