In ‘The Longest Day’ when the boats were heading to Omaha beach the soldiers looked very proud and confident about going to war. This is a contrast to the fear shown by the soldiers in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and this compares the two films to one another. In ‘The Longest Day’ there was a long shot of a soldier looking ready for war. This shows and tells the audience how confident the soldiers were to go to war. There was also a long shot of the boats heading towards Omaha beach. We hear victory battle music at the beginning of the film giving the impression that the soldiers were really confident and ready for action. The music sounded very extreme, courageous, and victorious and we also hear the roar of the boat engines as they were heading towards the golden sandy shore. Then the music went a lot quieter afterwards. All these sounds and visual effects give the audience the impression that the soldiers are going to win the battle. It also gives the audience a good impression of the soldiers and their reactions. The soldiers’ reactions in both films are very different, in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ the soldiers looked frightened and worried, where as in ‘The Longest Day’ the soldiers look proud and confident.
In ‘Saving Private Ryan’ when the boats were landing on Omaha Beach the worried soldiers anxiously got out of the boats, and then they got brutally shot one after another. There was a close up shot of the soldiers being killed. This shows the audience how brutal the battle was. Then there was an over the shoulder shot of a German soldier. This shows the advantage and power the Germans had over the Americans. There was a hand held camera used in the battle. This was used because Steven Spielberg wanted make the audience feel they were following the soldiers into war and he also used it to make the film realistic. A handheld camera follows the soldiers into the water. As the soldiers go below the water everything goes silent. Then you hear the sound of the bullets hitting the water, they hit the soldiers with contempt. We see blood in the water as the soldiers get hit, it turns the sea all red with the blood. The effect on the audience is that they sense that the American soldiers are going to lose because the German soldiers have all the power. There are lots of American soldiers getting killed and injured. The film also looks at it from the German point of view. The camera puts the audience there with the Germans and makes it look as though they are shooting the Americans. The camera work makes the audience as if they were in the film.
In ‘The Longest Day’ when the boats were landing on the beach we saw the German reaction when they see the Americans are attacking. We see an immediate close up of a German soldier on a telephone. He is warning the other German soldiers of the attack. His voice sounded angry and annoyed. There was a long shot of a German office with lots of movement with people rushing about. This shot was shown because it tells the audience how busy it is in the office and gives a sense of panic and urgency. We heard the loud sound of the air raid sirens. When we listened to the Germans talking they sounded angry. We also hear the sound of noisy typewriters and we hear a telephone being slammed down.
The effect on the audience is that the Germans looked very stressed and annoyed so this makes the audience think the Americans will win the war. The two films are very different in respect.
In ‘Saving Private Ryan’, Captain Miller appears confused as he got out of the boat, he staggers and stumbles. We see his shock and confusion at everything around him. We can tell he looks very worried, he probably thinks he is going to die; he can’t take in what’s going on around him. We see a medium close up shot of Captain Miller’s face as he got out of the sea. The audience was shown this because this tells them what Miller has to go through in the war. There was an over the shoulder shot of Captain Miller; this shows the audience Miller’s perspective. The camera was all jumpy and shaky because it was a hand held camera. A hand held camera was used so we can follow the soldiers in action; the shot was also a point of view shot. There was also a medium close up shot of Miller putting his helmet onto his head, blood comes pouring out of it as he puts it on, and he had lifted it out of the sea. There was muted sound and slow motion throughout the scene but we could hear loud disturbing gunshots in the background. You could also hear the whistling of the wind as well. This shows the audience how terrified and sick with fear the soldiers were. This all adds to the drama and suspense of the film showing how frightened the soldiers were. Then a young soldier asked for instructions from the generals, and we hear loud gunshots again. The effect on the audience is that we saw horrific battle scenes and Miller’s facial point of view. His facial expressions and actions show us the terror he feels. The battle was so horrific and terrifying, Miller is frightened even though he is an experienced soldier, not a new recruit who hasn’t had experience of war before. This again tells the audience how frightening and terrifying being in the war was, even for an experienced soldier like Captain Miller.
In ‘The Longest Day’ in the battle, we see action from both the army’s point of view. When the battle was going on black smoke filled the air. The action was covered out by the black smoke. This is so the audience couldn’t see all the horrors of the battle. We also found out the seriousness of the situation from the generals who are not on the beach, we don’t see it for ourselves. The film was very generous in some ways because they were thinking about the audience and not just themselves. We saw a long shot of the Germans taking their positions for battle; this shows the audience all the action we can see which is going on. There was a medium shot of the American soldiers looking confident and victorious. This emphasises how the soldiers felt they would win the battle. There was an extreme long shot of Omaha Beach, showing the audience there was a battle going on. We see the battle from the Americans point of view. They used a point of view shot so we could see what the Americans were seeing with their own eyes. There was also a medium close up of an American soldier talking to a general. The general was smoking, this shows he’s confident and relaxed about it all. He thinks that his soldiers will win the battle. This shows the two films are very different to each other because in one film the Americans are worried and scared, and in the other film the Americans are very relaxed about it all. ‘The Longest Day’ film shows how victorious the Americans were during that battle but ‘Saving Private Ryan’ shows the horrors of the same battle.
In ‘The Longest Day’ we hear the loud sirens and the soldiers running about. Boat engines and crashing waves against the sandy beach can be heard. The sound of German voices. This shows we are seeing the Germans point of view. We could hear what they were talking about. The Americans cheer as they run into the battle. There were gunshot sounds in the background. All of these sounds give us an idea what the war was like. The battle in ‘The Longest Day’ was very noisy and loud. The effect on the audience is that the American soldiers looked confident and very proud of themselves. The smoke blocked out most of the action in the film, this gives the audience the impression that the film is good and it is generous to the feelings of the people watching it. This also meant that the audience didn’t realise the seriousness of the situation until they heard it from the generals at the end .The audience is not going to know how many soldiers died because this was blocked out, but this tells the audience that the film must have been horrific or they would have shown how many soldiers died in the battle of Omaha Beach. This film is very different to ‘Saving Private Ryan’ because we heard about how many died in ‘Saving Private Ryan’, where as we don’t in ‘The Longest Day’.
In ‘Saving Private Ryan’ at the end of the battle we saw the dead bodies in the bloody red sea, showing the audience how many men really died .This made the audience shocked because they can’t believe how many soldiers died in just that one battle. Most of the men died in the first few hours of the battle. We saw Captain Miller resting after the battle, he looked very tired and exhausted, but he also looked relieved because he knows it is over. There was a close up of Miller’s hand shaking and shuddering. This shows the audience how frightened and worried Miller was; he was fearful because he saw how many soldiers had died. He was very shocked by that. The camera then zooms into Miller’s eyes; he looked very frightened by his facial expressions as well. The camera then cuts to Millers point of view. This is a shot by which we can see what Miller is seeing. We saw the dead and floating bodies in the red bloody sea. This shot shows the audience what Miller is seeing. This tells the audience what Miller has been through; it also tells the audience how shocking war was for the soldiers in it. There was a medium shot of the soldiers’ boat with red bloody water in it. There was a long shot of the beach. This then allows the audience to see all the action there is really going on .The camera then zooms in on a backpack with the name Ryan on it. This links in to the rest of the film because the film is called ‘Saving Private Ryan’.
The two films were very different to each other because ‘Saving Private Ryan’ was very gory and bloody, we saw how many soldiers died. In ‘The Longest Day’ we didn’t see any soldiers killed. In ‘Saving Private Ryan’ the soldiers were very frightened and were not feeling confident. In ‘The Longest Day’ the American soldiers were more confident and felt they would win. So even though the films are both to do with war, and they have got the same themes, they are still very different to each other. This gave a comparison to each other. Spielberg was successful in making the battle scene shocking and realistic because he has told exactly how the real battle was on Omaha Beach, he made the film look authentic. He wanted to shock the audience by putting realistic scenes in. From my point of view I found ‘Saving Private Ryan’ the most successful. I found it the most successful because I felt it was the most realistic. It was the most shocking and I felt like I was in the war with the American soldiers, although I disliked the gory bits in it. Overall both ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘The Longest Day’ are successful in their own way.