Look at how Saving Private Ryan portrays war - analyse the first few scenes, look at the way the lights are set and how the cameras are placed and used - see the way the actors act and try and say why.

        As this scene comes to an end it slowly fade into the next. The patriotic music slowly quietens down only to bring in the noise of the sea in a landing craft. As the picture returns it is immediately clear that the colours have been toned down and are much more earthy and dull. The sky is overcast. From just the colours we get a far more grim feeling. It portrays a very bad thing to come even before we know what is going to happen.

        The first thing the viewer sees once they are in the landing craft is Tom Hanks shaking hand on his canteen. The camera then moves out and around the craft to show all of the men in it. We see some of them vomiting. The soldiers all have red eyes and look very scared. As the film continues there is a man at the back of the craft shouting orders. Shortly after we have a definite shudder and the front of the craft opens and every one in the front is immediately cut down by a machine gunner. The camera then moves to behind the machine gunner looking down at the people he is killing. The way the camera is behind him is quite important, as we do not see his face or anything more than a silhouette. This stops us from making an emotional connection to the Germans. From this we return to the landing craft where the soldiers are jumping out of the side to get out. We then see things happening from under they water. This again is a change in sound instead of the loud sharp sounds of war we can hear the same sounds but much more muffled and distorted. We still see the same carnage as before just far slower as people are drowning as well due to their heavy equipment. Eventually the camera returns to the land and we see a panning shot, running along with the soldiers the showing carnage around them. At one point Tom Hanks falls down and drops his hat. When this happens we see everything in slow motion and it makes us concentrate more on what is happening. During this we watch as one man searches for his arm and picks up some one elses before finding his own. As the picture and sound speed up again a man shouting at Tom Hanks asking for orders makes the confusion clear. We again see the view from the machine gunner and this again enforces our view of the Germans as being evil. We see them as being worse as we have made a connection to the Americans’ suffering and how they are helpless against the Germans. As the soldiers work their way from tank trap to tank trap gaining the little cover they can, the lack of leadership is evident as there is nobody telling anyone to do anything. The rest of the beach scene is very much more of the same showing the struggle to move up the beach and how they are helpless.

        Finally we come to a point where the Americans have got behind the Germans and very much the tables have been turned. We do not feel the film however has already heavily reinforced the same emotion. A particularly good example of the way the Americans are feeling is when two of the Germans surrender and the Americans shot them as a joke. This makes it obvious that the anger is very high because of their friends being killed around them. We also see some of the men crying. I think this is particularly meaningful as these are not “wussy men” they are trained to fight, the reasons for this are the horrors of battle, sadness of friends being killed and the relief of survival. We also see one of the men collecting some of the sand that he puts in a bag with sand from other countries. The sands are from all the places he has fought at.

        The first few scenes of the film are very powerful and display a realistic view of war. They show how the war can affect you till you are very old and the scars that it leaves are deeper than the skin. Some people may argue that the emotion from a war can never be portrayed in a film but I think this is a very good example and does not glamorise war in the way other films do. We don’t see the heroics of people throwing themselves at hopeless causes there is real fear. There is a true sense of danger and we are never sure who may die.

Antony Griffiths