Steven Spielberg has a meticulous way of getting the details of the period right as well as the historical setting. He recreates the Normandy landing in a way that the audience could feel the pain and suffering. This was a unique way he approached this by being true to life.
Steven Spielberg went to a lot of trouble over a long period of time, to find the perfect location to make this film a success. He travelled around Europe searching for a beach identical to the Omaha. Eventually they found a very similar beach in the East Coast of Ireland. After getting the beach settled, it was a good time to find a historically accurate village for one of the important scenes. Once again they had searched around Europe and failed to find a place like this. Instead Spielberg decided to start from scratch, by building a bombed-out French village near Hatfield Aerodrome in the North of London.
Most of the vehicles and weapons for the film were very easy to find for example tanks, but landing craft were not so easy to find, as they were very expensive and hard to have access to. Some of the equipment used was from Britain but most of it was from Palm Springs California. All the equipment bought had to be refurbished then sent to Ireland. All together it took them three months to find and receive 2000 weapons that were featured in the film, most of them purchased in Britain and Germany.
To make the soldiers realistic in “Saving Private Ryan”, Spielberg hired Ireland’s army, which he had already worked with in “Brave heart”. The stars of the film had to train continuously to get the best results, which were needed. This was time consuming and a very expensive exercise. Surprisingly they had problems transforming the actors to military soldiers, so to achieve this Spielberg happily called in the Marine Corps Captain and the staff from the Captains Company Warriors Inc. The actors were sent to boot camp for ten days training, where they were taught how to use weapons, slang and signals which were all used in World War 2. All this training was a success as you can see in the film.
The film’s cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, had the thought of subtracting a fraction of colour from the film. To avoid clear skies and fluffy white clouds Kaminski removed the protective coating from the inside of the lens. The colour made it look duller and had a more dated colour to suit the film’s subject.
The representation of the film’s main character is unpredictable, Miller, the film’s hero, is not represented, as a stereotypical Rambo-type, a patriot with nerves of steel and capable of performing impossible physical fears. Instead he is the opposite, as his right hand shakes showing he is full of nerves he is actually a nervous and vulnerable man.
Captain Miller was a teacher before the war occurred but he still shines through the barbaric situations, which he gets into. Even though there is a lot of madness and confusion, he tries his best to hold himself and the team together. Captain Miller’s right hand shakes intensely when he is nervous and when something drastic happens he hides himself so he can express his hurt by crying. He refuses to let his team know what he is feeling as he is determined to keep them together and have them stay strong minded. The mission he took was not compulsory but it was a “public relations exercise” which if he and his team completed, they could go home. He is determined to carry out the order all the way to the end and his men’s hostility do not deter him. Miller’s life was taken due to his courage and determination to save Private Ryan.
The selected soldiers were more predictable as everyone had a stereotype to match their role from the weakling to the bible-quoting shooter; the hard campaign veteran sergeant Horvath and others are shown in a stereotypical way. The effect of the actors who have a face that you can’t put a name to, this adds to the film’s authenticity.
The 24 minutes opening scene is the most realistic combat scene ever filmed and will not be forgotten. It sticks in your mind as it pulls you into the action. This is mainly done by visual and sound techniques throughout the scene. The impact of the fist scene was exciting and left you in a feeling of suspense, left wondering what was going to happen next. You see the bravery of the soldiers trying to
push their way into the battle but they don’t get much further than the water as they are shot or painfully hurt. They try to escape the hot bullets of the machine guns while other soldiers pile over the landing straight into the water trying to survive. As soon as they hit the water they were most likely to drown as their back- packs weighed them down, keeping them underwater, and if they were lucky someone would notice and try to save them from their fate. When watching the opening scene you don’t only see the suffering of the soldiers but as they go underwater they take the audience with them. This gives you understanding of the panic and terror they were feeling while underwater and an insight into the feeling of drowning. On surfacing from the water the soldiers are met with deafening explosions of the battle this was very effective in the film making the audience aware of the terror the soldiers were feeling at this point.
A bomb goes off close to Captain Miller, as this happens he gets concussed and is deafened by the explosion, the audience feels the effects of the explosion almost as much as Miller as there is a silence at this point in the film. Thus making this scene more effective as you sit in suspense waiting for the silence to break making you feel part of the horror that surrounds him.
The images are grey and faded brown; this makes the scene similar to the footage of the actual event. Even more effective was the only colour that was seen at this point was this sea, which was crimson red from the blood of the soldiers.
The visual effects are unique and stunning. Most of the footage on the beach was shot with hand-held cameras in which the camera man/woman had to jump, duck, dive and slide around. This gives you the feeling of confusion all around and makes it most realistic and pulls you into the scene with the soldiers.
Throughout the opening scene the height of the cameras were knees to waist height this gives the effect of the soldiers crawling and crouching down to protect their heads getting shot off. Kaminski plays around with the shutter speed to occasionally slow the images down or maybe increase the speed and jump frames. This gives a nightmarish effect of the events that surround them.
Twenty-four minutes are cut, edited and overflowing with horror such as imploding heads, you would only have to blink once and miss some great action scenes. This makes a frightening atmosphere but exciting to the viewer.
The sound and visual effects have produced what is known as the most realistic film ever shot. Spielberg, claimed he wanted to resensitise us, not desensitise us to the violence of war. There were sights so shocking that the would make you want to turn away and make you search the cinema for the nearest exit
“Saving Private Ryan” is the most memorable war film I have ever seen and enjoyed. It showed me that a lot of people put great trust in one another in extreme situations. It also makes you realise that all the memorials for the bravery of soldiers are there for a reason because these people deserve to be remembered as well as the families they left behind. Now that people have seen this portrayal of the war, they can appreciate what a lot of brave soldiers did for their country.
Leighona Mills
