The second scene shows the audience Omaha beach, Normandy, 1944. The setting is the open sea, and the audience can see lots of Higgins landing crafts heading to shore. There is an extreme close up of a quivering hand unscrewing a water flask. It belongs to Tom Hanks, who is the main character in the film. The audience may assume at this point that this is the man from the graveyard. The fact that his hand is shaking shows that he I nervous or afraid and not a typical war hero who is fearless. Sound of vomiting can be heard which causes the audience to assume that the men are sea sick or really anxious. Orders are being given and the sound of waves crashing against the boats can be heard. The doors of the boats open and immediately the opening line of men are shot at and killed. Lots of different camera angles are used by the director to show how swiftly the men are being killed. As the surviving men jump into the sea, the camera and therefore the audience, follow the men into the water. The sound changes and becomes dulled and distorted. Men are shown in mid range shots being dragged down and drowned by the weight of their packs and some men are being killed by streaking bullets. The audience see the water turn red with blood and are meant to feel that they are there with these men. We are shown the view of the beach and the soldiers being mowed down by the spraying bullets from the German machine-gunners point of view. This is an over-shoulder shot to show the audience their power and authority over the Americans. The scene ends with a distinct absence of sound as Tom Hank’s character Captain Miller goes into momentary shock as he realises the brutal nature of what is going on around him.
Once captain miller recovers from his confused state the audience watch the men regroup and make their way up the beach. We see many fatalities of soldiers in mid and long shots. The audience are not spared any details of the horrific way these men die. They are shot, burnt and shelled with explosives. One soldier is shot at, the bullet ricochets of his helmet, he then takes of his helmet in amazement and is then shot in the head. There are also extreme graphical representations of war brutalities. One soldier is lying on the ground with his entrails hanging out of his body and is crying for his mother. The director wants the audience to feel as if they are there and feeling the terror and panic of war. He wanted the audience to feel if they are there on the beach with the men, attempting to put the audience in the battle with the men to help the audience understand the chaos, fear and randomness of it all. It is also used as a contrast between the glorification of war and the brutal reality of it. Spielberg wanted to show the audience how people who admire war have no idea how horrific it can be.
While the battle is taking place the director uses the camera as if it is a real soldier. It ducks when the other soldiers duck, it moves when the other soldiers move and it is at eye-level; this is the real world angle that we are all used to. Eventually, after much loss of lives the men overcome the German defences. When the Americans soldiers detonate an explosion where most of the German machine-gunners are based the German soldiers are thrown out of the compound whilst burning. An American soldier starts shooting at them his comrade then shouts “don’t shoot, let them burn”. This shows that the American soldiers are taking revenge on the Germans for all their dead companions and sparks a sense of satisfaction in the audience as the witnessed the American soldiers cruelly killed on the shoreline. A small group of soldiers make progress and eventually take control of the beach. One of the soldiers grasps a handful of earth and places it in a metal tin, it is labelled France. He then places it with other metal tins labelled with other names of locations such as Africa and Italy. As the small company of men are pillaging the trenches one of the soldiers discovers a Hitler Youth Knife on one of the German soldiers, he hands it to his Jewish colleague who then begins to shed tears. This maybe because he was thinking about the deaths of a vast number of Jewish People who have been murdered and the most of the full scale of what was happening in Nazi occupied Europe was not known to the allies, this makes the audience feel sad and sorry for the Jewish soldier . The camera pans along the beach as Sergeant Horvath exclaims, “That's quite a view”. The audience then see the carnage and loss of life that has occurred in the battle. The camera finally zooms in on the back of Private Ryan. The music is soft and calm and relieves the stress of the battle for the audience. This takes the audience back to the tranquillity of the opening scene.
As a director Spielberg’s aims were to create a movie that was authentic in every way possible as well as to make the audience empathise with the film. I believe that Spielberg not only achieved his aims to create such a realistic film but actually individualised Saving Private Ryan by making it unique from other war films; unlike the typical war film which is usually triumph over anonymous villains. Saving Private Ryan explores the audience’s emotions deeply by creating a sense of hurt, anger, sadness and patriotism. The effect the first opening 24 minutes had on me as the audience was a sense of calm and then suddenly a tidal wave of chaos and disorientation of the battle, the film was not just entertaining but gave me an insight into not just the physical pain that the soldiers went through but the emotional turmoil of what they were facing and if they will make it out alive. Overall I think that Saving Private Ryan was a great piece of cinematography and the realism of the opening 24 minute tour de force makes it a pleasure to watch. However this is not a film that will please everyone as is the case with all war films; nevertheless it is a brilliantly directed motion picture that breaks the stereotypes of men of war being heroic fighting machines into men that were frightened and confused as it so likely was.
