How Steven Spielberg was able to convery the true horror of WWII in "Saving Private Ryan"

Saving Private Ryan - Essay

India Rose 10X1

“The last thing I wanted to do in this picture was to use the war as a springboard for action-adventure. I was looking for realism the whole time” said Steven Spielberg, the director of the film “Saving Private Ryan”

Spielberg’s foremost aim was to bring a realism to the film and really convey the true horrors of World War II. He used many different kinds of methods including the varied camera work, the sound used and all the background research into D-day to try and give the audience a true insight into what exactly the initial 24 minute battle sequence was depicting.

Spielberg had to consider the way in which he was going to bring the knowledge he had gained from researching the battle of Omaha Beach onto the screen. One of our main focuses for study was looking into the different camera work. The first scene we are shown screen is the one in which Private Ryan, now an elderly man, is visiting the World War II memorial in Normandy, France. The very first shot is of the American flag. As the military music begins to fade out we start hearing the wind and the flag flapping around. We hear all this before any action takes place on screen. I think this was supposed to give this particular scene a certain patriotic feel before it had even begun. The first action of the opening sequence begins with the camera focusing on Ryan’s feet and legs and working its way up his body as we are shown him slowly leading his family up to the cemetery. As the scene progresses, the camera work and techniques change. Where as before, the camera’s main focus was on James Ryan himself, when he and his family arrive at the graveyard, an extreme long shot is used to scan the view though the eyes of the on-lookers and many different angles are shown of the graves. The colours are de-saturated to make the setting appear darker and more gloomy than usual. It seems to be in almost black and white, but this again was a technique to set the scene. Although there is music played by a single instrument, perhaps a trumpet during the opening credits, there is no dialogue up to this point. As this scene begins, only the sound of the wind and the footsteps of Private Ryan are depictable. The camera moves to focus on Private Ryan entering the cemetery. We are shown him approaching it, with a cross to his right side and a gravestone with a Star of David on it to his right. We thought this may have been an appropriate place for Spielberg to make Ryan’s entrance because he, himself is Jewish and it could also echo the Holocaust. He steadies himself on a tree and he looks onto the cemetery as if he is preparing himself for what he’s about to see. When he enters the rows of marble stone, he comes to a specific grave, we are not aware at first just who’s grave it is, we have to guess that he was in some way very important to Private Ryan and perhaps a close friend. Judging from the way Ryan breaks down at this point, we are left guessing his significance as a individual.

After looking at the gravestone for some time, Ryan finds it all too much and breaks down on his knees. This is when the first line of dialogue is introduced. As the members of his family are rushing towards him, we hear a young man shout, “Dad!” We don’t need to be told that this man is the son of Private Ryan. A detailed shot is then given of the emotion being portrayed by the actor of James Ryan. An extreme close-up is given of his eyes and by looking into his eyes, they seem to be sparkling with the tears that are yet to fall down his cheeks and the memories of war seem to be plaguing him in a way that makes him very distressed: his lip is gently quivering and his whole face seems to be trembling as if he is trying not to cry. As the close-up increases, you can see that his eyes seem to sparkle with a light - as if his experience in the war is flashing through his memory. The last shot of this particular scene is of Ryan’s eyes.

By telling the story in this way, Spielberg keeps us guessing all the way through this scene. We are not told anything for sure, but given clues and hints to the man’s identity, where he is and what he’s doing there but because of the lack of dialogue we are not completely sure of the goings-on. It certainly contains many aspects of shock and horror. Just the vast amount of grave-stones shown in the cemetery really captures your emotion and the way Private Ryan is reacting to all that is surrounding him portrays how the war affected the soldiers and just being reminded of it is enough to distress and make them suffer all over again.

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I believe Spielberg’s aim at this point of the film was to mainly get his audience interested in what they were watching. He wanted them to guess, and by this means to understand the basic plot of the film and from which point of view the story was going to be told from. The first sequence is put across is in a very subtle way, with nothing being given away and nothing being made too obvious. The opening sequence is certainly one with a very powerful message.

The film then cuts to D-day, June 6th as the U.S army prepare ...

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The film then cuts to D-day, June 6th as the U.S army prepare to land at Omaha Beach in Normandy. I believe Spielberg began this scene with a lot going on to immediately grab the attention of the audience. It begins with a wide angled landscape shot of the sea and you can hear the waves crashing before anything appears on the screen. The first thing you see when the scene begins with part of the beach defences in the shallows and a date and title come up at the bottom of the screen. This is to tell you the date and the event this particular scene is depicting, it helps to understand what D-day is, as it gives you a background of why this is all happening and is also known as an establishing shot as it shows the environment in which the film is set. It is followed shortly by a close-up of a man’s shaking hands opening a flask of drink, we later find out that this man is Captain Miller played by Tom Hanks. He is sitting on the boat with the other troops getting ready to land on the beach and begin the battle. By introducing Captain Miller straight after the close-up of Ryan’s eyes, we could guess that this man was in fact Private Ryan whilst he was serving in World War II The de-saturated colours used make the scene appear dark, and miserable and whilst focusing on the terrified faces of Captain Miller and the other men, it helps illustrate their emotions such as, terror, sickness, anticipation etc. The scene is shot as though the viewpoint of a soldier on the boat and the hand held camera making it especially realistic due to the jolting and shaking as the sea tosses the boat around. This gives it also a documentary style of shooting the scene, and adds to the realism being portrayed. Through the entire film, Spielberg used real and proper locations. This particular scene was shot in a beach in Ireland that uncannily resembles the actual Omaha Beach.

As the scene progresses, the sounds you hear start to change. At the very beginning you can hear the sea and waves, many of the men vomiting and shouting. Those in command are giving last minute orders and reminders before they make their way onto the beach. As the camera zooms into to individual men on the boat, and you can hear the other sounds they are making, such as whispered prayers and heavy breathing. This also adds to the effect of being there amongst the men on the boat. No music is being played at this point as it may distract from the action we are supposed to be concentrating on and detract from the documentary style Spielberg was going for.

As the boats are approaching the shore, the Germans begin shooting at the men from every angle and many are killed. Blood is spattered across the screen, another technique from Spielberg to depict his cinema-verite/realism. When Tom Hanks recalled shooting this particular scene he said, “we were on the landing craft and it was literally the moment when the ramps went down and I saw the first three or four rows of soldiers get literally blown to bits. It was then that I realised we were making a very different kind of movie than had ever been made before in regards to the gritty reality of the detail”

Many of the shots in this scene, especially those of the sea, and what is happening on the beach are modelled on photos taken by a professional photographer named Robert Capa who was with the soldiers of the 16th regiment of the 1st division when they landed on Omaha beach.

I believe the overall effect on the audience was for us to feel extreme empathy towards Captain Miller and his men. The scene builds your suspense as you, just like the troops did, wait for the embarkation.

There is a point in this scene, where the men are underwater but still being shot and fired at. As the men are under the surface, so is the camera and is focused on just the same thing a soldier would see. It often bobs up and down, surrounded by complete chaos. There seems no escape from what is going on, as soldiers are even being killed and the sea being tinted with their blood as they desperately try to swim away to the shore. It tells us, that it was a sheer matter of luck as to whether you were killed or not, some men got shot straight away and some narrowly miss it. The handheld camera makes it seem just like the film is being shot by one of the troops witnessing the action.

Our next camera sequence is the one in which the American soldiers eventually land on the beach. As soon as the ramps are let down, there is instant chaos. Men are being shot from every angle, and there are dead bodies lying all over the beach. The camera takes an establishing shot from the viewpoint of one of the soldiers just getting off a boat. It scans the complete pandemonium, the huge explosions, the guns and grenades going off, the wounded men screaming in pain and doing everything they can to just stay alive. The sheer horror really came across to me when the camera focuses on one particular man who is lying on his back, surrounded by his own intestines and crying out for his “mama” This shot in particular was very haunting and I believe this portrayed perfectly the vulnerability of the soldiers once they had lost virtually everything and were clinging to life. It reduces them to almost nothing and for a man to be crying and screaming like that you are made to feel great empathy for him. We see men with bloody stumps carrying lost limbs and this sequence includes many moments when I found it difficult to watch.

We notice that there is no music playing at this precise point and there no music played whatsoever until the very end of the entire battle sequence. I believe this was to make the war seem as real as it possibly could, music would make it seem far too film-like and again, it may detract from what our attention should be focused on. It would make the scene even more dramatic but would take away the sense of realism that we know Spielberg wanted to expose the audience to.

There is also hardly any distinctive dialogue. We hear desperate cries from the suffering men and the orders being shouted from those left in command, trying to regain control. Throughout this whole period, you hear the extreme gunfire and sounds of ammunition.

The extreme attention to detail was unreal and this gritty reality of the detail helped the film convey the distress of the soldiers in combat. Not solely because of the bloody battle and the gore you are shown but because of the overall sadness of remembering that what you are watching is not made up, what is being shown in this film really did happen in June 1944. All the events are real, the gunfire is real and the emotions the actors have been told to illustrate are real. Although, I believe this was the point, this is exactly how Spielberg wanted people to feel as they watched.

In the next succession of camera shots, the camera is focused on one of the main characters, Captain Miller. In this part of the opening sequence, he stumbles out of the blood ridden sea and falls to the ground. His facial expressions are enough to show us the emotions that are running through his mind. Here, Spielberg used several techniques to help us share with Captain Miller, the sense of disorientation and confusion. The film switches into slow motion, the kind of sensation you would be subjected to if you were having a panic attack. There is an extreme close-up of his face, where you can clearly see the fear and anxiety he is experiencing as this happens, the sound becomes very unclear and distorted, it sounds as if you could be hearing it all from under water. You cannot make sense of what exactly you’re hearing other than the very faint sound of gunfire and the chaos of the battle. This was one of the only points in the opening sequence of this film where Captain Miller shows real emotion. It looks as if he is experiencing shellshock. The lack of sound makes it seem as if he is trying to block it all from entering his mind as he really cannot bear it. But when a soldier asks him what they should now do, he regains his position and seizes control over his troops.

By watching this sequence, you become aware of the toll this is taking on the soldiers and the feeling you get from seeing Captain Miller fall like that, and from looking in his eyes you do start to feel extreme sympathy but cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel.

As the scene progresses, a variety of shots are taken from different points of view. The next sequence we are shown is where the American troops are lining up behind a wall and begin firing at the Germans. This is the first point in the film so far that you can see the Americans gaining control. There are many low angle shots given of the men, as if seeing the action from the viewpoint of a soldier, firing their guns and giving last minute orders. There is a close up of a Christian soldier, who we find out is named Private Jackson, kissing him crucifix necklace before he takes up the gun and begins to aim, as he is aiming, just about to shoot, he says a short prayer begging God to not leave him. Many of the men who joined the army either already were or became very religious and often believed that it was God who was guiding them through and God that was keeping them alive. Many of the troops are shown clutching rosary beads or wearing a necklace with a crucifix on.

As the camera scans the beach once again, it is very focused on the work of the medics. Again, blood is spattered across the camera and you see that they are desperately trying to help keep the injured soldiers alive We can tell from moments such as this just how much preparation and training the actors and extras were put through before making this film. A former marine Captain by the name of Dale Dye, whose dedication to the military did not end with his retirement from the service, was brought into the team to help put the actors and extras through their paces at an army boot camp. From the start, he kept them constantly reminded of the job at hand, calling them only by their character names and drilling into them the basics of soldiering. They had a total ten days of training. Dye said, “I immerse the actors in that lifestyle: I take them to the field; I make them eat rations; I make them crawl and sleep in the mud and the cold and the dirt... And when they come out, if I've done my job successfully, they have an inkling of what people sacrifice to serve their country in the military." One of the main actors Vin Diesel commenting about his boot camp experience says “"By the end, we were proficient in drills and infantry movements, so we really felt like the genuine article," Diesel says.

After all the planning, preparations and rehearsals, the attention to authenticity down to the last detail worked its own magic. When Spielberg called “Action,” the cast could not help but feel transported from just another movie set to an event half a century past. “The adrenaline rush was like nothing I had ever experienced on any other movie, because there it was chaos, as soon as you stepped out there,” Hanks revealed.

When you see the Americans gaining control you begin to feel quite relieved, but as the camera focuses on the dead and injured men lying all over the beach it can be quite heartbreaking. I personally felt a great amount of resentment towards everything that resulted in this war taking place. Seeing all this portrayed in such a realistic manner does help with our understanding of war, and the brutality of it. The idea that Spielberg had, wanting to give a picture of this battle as close to what it actually was like gives us a perfect insight to what happened on D-day.

The next part of the opening sequence is after the Americans have gained complete control over the Germans and we are shown the advantages of them doing so. At one point in this scene we are shown to Germans shouting to some U.S soldiers, we aren’t shown what’s being said as they speak, but as the Americans ask them to repeat themselves, they proceed to shooting both the German men almost at the same time, giving them no chance to repeat what they had wanted to say. Even though we weren’t sure what was said, it was put across as if they had been surrendering because as they shouted, they had dropped their weapons and had arms raised over their heads. The American’s were not willing to let them surrender because of how they felt about what the Germans were doing.

We can also see a part of the German shelter completely on fire with the troops still inside. The flames are completely destroying everything in their path and as some American soldiers begin to shoot at the men falling out of the structure, another man shouts an order demanding, “don’t shoot! Let them burn!” This is an indication of just how bitter the soldiers were about what the actions of the Nazis and how much resentment they had for everything they had caused. The colour in this scene seems particularly de-saturated, all apart from the orange flames. I think this was to create a contrast, between the dark atmosphere and the bright glowing fire.

This sequence is rounded up with the chaos dying down completely, as the Germans are defeated. No more gunfire is heard, just the burning of many fires set all over the beach and the sound of the waves. It begins with an extreme close-up, like at the very beginning, of Captain Miller’s shaking hands opening his flask. This was to relate it back to the start of this 24 minute battle sequence and to show that he is in just as much a bad state now as he was before the boats had landed. Then the camera works it’s way up, to his face and we hear a voice of an American soldier say, “quite a view.” This line is repeated by Captain Miller and as he does so the camera switches to a final establishing shot of the aftermath of the battle. The shore is scanned and the camera focuses on the hundreds upon hundreds of dead bodies lying there as the waves, tinted red with their own blood, washes over them. The extreme redness of the water symbolises and reminds you of just how many lives were taken, and how many people bled to death on that beach.

I realised that the only time any kind of music was actually played throughout this whole sequence was at the very end, when the camera was looking over the shore. I think it was only played at this specific point because, had it been played during the fighting or some of the more violent scenes, it would of detracted from the realism, because, in a real life battle you wouldn’t be hearing music and Spielberg didn’t want the movie to be over-dramatised or made to look glamorous in any way. Whereas it seems extremely appropriate here, as this was definitely a scene to convey a strong emotion of sadness and the music played here, is a sad piece of music. It not only is played in a minor key which makes it immediately appear very gloomy to the listener, but it sounds like the kind of music played in the military which also has a great amount of significance to this particular scene.

The scene comes to an end, as the camera focuses on a single soldier, lying face down on the shore of the beach, the waves are washing over his body and you can just about make out the name imprinted on his back-pack. He seems to have the name, ‘P.Ryan.’ This is deliberately put here to make us wonder and guess. What would be the point in the film being named, “Saving Private Ryan” when the lead character, supposedly, Private Ryan appears to be dead. This was a technique cleverly put in by Spielberg to continue what he has been doing from the very start of the film and that is to keep us guessing. We are rarely told anything straight away. The final shot, that fades slowly out to the music, is the shot in which, Private Ryan is left, lying dead on the beach.

My personal view on Steven Spielberg’s initial aim to convey the realism and true horrors of war is that he did a truly incredible job. The extreme attention to detail that went into the making of this film and the overall sheer hard work is quite staggering. Spielberg received an amazing amount of credit when the film was released in 1998 and won five Oscars for best director, cinematography, film editing, sound effects editing, sound and
eleven nominations for best picture, lead actor (Tom Hanks), original screenplay, score, art/set direction, makeup. It was voted the "best battle scene of all time" by Empire magazine and was ranked number one on TV guide's list of the "50 Greatest Movie Moments.” ‘Saving Private Ryan’ was not only the highest top-grossing motion picture of 1998 but has been said to be “an unforgettable film achievement that has had a profound and lasting impact throughout the world.”

The D-DAY invasion in the first scene is the most realistic recreation ever filmed and has been praised by veterans all over the world. Historian, Steven Ambrose stated, “I have never seen anything remotely close to this for realism.”

As we found out very early on in our study, Spielberg did just about anything to make this film as believable as it could possibly be. This involved using, the entire Irish army reserve, 1500 extras, 40 barrels of fake blood and real amputees. This proves his sheer dedication to this film. He said that he, “tried to approximate what combat is really like” and it goes to show that his hard work all paid off and he succeeded in making one of the greatest and most shockingly realistic war films of our time.