Saving Private Ryan Review

The film opens with a shot of a desaturated American flag, I believe that this is to give it a documentary type feel, and to make it seem more like a real event rather than a Hollywood movie. The American flag shows us that we will see the war through an American point of view, and suggests feelings of patriotism. The next thing we see is an old man (who I know from seeing the end of the film is Private Ryan) walking determinedly in ahead of what appears to be his family. I got the feeling that whatever he is doing, or wherever he is going, he needs to do it on his own. The camera follows him as he walks through what looks like a small grave yard. But as the camera pans across it, hundreds more grave stones come into sight. This emphasizes how many men perished during the war. He starts to cry when he sees the gravestone he had been aiming for, and Ryan kneels down in front of it. There is an extreme close up on his face and the music slows down. In the background there is sounds of water splashing. This shows that we are about to change scenes and see something from his memory.

The sea is the next thing we see, it is quiet except for the sound of the waves, this gives the audience a feeling of foreboding. A subtitle appears, that reads, "Dog Green Sector Omaha Beach". Omaha Beach is where the famous D-Day landing took place. Straight after we see that caption, the screen cuts to the Higgins boats arriving. The sound of the waves is still in the back ground but they have got a lot more fierce. The director, Steven Spielberg had some of the actors carry hand held cameras. This is a very clever technique because it makes the audience feel like they are in the boat with the soldiers, since the cameras moves with them. There are close up of lots of different soldiers and there reactions as they are about to go into battle. This makes everything a bit more personal as everybody reacts to fear in different ways. As the front of the boat opens, the sound gets a bit louder, then suddenly the battle starts. Shots from the opposing side are shot into the boats, loads of the men inside the boats seem to just fall. It's like a massacre. Then we see the beach from up high from the German perspective. The Germans have machine guns and they just gun down whoever they see on the beach, in what looks to me like a mass slaughter. People jump into the water to try and hide from the bullets, but we can see with an underwater camera that there is nowhere to hide as the shots go through the water. Nowhere is safe. Hand held cameras are used again as the men who haven't been shot try and make there way to the beach.

One of the men trying to get to the sand is the hero of the story, Captain Miller. We see his perspective of what is happening, but in slow motion and with muted sounds. This is so the audience have time to take in how horrific it was. It also shows that Captain Miller is dazed and confused. He slowly picks his hat up, this is a clue to the audience that he is almost ready to rejoin the battle. As he picks it up we get a view of the sea, it has turned red from all the blood shed. Water drips down his face. Someone speaks to him but he doesn't hear, only when they repeat them self does he snaps back to reality.

The battle carries on as Captain Miller and his soldiers make their way to higher ground. The sounds of battle eventually die down (this comes as a bit of relief to the audience), but you can still here it going on in the background. There is a close up on Captain Millers hand shaking, this happens throughout the film to show how scared he is. Slow music plays in the background and the camera zooms into his eyes like at the beginning of the film.

I think the beginning of the film is extremely affective, it sets the scene for the rest of the movie. It deals with war in a realistic way and doesn't try to glamorise the gruesome aspect of it. I think Spielberg's aims were to show people what the war was really like and to make the audience feel as if they were experiencing it with the soldiers.