Saving Private Ryan is a Steven Spielberg 1998 war film. The film presents a realistic depiction of the lives and deaths of the allied forces during the period of World War II. Based upon the Normandy Landings; a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed whilst in action. Amongst the fighting two brothers get shot in the battle whilst a third is then later killed too. Mrs Ryan is the given the telegrams of the three men’s deaths which proceeds into the army chief of staff sending out men to retrieve the fourth brother and bring him back to homeland. This scene that I will now articulate over will discuss such topics as genre, mise en scene and lighting to name a few.
To begin the scene, it opens with low cut panning shot of the beach focusing in on the symbols fixated in the sandy beach. The lighting in this segment of the scene is chosen to be dark and undertone in volume and gives real meaning straight away to the fact that the troops are in a real tough and dark time and there’s almost no light at the end of the tunnel and using the desaturated colours brings out the tragedy and emotion and the real sense of verisimilitude in the scene and that is also in the film which gives off the fact that were almost there and as if we’re there seeing the dark and naturalistic colours too along with what the characters are seeing. Using the dark three point style lighting also added realism and made you feel the sort of dampness that the characters in the movie were feeling at the time.
Sound in Saving Private Ryan is carefully chosen too as Spielberg used loud noises and well as the soundtrack help to create verisimilitude as the loudness of the noises such as the gunshots which are diegetic sound and they make us feel as if we are in the scene with them and feeling the drama and terror that the soldiers are feeling at that specific time of them mounting the breach in battle. Spielberg also creates a mood through the lack of sound too as there are many silences in the scene and this is done with a purpose so that we feel the silence that they feel when a gunshot has gone off and this represents the silence and pinging noise that happens when a loud bang has gone off and this is represented to us in a clever manor to provide a sense of reality.
The mise en scene of Saving Private Ryan helps to portray the military image that the director is trying to get across in the scene. Saving Private Ryan was set on the Normandy beaches where the two sets of soldiers went to battle after arriving on the shores and this mise en scene is pivotal to the scene and the film in general because this is significant to all of the families as this was the battleground where their loved ones died and this feature gives off the sense of realism and the natural effect that most movies don’t have so Saving Private Ryan can say they’ve got a natural gem here. The Normandy beach may also have been chosen due to small things that the director would have picked up on such as the Czech hedgehogs that we see at the very start of the scene and these symbolise the standing together proudness of the army soldiers and secondly, just down to the weather, the weather down by the beach and any seafront in countries such as this is one is usually very dim and dark which adds to the scene and compliments it perfectly.
Costume in the scene is an accurate view of what the soldiers would have exactly looked like when they actually turned up to battle in Normandy and you can tell straight away through things such as the whiteness on Tom Hanks’ characters helmet that he’s one of the leaders or generals that plays a very important role in the scene and this little small detail helps us to achieve that understanding as soon as we are introduced to the character. Props also help to create the serious and worrying times that we as an audience are meant to feel and at the same time empathise with the characters as you have the usual props such as the helmets and the canteen flasks but its these flasks that are used to clever effect to show that they are going to one of the bloodiest and scariest battles fought in a long while. The camera closes in on the characters shaking hands whilst holding the canteen iron flask and this clever use of a prop gets the message over straight away to the audience that the character is scared and anxious as to what may happen to him and his crew next in the battle.
Saving Private Ryan: Scene Analysis 