Opening Battle Scenes in "Saving Private Ryan," Directed by Steven Spielberg

1193 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Saving Private Ryan analysis

Saving Private Ryan was directed by Steven Spielberg in 1998. It was written by Robert Rodat, who was inspired to write a script based on a monument he had visited which was dedicated to four brothers from the American Civil War. Some famous actors star in the film including Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Vin Diesel and Tom Sizemore. I think Saving Private Ryan is very emotional and has a great effect on the audience. This is because of all the action and emotions that the soldiers are going through in the battle, and it also shows what really happened in the . In this essay I am going to write about the four sections in the opening battle scene.

Present To Past

The first section of the film is opened with an extreme close up of a faded American flag flying, and sad music is playing in the background. You then see an elderly man who has travelled all the way to France with his family, and you see the look in his eye that he is determined to reach something. His family are close behind the man, worried about him. One member of his family is actually taking pictures of the elderly mans journey, which suggests this trip is important to him. You find out what he is looking for is actually a grave, and when he finds the particular one he stumbles to it and is overcome with emotion. He collapses next to the grave and his family rush to his side to help him up. There is a long shot of all the graves next, showing you just how many people died. The camera then sets on the elderly man’s eyes, making them look glassy, and as he is recalling the past the sad music fades, and the sound of crashing waves gets louder and louder. This gives you a sense of what is coming next, and what the scene will look like. It also gets you interested to se...

... middle of paper ...

...ed at the trouble they went to. The noise has quietened down now, and what seemed to be a gloomy sky has brightened up now the battle has ended. Captain Miller then says “great view”. It is a terrible view, as there are fallen soldiers scattered all over the beach and also floating in the water. The water is dyed a bloody colour, which shows how many lives had been lost to create that much blood. You feel happy for them at this point, because even though it was a tragedy they still managed to get through it all.

Conclusion

My conclusion of the opening battle scene is that the scene is very graphic, and is showing that the violence of that battle and how many lives were lost was also happening in real life back in World War II. I enjoyed watching the opening scene and would recommend it to people my own age so they can see for themselves what war was like.

Show More
Related

  • Charles Bean

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The war correspondent is responsible for most of the ideas of battle which the public possesses … I can’t write that it occurred if I know that it did not, even if by painting it that way I can rouse the blood and make the pulse beat faster – and undoubtedly these men here deserve that people’s pulses shall beat for them. But War Correspondents have so habitually exaggerated the heroism of battles that people don’t realise that real actions are heroic.”

    Read More

  • Censorship in the 1950's: How did this affect the making of “Night and Fog” one of the first ever cinematic documentaries on the Holocaust? A film by

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    I would like to point out the poignant cinematography, which was very innovative for its time. The narration and the filming introducing what was about to be uncovered must have been extremely moving in a melancholy way. The mise-en-scène is both compelling and haunting, each frame cleverly editied. Resnais experimented with what is known as the long shot, and the 360 degree shot, to make the voyeur very aware of the unbalanced composition. The panning of the film tracking back from Auschwitz brings us a close up, of barbed wire. This clearly suggests that this isn't what it appears to be. Resnais films the past in black and white, and the then present in colour. The ambiance is chilling, and the composed background music unique. Where normally dramatic loud music would be used to express the abonimation and enormity of the most horrendous scenes, Resnais did quite the contrary.

    Read More

  • My Review on Full Metal Jacket

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...oung American men had to endure from the time that they had joined back in their boot camp days, and the brutality of war that showed them no mercy. To me the importance of the movie was to show what truly went on over in Vietnam through the eyes of a soldiers eyes of what happened, as the film created a very disturbing yet a real picture of The Vietnam War.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Opening Scenes of Film Version of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird

    614 Words  | 2 Pages

    I am going to be analyzing about the first ten minutes of the film to

    Read More

  • Battleship Potemkin, From Here to Eternity, Saving Private Ryan

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    Even though the films “Battleship Potemkin”, “From Here to Eternity” and “Saving Private Ryan” are all movies based on military life during war time the variation in time periods and culture made each film very different. These differences did not take away from the impact the films had on their audiences at the time or the messages they were each trying to covey. The Horrific images and hear wrenching scenarios helped to evoke strong emotions and patriotic feeling from audiences allowing film makers to pass along their truths. Thru these films we are magically transported to several dark periods in the world history and left to experience the pain, fear, isolation and ultimately the triumph of these soldiers’ lives.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Saving Private Ryan

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Saving Private Ryan starts out on June 6, 1944, which marks the beginning of the invasion of Normandy, in World War II. As learned early on four brothers from the Ryan family all go out to serve the United States, and in action three of the four are killed. This story follows a group of soldiers on their journey as they search for, the last surviving of the Ryan brothers, Private First Class James Ryan, and send him home. World War II is the deadliest and most extensive war in history that lasted six years. In World War II there were battles fought and rescue missions that took place, and the US Military showed their bravery as they went in to fight for our country.

    Read More

  • Without Pain There is No Happiness in A Rumor of War by Phillip Caputo

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    In all works about war, the element of pain is essential. Without pain, there is no real happiness. The men described in these works all endured vast amounts of physical and emotional pain on their tours serving the country and the accurate representations of their time overseas wouldn’t be able to be complete without this element.

    Read More

  • Similarities And Differences Between The Things They Carried And The Yellow Wallpaper

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taking place in the psyche of the narrator is directly repressed by the war.

    Read More

  • Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielburg

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” by Steven Spielburg, it begins with a veteran of WWII returning to Normandy to visit the burial ground for those Allied servicemen who were killed on D-Day. He is looking for a particular grave, and when he finds it, he takes a knee and starts sobbing. Captain John H. Miller has a flashback to June 6, 1944 in Omaha Beach, Normandy, France.

    Read More

  • Henry V - Film

    943 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although he could have shown them to be joyful with their win, Branagh instead shows the war-weary, bloody, wet and muddy soldiers. It is raining and so the already miserable soldiers, wearing torn and ragged clothing are forced to bow their heads as they slowly make their way down the road in a way reminiscent of a death march, the sombre mood of the scene assisted by the music.

    Read More

  • Saving Private Ryan

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book I read and am doing a presentation on is called Saving Private Ryan by Max Allen Collins. Saving Private Ryan is about the heroism of soldiers of soldiers and their duty during wartime, World War Two. This story is to remind you, the reader, that war is nothing but hell, orders on the front line can be brutal, and absurd. The story is set in Europe of 1944, as the Nazis are still advancing and taking over cities and countries. On June 6th, 1944, Captain Miller, and hundreds of other men leave Europe to accomplish one mission, Operation Overlord, also known as D-Day. When they get there, there will be a new task awaiting them.

    Read More

  • The Horrors of War

    731 Words  | 2 Pages

    Unending exchange of bullets coming from rifles of the soldiers, a mother lamenting for the death of her young boy who goes to war, and great toll of loss life both of the soldiers and civilians- all these are not enough to describe the horrors brought by the war, but, these are enough to illustrate the price, expensive price, paid in war.

    Read More

  • Comparing Star Trek and Homer's Odyssey

    1820 Words  | 4 Pages

    “We sailed on in shock, glad to get out alive but grieving for the comrades we’d lost”

    Read More

  • Expression of the Opposing Sides in All Quiet On The Western Front by Remarque and Generals Die in Bed by Harrison

    1203 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceived notion about the indoctrination, "the enemy" and the "rights and wrongs" of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and perplexed. The story is not about heroism but about toil and futility and the divide between the idea of war and the real life and its values. The selected passages are full of violence and death and loss and a kind of perpetual suffering and terror that most of us have never and hopefully will never experience. Both authors ability to place the reader right there on the front line with the main character so vividly, not just in terms of what he physically experienced and witnessed All the complicated, intense and often completely numbed emotions that came along...

    Read More

  • In Another Country of Hemingway

    604 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...is story, Hemingway brings the readers back the war and see what it caused to human as well as shows that how the war can change a man's life forever. We think that just people who have been exposed to the war can deeply understand the unfortunates, tolls, and devastates of the war. He also shared and deeply sympathized sorrows of who took part in the war; the soldiers because they were not only put aside the combat, the war also keeps them away from community; people hated them as known they are officers and often shouted " down with officers" as they passing. We have found any blue and mournful tone in this story but we feel something bitter, a bitter sarcasm. As the war passing, the soldiers would not themselves any more, they became another ones; hunting hawks, emotionless. They lost everything that a normal man can have in the life. the war rob all they have.

    Read More

More about Opening Battle Scenes in "Saving Private Ryan," Directed by Steven Spielberg

Open Document