Examining the Different Ways in Which D-day Landing at Omaha Beach is Depicted in Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day

Examining the Different Ways in Which D-day Landing at Omaha Beach is Depicted in Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day

‘ Saving Private Ryan’ was made in 1998 by Stephen Spielberg and gives

a graphic depiction of the events at Omaha beach on D-day, focusing on

a small section of the army and portrays it on a more personal level.

‘The Longest Day’ was made 17 years after the war in 1963 by director

Darryl Zannuck. This gives us more of an overview of the entirety of

D-Day depicting army, navy and air force as well as the German army

and French resistance. Both films portray the landing as acts of

heroism giving the viewer a strong sense of the Patrism however the

director’s aims differ resulting in two very different recreations of

the landings.

The opening of both films is similar. Their beginning scenes are very

slow military music, ‘Saving Private Ryan’ shows two waving flags,

American and French, before focusing on a man, walking alone. He

appears almost on a mission seeming anxious and upset, looking for

something in particular although you can’t see where he is. He is

shown walking across a war cemetery with white crosses then falling in

front of a particular grave. This portrays how, even after 50 years

after the war, the memories are still painful and affecting him. The

camera pans across the cemetery showing the immense crosses from many

angles showing the enormity of death caused by war, including graves

of the Star of David, to show war affects all races too. No dialect is

used in the opening scenes as the visual images speak for themselves.

The opening scenes from ‘The Longest Day’ is similar in its slow

start, begin...

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...out emotionally involving them.

Spiel burg in ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ instead aims to give a narrow

slice of D-Day, concentrating on a few soldiers attempts to win over

Omaha Beach. He wants to personally involve the viewer and does not

worry about sensitivity towards the deaths and injuries, wanting to

show to the viewers that war can never be seen as an easy way out or

in any way glamorous.

In my opinion, the most effective film was ‘Saving Private Ryan’,

because it showed war so realistically it allowed the viewer to feel

like they were there. Spiel burg aim was to draw in the viewer and to

become involved and in this way it shows the landings with much more

precision. This also is down to the technological advances since ‘The

Longest Day’, but the scenes were much more powerful in showing the

real cost of war.