Technical Analysis - “Saving Private Ryan - Opening Scene” By Stephen Spielberg

This film is incredibly well known for its horrific and realistic representation of Normandy landing set in WW2. The fist shots during the opening scene depict the dirty, trembling hands of one of the soldiers. this demonstrates to the audience that he is incredible scared, the nervousness of the character shows the realism of the situation and is an accurate portrayal of how the soldiers must have been feeling. a few seconds later we see him take a drink, it is now clear to the audience that he is the main characters as he is very central in this midshot containing many other actors. in the next cut we see this character giving very clear instructions, that indicates to the audience that he is a leader.

As soon as the boats land on the beach and drop the ramps all the soldiers at the front are all shot down by German machine guns, this is a very gruesome and realistic scene and really gets the attention of the audience. The next cut jumps to an over shoulder shot of where the Germans are shooting from in a bunker at the top of the beach down at the allies raiding the beach. This shot, as it is looking down, could represent the advantage the Germans have over the allies at this point.

The next scene show a first person view of what its like being in amongst the soldiers leaving the boat, and the director has created a very interesting effect, where, when the viewpoint or camera is underwater the gun shots and explosions are muffled, and then when it returns to the surface they be heard really clearly. I think that the sound effects in this opening scene help create an atmosphere and make the situation seem a lot more realistic. the next scene demonstrate an eye line match as it shows the main character who seems to be very shocked and withdrawn see some gruesome scenes, such as; a man picking up his arm witch has been blown off as well as soldiers who have been caught on fire jumping into the see. All the scenes from the eye line perspective go really quiet witch suggest’s that the character is temporarily deaf, and allows the audience to focus and the scenes occurring.