Released to theaters on July 24, 1998, and the winner of five Academy Awards including a Best Director Oscar for Steven Spielberg, Saving Private Ryan quickly became the headliner for what a movie depicting war should aspire. Written by Robert Rodat, the story begins with an elderly James Francis Ryan (Harrison Young) recalling a time during World War II when a squad of United States Army Rangers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore), is ordered to locate him to ultimately send him home because he was now the only remaining son of four. His three brothers were all killed in battle. His memory starts with the Rangers landing on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion of World War II, and follows them as they seek to locate him, the soldier, Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon). Finding one solider across a foreign country during the bloodiest world war ever in the history of man. This is a good film for showing the pure triumph of the United States overcoming Germany, and showing focus on how horrific the effects of war are on those participating, not only physically but also mentally.
After D-Day, and Captain Miller assembles his small platoon, he gets the orders to go search and return James Ryan safely. The troops depart from Omaha beach in France and head inland on their high priority mission. The platoon comes upon a small French village. It is raining. The platoon move down the street and see a building crumbling, with a French family inside. The family consists of a mother, father, daughter, son and a baby. Private Adrian Caparza played by Vin Diesel disobeys Captain Miller’s orders of leaving the child alone, and tries to save her. This is where my scene synthesis picks up.
Photography and Mise en scene
To start, the photography of this scene include elements of mise en scene. When Pvt. Caparza is shot by the German sniper the platoon is in a state of shock. The building that surround the soldiers are broken and crumbling. This gives the audience a sense of hopelessness. This scene also symbolizes the desperate situation of the characters and portrays their vulnerability and the horrors of war. During one specific point during this scene, a shot is used to establish the surroundings. The mise en scene within this shot is shown to be destroyed and ruined which allows the audience to feel sympathy for the characters. This is because the characters are being subjected to the destruction and futility of war.
When the sniper shoots Pvt. Caparza, the audience does not see the blood right away. However over the course of the scene, the red blood seems to stick out in contrast against the dull colors of the surrounding French village. As the pool of blood grows in size, the natural rain begins to wash it away. To the audience this is a good example of showing the life slowly flow away from Pvt. Caparza.
Movement
Camera moment during this scene took precision. The movement of the cameras were steady and stable for those that were safe behind cover from the German sniper. Once the shot went off, it was time for Pvt. Jackson played by Barry Pepper to show off his talent. As Pvt. Jackson begins to crouch and slowly move into position to take out the sniper, the movement of the camera does the same thing. The camera movement moves at the same pace in which Pvt. Jackson does give the audience the satisfaction of being sneaky and not getting shot.
I find it interesting that when the camera shows the American solider’s, safe behind cover the camera movement is steady. However when the camera shifts to the French parents in the crumbled house, the camera movement begins to sway. This camera movement is to show the audience that even in a terrible and crazy situation of having someone from the platoon shot, the remaining soldiers do not do anything radical. However even though the French parents gave up their own daughter to the American’s, they were the ones who were yelling and shouting the whole time for their daughter. We know this because of how the camera movement changes from steady, to swaying.
Editing
This scene includes many short and quick cuts displaying all the different angles. The short quick cuts to this scene is just to show how chaotic war really is. The moment in which one of the characters relaxes, and their is a longer cut, is when Caparza dies. The scene also contains many close ups of each character, and also medium shots. When the close up, and medium shots are combined with the short frantic cuts, it show the audience the suffering of the characters as the war begins to pay a mental toll on them. Once the American platoon figures out where the sniper shot came from, the audience will notice that the cuts start to get longer.
Later in the scene, it cuts to the German sniper in the clock tower. The German sniper is shown to be very bright and elevated, he dominates most of his close up shots and there is very little shown other than him, this shows that he is very dominant over the situation, based on his position from the previous scenes it also shows how he towers over the vulnerable American troops.
Sound
Without a doubt the first sounds that we hear in this scene other than raindrops and shouting, is the piano. When Pvt. Caparzo is shot he falls onto a piano in the middle of the street. The piano gives off a loud note. This is important because it is to alert the audience. The audience did not hear a gunshot, only the loud strike of piano notes. The off strike of a piano is to represent death to a character.
Although it is a steady downpour during this entire scene, the sound of the rain takes up all of the sound. That being said, I must note that when Pvt. Jackson sneaks around the car to take out the sniper he goes underneath a roof hanging off the side. The attention to detail to quite the rain as Pvt. Jackson enters the overhang, and picks back up once he leaves is phenomenal, and a really good attention to detail.
Acting
Having this be a World War Two film this film would be a realistic film. It is considered a formalistic film because of how much the film relied on the actors in it. The actors are what made the film what it was. The star studded cast was filled with stars for the time era, and also stars of the future. As the audience we know that this is a formalistic film because in this particular scene there a multiple different camera angles. This is important because it keeps the actors full body in the entire frame. All of the actors during this scene do an excellent job because of the genre of the film.
For this particular scene, Pvt. Caparza, or Vin Diesel did an excellent job acting. It is extremely hard to play a dying man while still alive. To show the amount of pain and suffering takes a good actor. However, we also know from the close up shots of Pvt. Caparza while he takes out the letter to his father, that he is not only suffering physical pain, but also emotional pain of dying and never seeing his father again. This just adds to the damage in which what war can do to the soldiers.
Drama
The most obvious way this scene shows the drama would be the rain. This scene would not be possible through a play. It is only possible and well executed through the film industry. The colors of the scene also add the to drama of the scene. The lack of bright colors adds to this. Throughout the whole scene all of the colors are dull and dark, just as we can imagine World War Two would be like. The colors are dominated by gray, and dark green. The only color that sticks out and pops is the blood of Pvt. Caparza. The broken buildings and piles of rubble add to the drama of this scene as well. This entire scene has a worn look to it. This worn look makes the audience feel the daily struggle in which the soldiers went through.
Although the American platoon is taking cover in a cramp space, the scene is still in a wide open road. Having this scene open it allows the audience to feel involved in the action of the scene. The drama of this scene really is complimented by the camera movement. The way the camera sneaks around with Pvt. Jackson adds to the drama of the scene.
Story
It is impossible for a spectator to understand a movie without being actively involved with each individual scenes. Americans love a heroic war movie showing the Americans prevail in a creative way, or just through pure will power. This is the case in this particular scene. The way this scene unfolds shows the Americans being the underdog, and now being a man down. However, being creative and using the environment around them, in this case rubble from a building they can now get the upper hand and take down the enemy sniper. The way in which the German sniper was shot and killed through the scope of his sniper rifle gives the audience a sense of pride being Americans, along with the satisfaction of seeing a German get killed. This satisfaction is exactly what drives American war films. Without this satisfaction, and having the Americans come out on top and win, then the film would not have been as successful in the box office. This is just one of many scenes in the entire film which gives the audience a sense of pride and satisfaction.
Writing
For this one scene, Robert Rodat did an excellent job writing it. Even in this short scene, there are examples of figurative techniques seen. The whole purpose of the mission to save Pvt. Ryan is so that his mother does not have to recieve another letter saying that she has another dead son. This is a motif that the film is based upon. In this scene the audience sees Pvt. Caparza pull out a letter that would go to his father if he ended up dying. This emotional sequence makes the audience begin to understand the severity of the mission the soldiers are on.
Ideology
The main ideology which is seen during the course of this scene is simply how important family is. Captain Millers small platoon is to go out and risk their own lives to rescue one soldier. Eight men put their own lives on the line to save one stranger life. Although it sounds crazy, the bigger picture of the mission is overlooked by making sure the mother of the Ryan boys gets one of her sons home safe. Even though the American platoon was not related in any particular way, they were still brothers and functioned as a family. The audience realizes how important family is when the other soldiers react to Pvt. Caparza getting sniped. The remaining members of the platoon yell at him and him give advice, trying to help him during his last breathes on earth. To the audience this show how close these band of brothers are, and shows that they will look after each other even if they know they are going to die.
Critique
When it comes to critiquing this scene it is difficult. The movie shifts from realistic to formalistic throughout the duration of the film. The D-Day invasion was realistic in the sense that there has been no other film to show the horrors of that push on the beach, however when critiquing the scene in which I have selected it has characteristics of formalism. The way there are many different camera angles in this one scene provides evidence to this being true. Also in this scene we see a letter in which is the whole film is based off of making it a motif for the film. The way the colors are dark gives the aesthetics of the scene a proper feel to make the audience feel the horror of war. From this movie we get a first hand view of what took place for those whom participated in World War II. We also get a aspect of war that has never been portrayed on film before. We know that lives are lost during war and we hear how some of these deaths occur but we rarely see such a vivid display of some of the horrifying ways of how casualties and human loss are taken.
Work Cited
Saving Private Ryan. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 02 May 2016. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/>.
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