Saving Private Ryan by, Aaron Charny

Title/Year: Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Director/Birth Country/Year Born: Steven Spielberg USA, 1946

Budget: $70,000,000 (estimated)
Gross: $481,840,909 (worldwide) (15 June 2012)
Synopsis: Following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action. This time the mission is the man.

Narrative and Visual Keywords: War, WWII, Rescue Mission, Normandy, D-Day, One Last Job, The Unit, Memorial
Characterization/ Dialogue: The Unit transitions from being indifferent about their mission, just following an order in the beginning of the film. To taking pride in finding Private Ryan and saving him. Towards the end they realize it’s the right thing to do. Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) says to Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), “I don't know. Part of me thinks the kid's right. He asks what he's done to deserve this. He wants to stay here, fine. Let's leave him and go home. But then another part of me thinks, what if by some miracle we stay, then actually make it out of here. Someday we might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful, shitty mess. Like you said, Captain, maybe we do that, we all earn the right to go home.”

Camera/lighting/editing technique: Close ups on soldier’s faces. Camera follows soldiers through out battle scenes, as soldiers drop into the water so does the camera. The camera also shakes during explosions. Steven Spielberg reduced the color saturation of the movie by 60% for artistic reasons. Gunfire sound effects heard in the film were recorded from actual gunfire with live ammunition fired from authentic period weapons

Political/ Social Commentary: Many veterans of D-Day have congratulated director Steven Spielberg for the film's authenticity, including actor James Doohan, best known as Scotty from Star Trek. Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand and was wounded in the leg during the war. Also, he participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, at Juno Beach, where the 3rd Canadian infantry division led the attack. He commended Spielberg for not leaving out any gory details.

Historical Relevance/ Recognition: The New York Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, chose Saving Private Ryan as Film of the Year. Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four and called it "a powerful experience". The film was later nominated for eleven Academy Awards, with wins for Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Director for Spielberg, but lost the Best Picture award to Shakespeare in Love, being one of a few that have won the Best Director award without also winning Best Picture. The film also won the Golden Globes for Best Picture – Drama and Director, the BAFTA Award for Special Effects and Sound, the Directors Guild of America Award, a Grammy Award for Best Film Soundtrack. Quentin Tarantino has expressed admiration for the film and has cited it as an influence on his 2009 war epic, Inglourious Basterds.

Notable Collaboration: Steven Spielberg has directed Tom Hanks in three movies Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002) and The Terminal (2004). However they both were the executive producers for two WWII TV miniseries, Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010)

Random fact, Etc.  I found some cool facts about the opening Omaha Beach battle:

The Omaha Beach scene cost $11 million to shoot and involved up to 1000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, 20-30 of them was amputees issued with prosthetic limbs to simulate soldiers having their limbs blown off.

Local reenactment groups such as the Second Battle Group were employed as extras to play German and American soldiers.

Filmed in sequence over a four-week period, moving the action up the beach shot by shot and day-by-day. Steven Spielberg claims that none of it was storyboarded in advance.

Spare ammunition carried by the actors was made from wood, as metal was too heavy.

40 barrels of fake blood were used. 

Foley artist Jana Vance dislocated three ribs while lugging heavy gear and military boots for sound effects.

Two of the landing craft were actually in use in World War II.

And since I’m a visual effects student here is some effects trivia:

The input of Industrial Light & Magic was significantly downplayed so as not to make the film appear to be a special effects movie. ILM's contribution, however, was subtle but highly necessary as most of the bullet hits in the Omaha Beach attack were digitally created.

Sources: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/

P.O.V.  Through out most of the film, we capture the units point of view especially Captain Miller (Tom Hanks).  During the Omaha Beach scene Miller gets disoriented from a nearby explosion. We see Miller looking at all the chaos around him. That part is edited in slow motion so the viewer gets that effect with Miller.

Identity: During the mission to find Private Ryan, Captain Miller is giving a motivation speech to his men, He says, “ Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much, my wife is even gonna recognize me whenever it is I get back to her, and how I'll ever be able to, tell about days like today. Ahh, Ryan. I don't know anything about Ryan, I don't care. The man means nothing to me; he's just a name. But if, you know, if going to Rem"al, and finding him so he can go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife, well then, then that's my mission.”  It shows that Miller is like his unit with not caring about Ryan, but at the same time he knows that there is a job to do and that’s what needs to be done.

Morality: The unit is constantly arguing as to what’s right and wrong. Is saving Private Ryan the right thing to do? Is it still all right if six other men die to save him? During one of the smaller battle scenes the Unit capture a German who has just killed their medic. The unit wants to kill him right away, but Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies) argues with Captain Miller that the rules say if the enemy surrenders, you can’t kill them you take them as a POW. They can’t take the German with them, so they blindfold him and command him to walk to the next town. At the end of the film the same German Solider shoots Miller killing him. Upham recognized him and shoots him on the spot. Was it moral to save the German’s life the first time and then kill him the next time? I’m going with yes.

Memory: The film opens with a veteran and his family heading towards in Arlington Cemetery. When they reach the tombstone the veteran breaks out in tears. Then we go back in time to Omaha Beach. At the end of the film after Captain Miller gets shot he whispers to Private Ryan to, “earn this.” At the end, the veteran at Arlington Cemetery, asks his wife if he has earned it and if he has led a good life.