Analysis of Saving Private Ryan and Longest Day

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Analysis of Saving Private Ryan and Longest Day

On the beach in Northern France, an American Soldier searches

frantically for his lost arm. Gunshots emerge from all angles of the

screen. As this soldier helplessly goes from one place to another,

there are more dead bodies piling up on Omaha Beach in Northern

France. As this soldier collects his separated arm from the

battlefield and walks off into the horizon, Tom Hanks enters a rather

explosive battle. He leads his men into battle with nothing more than

guns and a helmet. This is Spielberg’s view of D-Day.

The ‘Longest Day’ directed by Daryl Zarwuck in 1962. It doesn’t use

colour and begins this scene at the moment of landing on Omaha Beach

with gunshots firing at you. The tank-traps which are placed in the

water are abnormally large compared to modern day ones. Although this

film is black and white, the shading of the sky tells us that’s its

bright and possibly sunny. The film sequence begins at sea with rough

waves but nice weather. The sky is probably digitally mastered because

of how the clouds look. There is a lot of diagetic sound in the

background. E.g. fighter planes flying across the skies but not seeing

them. The camera then focuses out of the main ship and shows us that

there are more ships, one next to the other. The sirens on the beach

get louder as the soldiers are getting nearer the beach. As the ship

arrives, bullets start flying and bodies start falling. However, the

camera focuses more on how the people swim. I.e. On shore rather than

all the gunshots that go on in the background. The tank-traps, in this

version of the film, prove useful to the soldiers because th...

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... most important parts of the scene because although light can show us

something, colour far passes it really makes us feel what’s going on.

The setting/landscape is important because it may highlight something

that is dangerous and about to happen to one of the characters.

Finally, I would like to say that both of these directors achieved

this film very well because they handled the point of landing in two

different yet in a complex sort of way. Personally, I would like to

say that the film with the better sequence is Saving Private Ryan

because it shows us the detail of what really goes on if you were to

be at that specific location at the time when it is happening. Also,

the fact that this film was in colour because it helps the audiences

know what is actually happening, like blood from leaking out of the

bodies.

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