Reviewing Saving Private Ryan

Reviewing Saving Private Ryan

In this essay we will be looking at one of the comments that one of

the reviewers of ‘Saving Private Ryan’. This particular reviewer

raised the point of how the director ‘Spielberg spares the viewer

nothing of the horrors of battle using every tactic at his disposal to

convey the chaos brutality and suffering of war.’ I will be telling

you about how far I agree with this comment. The main part of the film

that I will be writing about is the opening scene of the film. My

overall view of this film is that I think that it is a great portrayal

of war and that Spielberg is not afraid of shocking his audience. This

is one of the reasons why I think it has turned out to be such a

classic. During the film I felt as if I was actually in the war

because of all of the handheld camera shots that Spielberg uses

throughout the duration of this film. One of the greatest things about

this film is that Spielberg has crafted it in such a way that nobody

is shown to be the weaker or the stronger side; it is shown as it

actually was. At the end of the film I felt quite upset as the captain

asks his wife ‘Am I a good man?’ even though he should know that he is

a good man and is respected and looked up to by many people. I was

upset by this because nobody has actually told him how great he

actually is. I agree with this comment fully and I think that

Spielberg has shown a very realistic view of the war.

In the next part of this essay I will be talking to you about three

incidents that I found that shows the viewer the chaos, brutality and

suffering caused by war. This opening scene is particularly gruesome

and it shows the viewer how many lives were actually lost during the

war which is why all but one of the incidents I am writing about have