The characters in this film represent the individuals serving in war, and with each soldier we can emphasize the effects war has on each of them. This connects to the issue of brutality of war, and how our country just willingly sends young troops into wars, yet rarely considers their emotional struggle and change they undergo when in war. This is best shown through Upham, who turns from an innocent assistant boy into a man that gains a purpose to kill a man he once knew and bonded with.
The style of acting portrayed in this film contains standard or archetypal roles you would see in any war film. There is the standard “badass” who goes by his own rules, yet is always under the order of the squad leader. We have the loyalist soldier that would do what has to be done in order to fulfill the mission, although he has the personal conflict against doing violent actions in the first place. However, Spielberg also breaks these roles to highlight individuality, and there is no standard type of person. He makes our rebellious soldier the one that has a sweet spot for children and family. We see Vin Diesel saving the french man’s daughter. For our loyalist, normally we’d find him being the innocent Christian that has religious reasons against violence. In this film, we have our loyalist being a Jewish man that always cracks jokes about Germans.
Spielberg incorporates many shots with great depth, including foreground, middleground, and background. However although this is an action packed scene, Spielberg manages to compile close ups to emphasize characterization of each individual. The movement of the camera in each shot is either very emphasized by freehand movement, or steady shots during dramatic events. The meaning constructed through these techniques highlights the brutality of war, and causes the audience to come to realization of the horrors that we send our troops to.
In terms of proxemics, Spielberg allows us to get really close to each troop member. There is one scene in which they each talk about their family and personal life, making the audience feel as if we were personal acquaintances. This makes us relate to the troops in order to realize their individualism so their deaths will have a greater impact on the audience in realizing the destruction and harm war can do.
The editing in this scene incorporates fast paced shots, being an action scene. During scenes of pure bloodshed and destruction, the editor incorporates enough time for the scene to impact the viewer. The shot duration of these shots take around half a second to two seconds.
As the scene progresses on, we see a subtle change in lighting in color, as the shots tend to lose color and fade to a dull grey color scheme. The lighting becomes less evident, symbolizing a decreasing level of hope for survival. However, when we see the airplane bombers overhead and the troops coming over the mountain, the scene beings to flourish with color and light. When we see Ryan holding Captain Miller, the light across their face becomes more evident, and there are less shadows, symbolizing that their ordeals are over.
Spielberg purposely omits music from the battle scene to dramatize the lack of hope for their troop. Instead Spielberg focuses on the sounds of warfare, that being the gunshots, explosions, knife battles, and shouts. This allows the audio to add to the impact of realization from brutality of war.
The setting of this scene places us in a half destroyed small french town. The design of the landscape already highlights the destruction of war and its impact on citizens. Buildings that were once homes had been turned into war forts.
A reoccurring symbol in Saving Private Ryan is when we see Miller’s hand shaking or when he is affected by shell shock during battle. The symbolic meaning behind this is that men’s loyalty and courage for serving in war is one to be praised. Normally, shell shock would send one home from war. However, Captain Miller hid this from the officials and stayed in war for his troops. His squad was the only one that knew, but they let him be for they saw him as a true hero.
The emotional information being conveyed is that of the effect of war on the individual. We can see how each soldier changes from when they first arrived. The most dramatic in this scene is the characteristic change of Upham. Once a soldier crying and breaking down on the steps of his friend’s death site, changed to a man shooting down a German he once knew very well. His dramatic uprising against the German troop signifies that once a man enters war, there’s a low chance that he will emerge the same. We also see private Ryan, who was once noble about defending his post and never leaving his fellow soldiers, ended up in a feeble position, grasping his knees and shouting out to the heavens.
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