Saving Private Ryan

In the first part of the opening scene of (C)private Ryan the camera tracks backwards starting as close up of Tom Hanks face, this suggests to the audience that Tom Hanks is the main character. When the camera is tracking back it finishes as a longshot of Tom Hanks and his soldiers, this tells the audience that Tom is just another soldier in this war.(good opening and accurate use of terminology)

When the men are exposed to the opposition they begin to jump overboard the boats, the camera mimics the men jumping into the water. The directors aim here was to make the audience feel like they are in the boat with the men, the audience have a POV of one of the soldiers to make us feel as we are one of them, there at that time. This is because the director wants us to know what the soldiers went through. When the men jump over the boat into the water, the camera goes under with the men showing the men being shot under water and even drowning, this is extreamly (SP) graphic which I think the director wanted to do so that the film became more realistic and we as an audience understood the harsh reality of life at war.

(This paragraph contains good points about the director positioning the audience with the scene, but try to be more concise in your analysis. For example, there are a few points repeated. You should also try to expand upon your analysis but exploring how we respond to this type of cinematography- for example, we are placed in the scene as one of the soldiers so we can be immersed in this horrific experience and empathise with the men who went through this. The whole point of this sequence is to show the audience the true horror and brutality of war)

The camera then switches to the POV of one of the Germans who are positioned higher up than the American soldiers. The director has done this to make the American soldiers look weak as they are tiny and easy to kill from the Germans POV.  The American soldiers tremble up to the beach, the camera again follows this as free hand and shows as if they are again one of the soldiers in battle.

 Tom (use character names 'Cpt. Miller) finds himself walking through a sea of his soldiers blood which he must find mentally disturbing. When Tom finally makes it to the beach the whole scene turns to slow motion and the sound is blocked out. The camera then switches from a close up of Toms face to his POV of the environment around him. The reason the director has made the audience see through Tom’s eyes is so that the audience empathise for him because he is traumatised from what he has just witnessing and what he is witnessing at that very moment. As the audience can see the world through Tom’s eyes they see that one of his soldiers has had his arm blew off which anyone would imagine would hurt however this soldier is completely unaware of any pain and is just walking round searching for his arm; when he finds it he just picks it up and walks away with it. Another young soldier is crying and burying himself into a huge piece of metal for shelter from the Germans bullets. Tom also sees several of his men being burnt alive from fire of the boats. The surrealism of this whole experience leaves Tom shell shocked; this was a condition soldiers would get during a war or because of the war leaving them mentally fragile.