saving private ryan essay conclusion

Saving Private Ryan: Analytical Essay

Steven Spielberg is one of the most unique and genius film directors and screenwriters all over the world. His works usually arouse so much admiration and respect, and numerous awards and public’s recognition may serve as one of the best proofs of his professionalism.

Saving Private Ryan is his fascinating work about the events during World War II, about courage, friendship, and respect, about love and devotion, devotion to own duties, faith, and people. A war is the time, when people stop appreciating money, fashion, and proper food. It is the time, when only someone’s life and death turn out to be important.

This is what Spielberg wants to present in his movie, this is what should be taken into consideration and analyzed. Saving Private Ryan is a brilliant movie about the war and people in it; a true story of life, created by Steven Spielberg; a piece of art that awakes the kindest feelings and emotions.

Saving Private Ryan opens with an emotionally-colored scene, when one old veteran visits the cemetery in order give honors all soldiers, who gave their lives for freedom, peace, and other people’s lives. This veteran falls into his knees and start crying: these emotions and these tears demonstrate how dear all those people for him are, how significant their actions were, how proud he is now.

Now, it is high tome to see what has happened to this old man and whose all those graves are. It is 6 June 1944. It is a beginning of the story, when a squad of solders under the command of Capt. John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) fights for their future and for the future of their families. It is the war: so much blood, so many tears, and so many deaths.

People know that this war takes lots of lives, however, each loss is something personal and something terrible. Saving Private Ryan is the story of how John Miller gets an order to save young Ryan, the only alive son of a mother. The team of John Miller has to overcome numerous battles in order to find out this one young man and get him back to his mother.

Each meeting with the enemies takes the life of one of Miller’s soldiers. These people die to save another person, whom they never know and never meet. It is too hard to lose people in the only one name – Private Ryan. Miller hates this boy, but has nothing to do – his aim is to save him and allow his mother see her son once again. When Miller finally finds Ryan, this young man does not want to leave his squad: “These guys deserve to go home as much as I do.

They’ve fought just as hard” (Saving Private Ryan). The end of the movie is tragic indeed: the team, who is sent to save Pr. Ryan, is killed. Capt. John Miller dies, but completes his task – he saves Ryan, a person, who will come to Miller’s grave in order to introduce his family and salute his friends, who saved him one day.

War times always cause tears, grief, and pity. People fight in order to be free, to be heard, and to be understood. Of course, these people achieve their purposes, the wars are won, and the freedom is got. However, the lives of people, both young and old, cannot be returned. This is the most terrible thing about any war.

Steven Spielberg makes a wonderful attempt to represent several war issues and explain what people feel during the war. Soldiers face numerous battles day by day: some of them die, some of them get injuries, and some of them feel that they are not too brave to be soldiers and fight for someone’s lives and future.

With the help of this movie, people get a chance to comprehend that even all those terrible times of war did not deprive soldiers from the abilities to be brave, honest, and humane. There are so many duties, people should complete during the war in order to create a proper system and win. If one person makes something wrong, it is quite possible to fail and lose everything, and even put under a terrible threat the others.

Spielberg does not afraid to focus on pain: war will never be kind, and people should know it in order not to provoke it once again. Suffering, pain, and loss – this is all about war. It is too hard for an ordinary person to accept such cruel reality and not to lose own personality. This is why we should try to do everything possible to live in peace and think about safe future.

Saving Private Ryan is a perfect work by Steven Spielberg that tells about best human qualities, people’s responsibility, friendship, and care. John Miller is one of the brightest examples of great leaders and just a good person, who knows how to improve this life and help other people achieve safe future. This story touches many people; it learns how to be worthy of this world and appreciate every minute of this life.

Works Cited

Saving Private Ryan. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, and Edward Burns. DreamWorks. Paramount Pictures, 1998.

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Bibliography

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Saving Private Ryan: a Cinematic Masterpiece

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Saving Private Ryan Analysis: Propaganda Through Immersion

Jack Walters
March 1, 2022

Through its immersive narrative and stylistic direction, Saving Private Ryan r eminds us of the indiscriminate terror of trench warfare.

This article contains spoilers for ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (1998) .

Since the birth of the medium, film has been used as a catalyst for social, political and functional change. Whether that’s through creative narratives that explore otherwise unspoken topics, or even through outwardly exposing audiences to the difficulties of the world, there’s something about film that makes it intrinsically suitable for this kind of social commentary . And one of the topics that filmmakers seem unable to resist, however uncomfortable it is, is war. But it’s not just during wartime conflicts that these films come about. Some of the most iconic and prolific war films there have ever been – think Apocalypse Now or Paths of Glory – are products of a different era, drawn from a time that gives filmmakers more creative liberty, and crafted with the blessing of hindsight. Spielberg’s often-cited ‘masterpiece’ of war cinema Saving Private Ryan is one of these films – a piece of media that, despite depicting a time that is long gone, makes every attempt to immerse its audience in the dark and bloody realities of conflict in order to make these times real again. And by doing so, Spielberg makes one thing excessively clear – there are no winners in war , just those who die and those who don’t.

The first half an hour of Saving Private Ryan is one of the most effective and engaging sequences that Spielberg has ever directed – and that’s tough competition. It follows Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller and his squadron as they land on Omaha Beach and suffer immense casualties after being ambushed by enemy soldiers. The thing that makes this scene so memorable and captivating is the exact same thing that Spielberg uses throughout the movie to promote his personal anti-war ideologies – intense, unrelenting immersion into the scene. We never break away from Hanks’ character for a second, following him with unbroken scrutiny as he navigates the beach and witnesses a huge chunk of his team die and suffer in extremely gruesome ways. But the scene keeps moving, the characters keep on pushing, and the battle is eventually won. It’s hard to imagine a sequence that could make you feel more like a soldier under fire than this one – it defies everything that we’d expect from Hollywood filmmaking and instead opts for violence, chaos and endless bloodshed.

a still from the battlefield in Saving Private Ryan

Now, it would be unfair to claim that Spielberg was the first to do this – war films have always had elements of violence and brutality, and it would be pretty difficult to make one that didn’t. But where he deviates from tradition is in the complete lack of spectacle that surrounds the warfare in Saving Private Ryan . There are no theatrically dramatic cries or pristine cinematic explosions in Spielberg’s vision, but rather his soldiers die with a complete lack of fanfare or even sometimes recognition. In doing so, he steps away from the sensationalist nature of moviemaking and makes a very clear statement – his film isn’t just entertainment, it’s real life. The brave soldiers that get shot down on Omaha Beach aren’t just characters in a story – the camera barely even notices them as they lose limbs and writhe in pain – they’re real people and their deaths aren’t just plot points to be dramatized. By making this clear choice to avoid sensationalizing warfare, Spielberg makes it even easier for audiences to feel as though they’re really there on those beaches, rather than watching a constructed film.

Saving Private Ryan is clearly an anti-war film , and you can tell that just by reading the plot summary. It’s about the futility of warfare, the injustice of sending so many inexperienced soldiers to their deaths, and the pure terror that’s bred on the battlefield. But Spielberg doesn’t just show you that, he makes you feel it. His immersive action sequences and clear stylistic choices make you truly feel like you’re there – and that’s the best kind of propaganda there is. It’s one thing to learn about the horrors of war, but to see the carelessness with your own eyes and feel the fear with your own heart, that’s something else – and it makes all the film’s arguments about war so much more persuasive. Audiences rarely connect with films that are too overt with their deeper ideologies, particularly when they’re as political and uncomfortable as Saving Private Ryan ’s. But by placing the audience within the confines of the film, Spielberg breaks down that barrier between fiction and reality, making the film’s true meaning impossible to escape from.

Although it’s near-impossible to boil down the ‘meaning’ of Saving Private Ryan into one sentence, Captain Miller’s dying words to Private Ryan himself sum it up best. As he faces his own mortality on the battlefield, Miller lets out two simple but profound words that say more than anybody else ever could – “earn this.” It comes after an absolutely devastating attack from the enemy that sees several of his men killed, even more injured, all in the name of protecting Ryan and bringing him home. It’s one small mission in comparison to the whole of the war, but it’s everything for these men. And that’s exactly what’s so special about Saving Private Ryan . It doesn’t try and condemn war by just showing a huge-scale battlefield with dramatic deaths and big explosions, but it takes the time to develop a small, intimate story that speaks volumes about the personal trials and tribulations that soldiers faced on a daily basis during the war. These men might not have won the war themselves, but they suffer and persevere just as much as those on the front line, and as Miller’s dying words command, they earn their place in history.

Saving Private Ryan is now available on Digital, Blu-ray & DVD.

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Saving Private Ryan Essays

The anti-war themes of steven spielberg's saving private ryan anonymous 9th grade, saving private ryan.

Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) has been heralded as one of the most brutally realistic war films to have ever been put on film. Although the film celebrates those who fought during the Second World War – and all wars more generally...

Master the Craft: Unveiling the Insights of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ Screenplay

Published: July 20, 2023
By: Yellowbrick

‘Saving Private Ryan’ Screenplay: A Masterclass in Craftsmanship

‘Saving Private Ryan’ is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. The film is widely regarded as one of the best war movies ever made and has received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II. The screenplay of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is considered a masterpiece in the film industry, and aspiring screenwriters can learn a lot from it.

The Importance of Research

One of the most important aspects of the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ screenplay is the attention to detail and accuracy in the portrayal of the D-Day invasion. The screenwriter, Robert Rodat, spent months researching the historical events and interviewing veterans to get a sense of what it was like to be on the front lines during the invasion.

Aspiring screenwriters can learn from this example and understand the importance of research in their writing. Whether it’s historical events, scientific concepts, or cultural practices, research is essential to creating a believable and engaging story.

Character Development

Another key aspect of the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ screenplay is the development of its characters. The film follows a group of soldiers as they search for Private James Francis Ryan, a paratrooper who is the last surviving brother of four servicemen. Each character has a distinct personality and backstory that contributes to the overall narrative.

Aspiring screenwriters can learn from this example and understand the importance of creating well-rounded characters. Characters should have a clear motivation, distinct personality traits, and flaws that make them relatable to the audience.

Dialogue and Action

The ‘Saving Private Ryan’ screenplay is also notable for its realistic dialogue and action sequences. The film’s opening scene, which depicts the D-Day invasion, is widely regarded as one of the most intense and realistic depictions of combat ever put on film.

Aspiring screenwriters can learn from this example and understand the importance of creating engaging dialogue and action sequences. Dialogue should be natural and realistic, and action sequences should be well-choreographed and exciting.

Visual Storytelling

Finally, the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ screenplay is a masterclass in visual storytelling. The film’s cinematography, editing, and sound design all contribute to the overall narrative and help create an immersive and engaging experience for the audience.

Aspiring screenwriters can learn from this example and understand the importance of visual storytelling in their writing. Whether it’s through camera angles, lighting, or sound design, visual storytelling is essential to creating a memorable and impactful story.

Aspiring screenwriters can learn a lot from the ‘Saving Private Ryan’ screenplay, including the importance of research, character development, dialogue and action, and visual storytelling. If you are interested in pursuing a career in the film industry, consider taking the NYU Film and TV Industry Essentials online course and certificate program offered by Yellowbrick in partnership with New York University. This program will provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to succeed in the competitive world of film and television.

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Analyse the first opening scene of Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is an academy award winning film produced in 1998 and directed by one of the best arguably known directors, Steven Spielberg. This film is particularly well known for its opening scene of approximately 25 minutes where it displays the invasion of the American army in the Omaha Beachhead in June 6 th 1942. The plot relies upon the story of the ‘Sullivan Brothers’ where there were five brother and they were all killed in the incident of the sinking of the light cruiser in World War two. This subsequently brought up the Niland Brothers story, who were a group of four American brothers from Kenmore, New York serving in the military during World War II. Of the four, two survived the war, but for a time it was believed that only one, Frederick Niland, had survived. Frederick was sent back to the States to complete his service and consequently, Spielberg based his film on the brothers’ story where it was believed that a woman should not lose all of her sons in the war and if one survived, he would be sent back with his army duty competed.

Saving Private Ryan breaks some of the traditional conventions of the war film genre as it developed a striking and powerful opening battle sequence, showing realism of what the battle of Omaha Beach in 1942 was like. They had a realistic approach to the war films created in 1970’s by attempting to create the battle scenes greety and shocking while at the same time griping and emotional. Throughout film history, war scenes have been diluted and amended to prevent shocking images as it would produce a lack of audience due to the fact that people did not want to see what the war looked like exactly. Spielberg creates the scene so we can feel emotionally invested and drags our attention and at the same time using the same methods of the 1970’s films.

The reason why Spielberg does not start his film with the battle sequence and instead commences on a cemetery is to emotionally invest the audience and to establish pity for the character. In the opening scene, it initially starts with the elderly Jack Ryan walking towards Colllville Sur Mer which is a military graveyard. Jack Ryan chooses to visit the people who have risked their life to save him, so subsequently in devote of respect, Jack Ryan visited the cemetery to honour those soldiers. As he walks through the cemetery, his family is respectively holding back him giving him space and consequently symbolising respect for him.

The scene primarily starts with an American flag to express regard and honour those whom fought and died bravely for their country. Spielberg utilized a desaturisation method to suck out the colour of the flag giving a brownish colour. This effect establishes realism to the film as it gives us the impression that it was old and perhaps filmed at the time. There is a uniform nature assembled in the funerary grounds to represent a team as every grave is of a similar pigment and of the same size. The tombstones have a cross for every Christian person and a Star of David for every Jewish person to represent respect for the soldiers’ beliefs and religion. Another method cleverly used by Spielberg is a panning sequence shot, which is a sequence of camera movements going up to shoot a wider range of the scene. It starts of in one grave and as it goes up it shows the whole cemetery with millions of graves. This establishes a shock on the audience as it gives a sudden realisation what of the effects of the war has caused upon millions of people. The first scene appears to be silent at the start with absolutely no dialogue is to enhance the effect upon the audience to emotionally attach to the character and feel for him as he is visiting the friends he had lost on the battle. It latter starts a military snore called a bugle. Consequently, this evokes an emotive feeling on the audience as this is a sound commonly utilized on the war to war soldiers of any circumstances, therefore it reminds people of the soldiers who have died in the war battles. The music is constantly increasing its volume and this filmographic method is called a crescendo. It established tension to the audience and the anxiety to see what is going to happen next. At the end of this scene the camera moves slowly towards the elderly Jack Ryan’s face and directs itself through the eye of the character. This was established to perform a transition from the present to the past and furthermore will be showing the next section of the film. This effect is adapted so we can feel as it we were looking through the eyes of the character and observing what he had seen on the battle. From the opening scene it instantly changes to the next scene by the application of this method and it gives a sense of anxiety to the audience as they are expecting the next scene.

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The following scene is the instant chaos of the D-day landing in the Omaha beach, France. The scene initially commences with the sound of the surf of the waves. There is no music which established agitation to the audience as they would be anxious to see what happens after the ramp of the boat comes down. The first scene we see is the hedgehogs and as a result we percept that there is going to be a battle as the hedgehogs are anti-tank devices, hence symbolising violence. The first words we hear in this scene are the commands from Captain Miller, they are unclear and we cannot hear the dialogue properly. Before entering the battle sequence we hear “30 seconds, may God be with you”, this gives us a sense awareness to be ready for what is going to happen and it also established pity for the character as we have only just been introduced to them and we know that in the battle scene most of them will not come out alive. There is a religious theme and a religious insignia applied to the background as there is a soldier who blesses himself with the sign of a cross and another soldier kisses the cross, this illustrates that soldiers have faith in winning the war and that they are people just like anyone else as they also pray for their God. There is a guy on the Higgins craft and Captain Miller’s hand is constantly shaking because their nervous. This shows that even though Captain Miller is experient and has been to many battles he still gets nervous from all the tension of having to fight another battle, not know if he would come out alive and having the fear of his death. Spielberg cleverly adopted the utilization of hand-held cameras. The camera is located at the back of the Higgins craft and it gives us the impression that we are the last man standing on the back of the Higgins craft as the camera is continuously trembling as if we were in the boat moving. As soon as the Higgins craft hits the coast and lands, the spinning wheel start turning and the ramp suddenly comes down consequently, anxiety is developed as we don’t know what to expect form the following sequence of the scene. As soon as the ramp comes down, an absurd amount of bullets are fired instantly at the soldiers. What it is trying to tell us is that violence happens rapidly and will not wait until you have an even chance against it. Every soldier in the Higgins craft end up dying because of the unproportional chance they stand against the Germans consequently producing a shock sequence to the audience as none of the soldiers are able to come out alive and the audience see the effect of the war. As the other Higgins crafts arrives at the beach, soldiers realise that they will not stand a chance if they stay in the boat so they decide they would have to jump into the water and try to go up the beach. As the camera went into the water, the sound is suddenly withdrawn from the film and we could just hear the sound of bullets breaking through the water. This is to give us a feeling that we are in the war and we had to jump in the water. The film not only enables us to visualize the facts as if we were there but also to hear what is going on at the war. We are also able to see that the soldiers carrying heavy loaded artillery were not able to swim to the coast as they could not remove their load before drowning. As a result, this would subsequently mean that the audience would feel for the soldiers as they would die because of their artillery in one of the most arguably painful ways. At the end of the instant chaos scene there is an over the shoulder shot of the turrets (concrete bunker) where this is symbolising a German perspective of the view of the war. We are also able to see more clearly what is going on at the coast of the beach and how far up do the soldiers have to make to have a chance of defeating the Germans. Captains Miller had announced to “Clear those murder holes” and he called the turrets murder holes because as the Americans didn’t stand a chance, it was considerably murder as they could do nothing to stop it.

During the instant chaos scene, Spielberg has enhanced another scene which was the Captain Miller’s confusion where he suffers of a shell shock which is a post climatic stress disorder. Captain Miller enters the scene stumbling into the beach and crawls behind a hedgehog to find a safe place to stay for a while. After a bomb went off right in front of Captain Miller, the sound was sucked out completely and he enters a state where he can’t react hear anything because of all the stress and for the circumstance that he was nervous at the time therefore he cannot command his army. Spielberg utilizes again the close up shot where the camera slowly moves towards Captain Miller’s face. For the reasons that this scene is centred in Captain Miller we are able to acknowledge that Miller is the main character in the film. As Miller is confused he slowly reaches out for his helmet. As he put the helmet on, the blood from the helmet is poured over Miller’s head and we have the impression that Miller was shot in the head and it makes us wonder why would the main character die in the opening scenes of the film. We then find out that the blood form the helmet was water mixed with blood as the helmet stood next to the sea giving us a sense of relief for the character as we discovered he did no die. This scene is realistic as we can see the blood of the same colour as it would normally appear to be and there are also dirty uniforms as the soldiers would not have cleaned it up for weeks. As Captain Miller lifts up his head he sees a soldier giving a mute order. He is saying “what the hell do we do now sir?” but we are not able to listen to him therefore this makes us read his lips to understand what he is trying to say. The film suddenly speeds up again after the shock to symbolise that violence occurs quickly and the noise was sucked back into the film, furthermore Miller was able to hear what his soldier was saying and was able to give orders. This gave us expectations that Miller would soon recover from the shock and we wanted to find out what would happen after his mind was back in the battle. Miller says “get your men up the beach” because he realised that if the soldiers stayed in the beach and waited until other people started moving forward they would probably die as it is easier to shoot a person if he is at only one position rather than just moving around.

The last scene of the opening sequence of the film is the end of the battle. At this scene there is a turning point as the American fired their first shot and got up the beach to fight against the Germans. The scene has more sound evidence that the violence is still raging, but the American soldiers start to organise themselves by the utilization of dialogue throughout the scene. The dialogue server to humanise the characters and not make them just mechanical soldiers, as they need to speak to each other and set up a plan to beat the Germans. As this is more of a close combat fighting, soldiers would need to get closer to the Germans, therefore they utilized their equipment and what they had to reach the point they were trying to get to. Firstly they utilized Bangalores (pipe bombs) to create holes in the ground so they could keep moving from hole to hole until they have reached their destination. Once Captain Miller and a few other soldiers have moved behind a wall, he utilizes his mirror and Sergeant Horvath’s chewing gum to look over the wall. Hand-held cameras is utilizes throughout most of the film and at this scene the camera slightly pokes to the right as if the audience was a soldier viewing through the camera and wanted to see what was behind the wall. As soon as the sniper fires his first shot, the sound of the film is sucked out to a point where we can only hear the sound of the bullet hitting the body of the German soldier and his body falling into the ground. This symbolises glory as they have just started their way into victory and they killed a person who have killed millions of American soldiers. This film was able to exposes itself as realistic as it showed the audience the immediate surgery so that the people could see the effects of the bullets and the audience was also able to see that the paramedics stayed in the battlefields and had to perform the surgeries with the resources that had at that place, because they could not wait until someone else could come to give a proper medical care. ‘Saving Private Ryan’ shows two aspects of God, the merciful one and the warrior God. The priest is giving the last rites to another soldier that is dying, therefore it means that he is trying to bless the soldier and ask God to take good care of him once he reaches his destiny after death. The sniper sees God as a warrior as he says “give me strength to fight the evil” he wants God to fight the evil and give him strength to help him finish the war. After many American soldiers died because of the Germans, they fought for bloodlust and revenge. When there was an immense explosion in the turret one soldier said “don’t shoot, let them burn” this was to show that soldier wanted their enemies to suffer as much as they could, as if they shoot their enemies they would die instantly and if they left them to burn they would take a long time until they burned.To have complete victory over the Germans, it was necessary that the Americans would kill all the German soldiers who were left in the trenches behind the turrets, but even though the a few German soldiers had surrendered, the American soldiers were chaotic and were involved in a bloodlust, furthermore killing the Germans as if it was a murderer as they have surrendered. At the end there was a reccuring shot of Captain Miller’s shaking hand, this shows that even after the battle, Miller was still nervous and still shivering. At the end of the battle there was a close up shot of the blood in the water and an upper camera shot to show the effects of the war and its destruction after the battle. The effect it had on the audience was that it left the audience exhausted as they have been watching the battle scene for nearly 26 minutes and it also had a draining effect as it gave a sudden realisation to the audience of what the battle was like.

To conclude my essay,

Analyse the first opening scene of Saving Private Ryan

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