Saving Private Ryan
Name
Course
Date
The Film “Saving Private Ryan”
The Actual Events and Time for Production
The film “Saving Private Ryan” was produced in the year 1998 as an American epic drama film by Ian Bryce, Mark Gordon, Gary Levisohn, and Steven Spielberg in the cast. The film represents the Invasion of Normandy, France in the Second World War. Since its production the film has been notable for its graphics and actual representation of war. At the same time, the film is notable for its history accuracy and the depiction of the Omaha Beach assault which took place in June 1944. During the Invasion of Normandy, Captain Miller and his small crew of soldiers struggled in their attempt to complete their mission in the Omaha Beach to save Sergeant Frederick “Fritz” Niland, who is the Ryan in the film. James Ryan, the reason for the mission in the film, had 3 of his brothers killed in war. Therefore, the crew led by Captain Miller was sent to save him as the last life in his family. Although the army is out for their mission, the soldiers and other people back in America were having a problem with why the whole crew would risk their lives for a single man. At the same time, they were opposed to the fact that Ryan was, in turn, reluctant of leaving to America as he wanted to defend the Unit that contained him almost all his life. Consequently, Captain Miller and the crew accepted to help Ryan defend the unit altogether with his counterparts.footnoteRef:1 Eventually, the results of the invasion was the worst ever in history as the German troops responded by attacking back the crew using their armor which included machine guns and artillery fire. 1: Braunstain, Liora, Oren Kurland, David Carmel, Idan Szpektor, and Anna Shtok. “Supporting Human Answers for Advice-Seeking Questions in CQA Sites.” In Advances in Information Retrieval, pp. 129-141. Springer International Publishing, 2016.
Basically, the film itself was made in 1998 by the actors who wanted to represent the crew, the captain, and James Ryan. In its outlook and content, the film was very accurate to note down the events that took place in the Second World War involving the American troops especially in Europe. Portrayal of the Normandy Invasion is as if the actual event was included in the film. In the real action the intention of the Rangers Companies was to overtake Pointe-du-Hoc and also the “Higher Ground” which Ryan and his counterpart wanted to defend. As a result, soldiers bombed the Omaha Beach which acted as the onset of war. This is displayed well in the film as well as how the soldiers suffered the response of the Germans in return. Also the decision which some soldiers took to sacrifice their lives for their counterparts’ survival every day is also portrayed and it was real in the war. The soldiers’ reaction including how they were screaming in agony when wounded and trying to re-stuff their organs after involvement in the war is also represented in film. The boats that were used in the time were the LVCPs and this is portrayed well in the film. The uniform that the actors use is the 101st Airborne Uniform and patch.footnoteRef:2 At the same time, the wrath and brutality that the soldiers face from their opponents is the same. In the film, the Normandy Cemetery in France which was involved in the war is also portrayed. The modeling of the aircrafts resembles the one used in the Second World War. In the film, back at United States, the government offered assistance including food aids to families of the deceased soldiers while sending the survivor soldiers back to their family. 2: Demarty, Claire-Hélène, Cédric Penet, Mohammad Soleymani, and Guillaume Gravier. “VSD, a public dataset for the detection of violent scenes in movies: design, annotation, analysis and evaluation.” Multimedia Tools and Applications 74, no. 17 (2015): 7379-7404.
Film Analysis
The film is, however, inaccurate in some ways. For example, in the film, the names used by actors do not represent all the actual names of soldiers who were involved in war. In the film, Captain Miller of the 2nd Rangers is absent. At the same time, the smaller battles that were in the real war and which were important part of the history are not all represented in the film while those which are present bear fictional names. For example, the final battle in the film is in a place called Rommelle which is currently not present in Germany. Rommel instead was a German Field Commander during Second World War. Also in the records of the real battle, the rescue mission was not put under big emphasis. Sergeant Frederick “Fritz” Niland who is, in the film, represented by Private Ryan was not the initial reason for the battle though he was rescued by the soldiers during the war. Soldiers back then were always in arguments with commanders and they always travelled at night to avoid daylight hazards like attacks and follow-ups. In the film, however, the army walked and functioned during the day. Nevertheless, the film is considerably accurate in the era it depicts in tracing right the Second World War cultures, uniform, cemetery, names, and also weapons that were used.footnoteRef:3 3: Robinson, Jennifer, Jane Stadler, and Andrea Rassell. “Sound and sight: an exploratory look at Saving Private Ryan though the eye-tracking lens.” Refractory: a journal of entertainment media 25 (2015).
Generally, some events were altered in the film. These events include the small battles, war fronts, and even some figures/characters involved in the World War such as commanders, captains, and even soldiers. This was mainly in order to cater for the length of the film. At the same time, since some events that happened had inhuman treatment of people involved or affected by the war, and also which can be currently controversial, the producers therefore chose not to include them in the film. Where the events were maintained, for example, the Invasion and Cemetery of Normandy in France, it was done in order to communicate the real experience of soldiers, their families, nations, and also to pass the main idea of the film.footnoteRef:4 4: Singer, Sandra. “Exploring War Horror’s Narrative Punch in Spielberg’s Munich and Saving Private Ryan.” A Companion to the War Film (2016): 56.
The film was produced in 1998, 40 years after the real battle, this shows that the time of production affected the resulting film. This can be attributed to some part of history being forgotten over the decades or it can be that the producers assumed that the viewers do not have much insight on the World Wars. On the other hand, during this period, the technology advancement also made the film developing, shooting, and recording easy. Thus the resulting product was a refinement of a work thoroughly prepared.
As a result of emission of some historical parts, consequently, film critics responded by disliking it. At the same time, critics were opposed to how the American army was portrayed as powerful and knowledgeable of war in the film. Most of them said that the film was designed in a manner that would result to best sales and awards.footnoteRef:5 5: Zheng, Hao, Zhoujun Li, Senzhang Wang, Zhao Yan, and Jianshe Zhou. “Aggregating Inter-Sentence Information to Enhance Relation Extraction.” In Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 2016.
Finally, we can conclude by saying that, Saving Private Ryan is a film that has perfectly portrayed the events that took place when the world’s peace was torn apart. It is a summary for the many events and experience that happened in Second World War which the viewers can use to learn about that history. At the same time, there are other versions of films that resemble “Saving Private Ryan” which have been produced by other actors. These films, however, are different from “Saving Private Ryan” as they have different actors, scenes of war, time of production, different experiences, ideas and/or agendas among other differences. These films include; Fury, The Longest Day, War Horse, and The Bid Red One. The important thing to note is that the real portrayal of the battle, the soldiers, aircrafts, war fronts among others are similar just like the film “Saving Private Ryan”.
References
Braunstain, Liora, Oren Kurland, David Carmel, Idan Szpektor, and Anna Shtok. “Supporting Human Answers for Advice-Seeking Questions in CQA Sites.” In Advances in Information Retrieval, pp. 129-141. Springer International Publishing, 2016.
Demarty, Claire-Hélène, Cédric Penet, Mohammad Soleymani, and Guillaume Gravier. “VSD, a public dataset for the detection of violent scenes in movies: design, annotation, analysis and evaluation.” Multimedia Tools and Applications 74, no. 17 (2015): 7379-7404.
Robinson, Jennifer, Jane Stadler, and Andrea Rassell. “Sound and sight: an exploratory look at Saving Private Ryan though the eye-tracking lens.” Refractory: a journal of entertainment media 25 (2015).
Singer, Sandra. “Exploring War Horror’s Narrative Punch in Spielberg’s Munich and Saving Private Ryan.” A Companion to the War Film (2016): 56.
Zheng, Hao, Zhoujun Li, Senzhang Wang, Zhao Yan, and Jianshe Zhou. “Aggregating Inter-Sentence Information to Enhance Relation Extraction.” In Thirtieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. 2016.
