Hey r/flicks!
Link to video essay (with footage!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYSpdeSHX8
I made this video essay after noticing something interesting in watching Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed 1998 WWII war film. Acclaimed French director/critic Francois Truffaut once famously declared that he had never seen an anti-war film because the portrayal of battle in cinematic terms will almost always create a spectacle of the occasion that is naturally enticing and exciting to audiences. So-called famous examples of “anti-war” films like Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) can be argued to fall into this trap -- as critical as the themes of these films may be, the underlying combat that drives them is still highly absorbing. Action, it is said, argues in favor of itself...
Saving Private Ryan is of course no exception to this. The final skirmish in the fictional town of Ramelle is especially dramatized idealized to the point of concluding with a Deus Ex Machina Hollwood ending. But there is an interesting element that Spielberg weaves into the narrative that does much to “deglamorize” the concept of war relating to the way that many minor characters perish -- a certain “Brutality of Mayhem”: Brutal in the sense that these deaths are cold and immediate, and Mayhem in that they are incomprehensibly random.
The opening sequence of the storming of Normandy beach is an especially harrowing encounter for this reason. Spielberg presents a litany of absurd a cruel and absurd ways that soldiers meet their end:
One expects loss in battle at the hands of the enemy, but to drown from actions of your own doing, before you’ve even had a glimpse of combat?
One expects explosions from mortar fire to tear you into pieces, but to be unwittingly dragged into one at the hands of your own trusted Captain?
One expects military gear to have a small chance at protecting you from gunfire, but to experience this miracle firsthand only to not learn the lesson and pay for it less than a moment later (as in the scene where a soldier’s helmet protects him from certain death, only for the soldier to immediately remove it and proceed to be shot again)?
The way that most war films entice you with action is to make it dramatic and rational. By dramatizing the action, it is given weight, feeling, emotion -- death on the battlefield means something. By making the action rational, it is given purpose -- a non-random chance event.
But all the examples discussed s
... keep reading on reddit ➡
Hey guys, I'm attempting to write an essay on John Williams' score within the two films: Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's list and need to know if either of these two films feature a leitmotif. I've tried looking online and can't find much on the topic which has led me to concluded that there isn't any... Am i right in stating this?
Thanks for the help!
The whole opening sequence felt like I was watching angels swim into a dark hell.
Even if we assume they're both playing a bit younger, that still puts the characters in the 38-45 range. This contrasts with other accounts I've heard of men in their mid-20s being referred to as "Grandpa", suggesting that most men in combat roles were between 18-23.
As an aside, it seems that Hanks' character was drafted but still became a Captain. Was this possible at the time?
The MCU re-programed me.
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Hey r/TrueFilm!
Link to video essay (with footage!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vYSpdeSHX8
I made this video essay after noticing something interesting in watching Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed 1998 WWII war film. Acclaimed French director/critic Francois Truffaut once famously declared that he had never seen an anti-war film because the portrayal of battle in cinematic terms will almost always create a spectacle of the occasion that is naturally enticing and exciting to audiences. So-called famous examples of “anti-war” films like Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) can be argued to fall into this trap -- as critical as the themes of these films may be, the underlying combat that drives them is still highly absorbing. Action, it is said, argues in favor of itself...
Saving Private Ryan is of course no exception to this. The final skirmish in the fictional town of Ramelle is especially dramatized idealized to the point of concluding with a Deus Ex Machina Hollwood ending. But there is an interesting element that Spielberg weaves into the narrative that does much to “deglamorize” the concept of war relating to the way that many minor characters perish -- a certain “Brutality of Mayhem”: Brutal in the sense that these deaths are cold and immediate, and Mayhem in that they are incomprehensibly random.
The opening sequence of the storming of Normandy beach is an especially harrowing encounter for this reason. Spielberg presents a litany of absurd a cruel and absurd ways that soldiers meet their end:
One expects loss in battle at the hands of the enemy, but to drown from actions of your own doing, before you’ve even had a glimpse of combat?
One expects explosions from mortar fire to tear you into pieces, but to be unwittingly dragged into one at the hands of your own trusted Captain?
One expects military gear to have a small chance at protecting you from gunfire, but to experience this miracle firsthand only to not learn the lesson and pay for it less than a moment later (as in the scene where a soldier’s helmet protects him from certain death, only for the soldier to immediately remove it and proceed to be shot again)?
The way that most war films entice you with action is to make it dramatic and rational. By dramatizing the action, it is given weight, feeling, emotion -- death on the battlefield means something. By making the action rational, it is given purpose -- a non-random chance event.
But all the examples di
... keep reading on reddit ➡)