Throughout the 1998 wartime classic Saving Private Ryan (Dreamworks, 1998) director Steven Spielberg uses camera movement and sound effects to drops bombs both literal and figurative on the screen. Spielberg effectively uses camera movement to display the distinction between the good guys (United States) and the Bad Guys (the Nazis) throughout the film while also using sound effects such as the LCut and JCut when transitioning scenes.
It is plain to see from the beginning of the film that the United States are the good guys and the Nazi’s are the bad guys. If to say the audience were to watch this film with knowledge of only cinema and none of history, Spielberg easily spelled this out by his left to right movement of The United States versus the Germans right to left movement in the scene when Sergeant Hill (Paul Giamatti) sits on a wooden plank that ends up destroying a wall revealing a room of Germans. This movement easily indicates to the audience who the heroes are and who the villains are, in this case the United States and the Nazis. In the scenes immediately after the soldiers get off the beach Spielberg has the same camera movement, the United States is shooting at the Germans left to right while the Germans are shooting at the United States right to left. The Germans right to left movement is taken as villainous because it is the opposite of what the Western eye finds pleasing, being that reading in the Western world is done right to left. Once again showing how the left to right movement of the United States is done to portray their heroism.
Right from the beginning of the film Spielberg is making use of the JCut, transitioning from the closeup shot of the unknown old man’s eyes to the beach by prematurely filtering in sounds of waves crashing down. This first sound bridge is effective in easing the audience into the main setting of the film, it takes the audience to the beach before they can see the beach. Helping to ease the audience from the calmness and sadness of the old man to the violence and urgency found on the beach. Later on in the film as Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and company are walking to the first French village, it starts demurely raining onto leaves with the sound of the raindrops getting heavier and heavier and soon turning into the sounds of rapid gunfire. This LCut effectively catapults the intensity of the scene by going from no noise at all to one drop to two to many and then turning the pouring rain into gunfire. The audience is once again eased into the violence about to come due to the sound bridges used to connect the scenes. Spielberg uses sound not only when transitioning from scene to scene but also as a means to show the audience what is going on within the character’s head during scenes. Twice during the film there is a sound vacuum used to show Miller’s moments of trepidation, once on the beach scene and once in the final battle sequence with the Germans. When on the beach as chaos is happening all around, all sound ceases and is muffled as a closeup of Miller’s face comes into view. The same thing happens during the final battle with the Germans, as all fighting goes on around Miller all sound ceases and a closeup of his face is shown in a moment of being unruffled during the action. What the sound vacuum does for this scene is offer a glimpse into Miller’s psyche during moments of complete disaster, it is showing Miller in a vulnerable state compared to the tough front he has to put up for the men in his company.
Overall Speilberg does an amazing job of showing each character as an individual and will have you constantly guessing who lives and who dies in this war-time classic.
