Saving Private Ryan - Media Diary Week 6

The trailer I have chosen to analyse is the Steven Spielberg classic "Saving Private Ryan", starring Tom Hanks. The film genre is definitely a hybrid, consisting of action, drama and war, which is evident as the use of "Private" in the title shows that the film is about the war as private is a rank in the army.

At the start of the film, the genre is immediately shown through the amount of close up shots of certain photographs that were shot on Normandy Beaches, which obviously means that the film will be about the war. The letter is the first picture in the trailer, it is a deeply upsetting letter that was typically sent out to the families of those who had died in battle. Viewers of the trailer immediately recognise this and they start to ask questions; Who has died? Who is the soldier they are writing about? Its a clever technique in trailers because people engage in the trailer, they are hooked, and want to see more of the trailer. The extreme close up of the word "loss" highlights that a soldier has been killed, but to me, it means that the writer of the letter felt hugely sympathetic to the family of the victim. "Loss" to me, sounds like they miss the soldier and that him dying has a hugely negative effect on those who were close to him. The use of long and very long shots to show the background as well as the characters in the film allows people examine fully the background and the setting in which the film is taking place. The voice over of the letter creates a compassionate feeling, there is no emotion on the voice at all, sounding like he really is sad about the death and that it hasn't sunk into him yet that the soldier has died. Voice over is also important in a articular scene, when one private says "It's not going to be easy finding one particular soldier in the whole damn war" which shows that they knew their mission was going to be suicidal, and they may not come out alive, but they still had to save the other private as they are all in this together, but they are brave, and aren't going to give up that easily, despite how hard the mission will be.

The setting is equally as important, people recognise that the film is set in the war, more specifically World War Two, as one of the photographs is of the most infamous beach used in D-Day in 1944. Thousands (thought to be in the 4,000 area) of soldiers perished in Operation Overlord, the day is never represented to be good at all, and when thought about, people think to the gloomy, dark days of war, which is highlighted in the trailer. The photographs are dark, they represent all that was bad on that day, and the war all together. The camera editing is slow, but the use of extreme close ups frequently is meant to show the viewer the emotion on the faces of the people in the film. Tom Hanks' face is zoomed in as it shows the pain and agony that was happening to the soldier at the time, who had presumably been shot by the opposition. The pain on his face stands out, as the mouth has dropped to show that he is screaming loudly to show how much pain he was experiencing when he got shot, and was on the verge of death. The extreme close up means that the viewer cant look anywhere else other than the soldier, which could represent that we cant see a positive, or an, future for the soldier, as we can clearly see the fear in his face, so June 6th may be the soldiers last living day.

The trailer goes on to name other privates, all ending in the surname "Ryan" which shows that the entire family all went to war to fight for their country, something that wasn't unusual in the second world war as thousands of families gave up their time to save the country, many veterans watching the film can see a sense of familiarity from the film, showing how realistic it is. But the written code of "The greatest danger for 8 men, was saving... One". This gives the viewer the feeling that they are truly heroic and brave, for trying to save one man after the D- Day shootings, which says that they were all in this together, and they are all for one, and one for all. This is what the audience wants from a war film, the good side beating the opposition, the binary opposition of Good Vs Evil, viewers want the bad side to lose, matching our expectations can make a truly wonderful film.

The characters in this film, more specifically the actors, are fantastic at portraying the true extent of how painful the war was. The facial expressions and their body language is fantastic, and some scenes in the trailer you actually could believe are actually from the war, thats how good the actors are in the trailer. The uniforms they are wearing are obviously war uniforms, people can recognise the genre of the film just by the clothes that the men are wearing in the trailer. The director of the film, Steve Spielburg, arguably one of the greatest directors in the word and a very easily recognisable name in the film industry, when the audience notice that he is the director, it can make more people go to visit the film and watch it due to how popular Spielburg is.

The music in the film is epic, it is the typical war song, sad, slow, but great at building aa tense atmosphere in the trailer. The music starts to become more dominant in the film towards the end, when the bombs explodes the music starts to get faster, which is represented when several shots of the men are seen which go well with the music played over the trailer. When Hanks looks up to the camera, the music gets quicker, which represents that he can see a glimmer of hope in the operation of saving Ryan, and that he can see a future with both of the man, something that was so slim towards the start of the trailer when the extreme close up of Ryan was used to represent no future at all.