http://splodetv.com/saving-private-ryan-omaha-beach-scene
The film I have chosen for this question is ‘Saving Private Ryan’. Saving Private Ryan was directed by Steven Spielberg in 1998, who is undoubtedly one of the most influential film directors in film history, and probably the best known director. The film is briefly; following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.
I chose to look at this film because it’s clever use of sound and the mise-en-scene. I chose an extract of this film that showed the sound and mise-en-scene to its best. The beach landings, the scene I have chosen, hold the audience in suspense, as the danger and excitement of the scene is clearly seen in the faces of the soldiers.
At the start of the scene the only thing you can hear are men shouting, this is a diagetic sound, as it belongs to the scene. This has an immediate effect on the audience, because the scene is very fast paced and the loud sounds add to the effect that you are witnessing the event on the beach. You see one of the commanders laid up against a bank beckoning his soldiers to join him, this is also a diagetic sound and then the sound of the action around them really becomes apparent, (this is most likely a studio sound, as it is very high quality because there are no ambient sounds), the constant sound effect of the booming of artillery shells dropping in the background; of the men shouting. This affects the audience as they are confused as the soldiers to what they are supposed to do, or in fact feel. The men’s voices fade as the screeching of bullets come forward to be the main sound feature, this represents how fast he scene is going, and how fast paced the soldiers had to work to basically keep their lives, and is also a diagetic sound to the scene. The audience then feel endangered as the bullets seem to be flying everywhere and fear for the soldier’s lives. To end this sound of the bullets, a large shell drops close by to the action we have been watching and all the sounds become apparent again, there is a large bang, and the sound of sand being scattered everywhere, which both are sound effects as it is synchronised with other sounds in the scene, the viewers then feel the emotion of panic as they are included into the scene by the bombs explosion consumes the camera. From this shell dropping you can hear injured men crying in pain, this makes the audience feel sorry for the injured soldiers and helps them to realise the horrors of the war. The sound of guns gets louder as soldiers rush to their injured comrades, not to help but to take the spare ammunition, by orders yelled by their commanding officer, this is heard by the actors so the sound is diagetic, the audience continue to feel sympathetic feelings towards the soldiers as they are receiving no treatment for their horrific injuries. The guns getting louder shows the danger that the soldiers are putting themselves through to get the ammo and bring it back to their commanding officer who is sat giving out orders in a safe place, this gives the audience a new feeling of emotion (hate) towards the commanding officer as he is not including himself in his orders and putting other soldiers lives in danger. When all this panic has paused for a while, the camera is focused on a conversation between the officer and a soldier, they are speaking in a very loud, but frantic tone and the soldier disappears with a reluctant look on his face, again the audience feel sorry for the soldier as he is endangering his life again, for the officer. The sound of the shells dropping and bullets screeching past comes back as the main sound of the scene, which are sound effects added in editing. Also a new sound effect is added, ammunition clinking, as it is gathered together off dead or injured soldiers, the viewers feel as though they have returned back into the action that is happening on the beach.
For the rest of this essay I will be discussing the effects mise-en-sene has on the audience. The first section of the scene you see all the soldiers in their uniforms, matching green trousers and top which shows the audience immediately that they are soldier from the Second World War. The uniforms have been researched, and the actors are made to look like they have military training. When the clip changed scene, you can tell that it is set on a beach at a crucial time of war, as there are bodies covering the sand, all in the same colour uniforms so we know they are allied soldiers, many of them dead. A bomb explodes in the middle of the scene, and the audience are felt to be included in the scene, as the explosion consumes the camera and knocking it back as if the audience has been affected by the action. This gives the audience a sense of excitement and fear, what the soldiers are feeling. Also when the bomb has hit, soldiers rush over to the bodies and take ammunition from them this makes the audience believe that the scene is actually real and they feel the desperation of the soldiers still alive. Many men lay injured or wounded around the still fighting soldiers, this makes the audience feel and see the horrible conditions that no one should have to witness. Throughout the scene there is a dark sky, filled with smoke and dust from the fighting and plumes of black smoke coming from behind enemy lines into the sky, this makes the scene seem real and suspends the audiences belief that it is actually made in 1998, after the real event. Also around the beach there is fires in the background all over the beach from where the soldiers have had artillery shells shot at them, this also makes the audience believe that it was a real life event of the war. To add another effect to make the audience believe that the film is made at the time of the war is the way the sand is messy and in some areas it looks as if someone has been laid, run through and fallen in, others it is blood stained, this makes it seem all the more believable.
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