Mise-en-scene Analysis of 'Saving Private Ryan'

From the very beginning of the scene you get a sense of the fear as the characters are shaking and shaking from side to side in the boats which gives the viewer a sense of what it was like on one of the boats in WW2. The camera is very still but at an eye level to make you feel like you are amongst the soldiers but not showing the viewer any angle outside of the boat or where the soldiers are looking to make the viewer wonder and feel confined in the space and feel how the soldiers felt in the boat they are also very close together showing how compact they were. You can hear gunshots in the background making the audience feel tension as they want to see where the noise is coming from, where the soldiers are looking and what will happen next.

Once the boat opens on the beach the camera cuts to many long range shots, close ups, over the shoulder, mid shots very fast to make you feel how fast the action was and how there are so many things going on how you can't focus on them all. This was made by the director to be as realistic as possible. The lighting and background are dull and gloomy. This was to show how dark the scene is and is a symbolic of death. The props in the film are guns and WW2 soldier outfits (To fit the style and genre of the film).

The camera movements are very important as they show the chaos and horrific the reality is that some people went through these conditions and survived. The action, gore and facial expressions makes the viewer believe that they have walked into a real battlezone.