The 27-minute opening of Steven Spielberg’s war film Saving Private Ryan is one of the most realistic and graphic depictions of warfare ever made.
The above Art of the Scene video explores how Spielberg managed to do justice to the actual storming of Omaha Beach, Normandy.
The video covers aspects of what went into creating the scene including special effects, costume department challenges and boot camp for some of the actors such as Tom Hanks.
So, press the top left play button on the above feature image so the video can play for you.
The landing scene — filmed on the south-east Irish coast — was also the very first part of the movie shot. In an interview with rogerebert.com, Spielberg said Saving Private Ryan was in fact filmed in continuity from beginning to end.
“We were all reliving the story together. The last film I shot in continuity was ET. I did that to help the kids understand where they were coming from and where they were going in the story. So literally yesterday was a page ago and tomorrow would be a page later,” Spielberg said.
“I did that again in this picture, but I didn’t realize how devastating that was going to be for the whole cast to actually start off with Omaha Beach and survive that as a film team, and then move into the hedgerows, move into the next town, as we all began to get whittled down by the storytelling,” he said.
The actual event occurred on June 6, 1944, D-Day; when more than 120,000 Western Allied troops landed on five French beaches in what was the largest amphibious invasion in history. It was the beginning of the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi Germany. The Western Allies earlier invaded mainland Italy on Sept. 3, 1943.
See the Saving Private trailer below.