Omaha Beach Landing scene from Saving Private Ryan - Sound Analysis

 

In the opening part of the sequence, the director uses synchronous when the waves are crashing. This use of parallel sound shows how hard these soldiers journeys have been. To add onto this, we can also vividly hear a couple of men vomiting. This is to show that although these men appear to be hard as a rock on the outside, some of them still have disadvantages like being sea sick. A few seconds later in the scene we can hear men giving each other orders. This and also the hard hitting rain lets the audience know that they are about to enter into a battle. Next, we start to hear explosions and soon realise that they have made their destination.

A few moments later we see and hear some of the soldiers on the boats getting shots. This use of synchronous sound shows us that this will be a very violent battle. The pleonastic use of turrets firing also adds onto this. In real life, the turrets would most likely almost deafen everyone around them, so the director has to use pleonastic sound to add the effect.

Later in the scene, we follow the men that fall into the water. As soon as they hit the water, the sound goes blank. This is to create the feeling of being underwater. We can faintly hear bullets being shot underwater, and this is to show the audience that these men are not safe underwater. From someone's point of view  they start to go up and down in which we hear the chaos for a brief second then go back underwater. This repeats a couple of times, and it lets the audience know that the battle has not stopped.

In the last minute of the sequence, the camera zooms in on a man and the sound is muffled. This is to show that all of the chaos that is erupting and all of the loud explosions and guns being fired is deafening these men. He crouches and blanks out, whilst the madness, muffled, erupts around him.

The use of sound techniques in the Omaha Beach Landing scene from Saving Private Ryan illustrates a beautifully well directed battle scene.