Re-viewing D-Day: The cinematography of the Normandy landings from the Signal Corps to Saving Private Ryan

Abstract

In that it privileges the grand perspective (the landscape, and the battalion arrayed in all its splendour), The Longest Day (1962) is typical of big-picture World War II films produced up until the mid-1970s. There are few close-ups, and takes are ponderously long. The focus is on grand strategy, and an attendant grand narrative; the lens offers a blow-by-blow assessment of the massive assault. Shot in 1998, Saving Private Ryan periodically echoes this perspective but reflects modalities informed by changing technologies and a hyper-mediated culture. The result is more intimate framing, punctuated by shots sometimes adapted from the source material: footage captured on Omaha Beach, 6 June 1944, by the Signal Corps cameramen. This portrayal serves two purposes: it opens the film in spectacular fashion, introduces the main characters and prefaces their mission. This article identifies and examines filmic frames from the day of the landings; from the grand narrative of The Longest Day; and from Spielberg’s confronting representation Saving Private Ryan. The aim is to show how, through the lens alone, cinematographers approximate the character of a tumultuous and terrifying day in ways that are surprisingly similar and profoundly different.