Formal Film Study 2

For this Formal Film Study I chose to do 3 big name films of Steven Spielberg. What I want to do is compare the camera angle and music of the movies to see what similarities they have and also differences they have. I am assuming that there will be more similarities in the films considering they all did remarkably well in the box office. The films were also wildly popular. The films I did were Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, and Schindler’s List.  

Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan were made in the 90’s while Minority Report was made in 2002. Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan were made about WWII, but what is interesting about the two is that it shows both perspectives of the war. Saving Private Ryan shows how American soldiers dealt with the war and what the hardships were of fighting for their country. To briefly explain Schindler’s List, it shows the hard times of the Jews during WWII. It shows how they tried to hide from the Gestapo and stay safe from going to a concentration camp. A man named Schindler creates jobs for them and saves thousands of lives from the Nazis. Minority Report takes a different plot and is about a futuristic police force that is capable of figuring out future crimes and preventing them now. For Saving Private Ryan it’s like a basic war movie, but with a twist. For these movies it’s not so much the plot line that is the same it’s more of the lighting and shots used that really tell you about a character or the mood of the scene.

What Spielberg does in Schindler’s list is make you remember that historic time period very deeply. The shots and camera angles of scenes are so deep that the scene will be embedded in your brain for a long time. Janet Maslin of the New York Times says, “Mr. Spielberg has made sure that neither he nor the Holocaust will ever be thought of in the same way again. With every frame, he demonstrates the power of the filmmaker to distill complex events into fiercely indelible images. "Schindler's List" begins with the sight of Jewish prayer candles burning down to leave only wisps of smoke, and there can be no purer evocation of the Holocaust than that.” Another example of making you never forget something about the movie is every time Schindler talks. Depending on his take in the scene Schindler is either in darkness while talking or in some light. I feel when it is dark he is taking a bad position in the scene and visa versa when in light. Saving Private Ryan is light most time symbolizing an American victory I feel like. One thing I did notice is that every hand to and combat scene is in the dark or a dark place. Basically any type of killing is shot in darker scenes. Minority Report is a dark movie as a hole. It is a man with a mission to find his son. He is an angry man throughout the movie so the dark lighting in the movie symbolizes his anger and drive to get his son back.

Most of the shots were close up due to the fact that there was a lot of 1-1 talking especially in Schindler’s List. In Schindler’s List every time he was talking to somebody he would take a shot of Hennessy. That really stood out to me and I don’t know why. I don’t know for sure why he does it, but my guess would be to show power. Hennessy is an expensive alcohol especially back then. In Saving Private Ryan there is a scene where an American soldier and a German soldier get into a hand-to-hand combat battle and the shot was a close up on both of them and really gets you to feel that moment of the movie.

Another thing I noticed about the movie was the music was classic up-tempo action music. There were no words just up-temp beats showing that there is a bunch of action going on and it is very intense and suspenseful. The music would appear during intense war scenes in Saving Private Ryan while the music would come while Schindler was talking about something important. In Minority Report the music was playing a lot because of how many action scenes there were.

Overall, I can see why these films made it big. Saving Private Ryan was destined to be good because it came out 5 years after Schindler’s list, which was also about WWII. They both were WWII films that almost played hand in hand. With one side being the actual war and the other side showing the holocaust and efforts of people (Schindler) who were against Hitler and the Nazi party. Minority Report doesn’t tie in with the WWII theme but does tie in with the action theme. As I stated above the music really told you when the action scenes were coming and some big time action scenes would take place.  Lastly, these films were overall good movies and made it big because they were made very well, had great music, and awesome lighting and camera angles.