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

![CDATA[In that it privileges the grand perspective (the landscape, and the battalion arrayed in all its splendor) The Longest Day (1962) is typical of big-picture World War II films shot through to the mid-1970’s. 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 adapted almost directly from 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. Re-Viewing D-Day identifies and examines filmic frames from the day of the landings; from the quintessential grand narrative of The Longest Day; and from Spielberg’s monumental representation Saving Private Ryan. The aim is to show how, through the lens alone, the cinematographers of the Signal Corps, The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan approximate the character of a tumultuous and terrifying day in ways that are surprisingly similar and profoundly different.]]