Scene Description Spotlight: “Saving Private Ryan”
I doubt anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan (written by Robert Rodat, directed by Steven Spielberg) will ever forget the film’s opening 20 minutes. So incredibly graphic, I can still remember the special ABC’s Ted Koppel did with some of the Normandy invasion survivors, screening the movie with them, many of them moved to tears at how well the film conveyed the chaos and horror of that initial amphibious assault on June 6, 1944.
Here we look at the opening few pages of the film’s screenplay to see how Rodat manages to orchestrate the action while conjuring up a vivid sense of what it felt like to hit the Normandy beaches on that fateful day:
FADE IN:CREDITS: White lettering over a back background. The
THUNDEROUS SOUNDS OF A MASSIVE NAVAL BARRAGE are heard. The
power is astonishing. It roars through the body, blows back
the hair and rattles the ears.FADE IN:EXT. OMAHA BEACH - NORMANDY - DAWNThe ROAR OF NAVAL GUNS continues but now WE SEE THEM FIRING.Huge fifteen inch guns.SWARM OF LANDING CRAFTHeads directly into a nightmare. MASSIVE EXPLOSIONS from
German artillery shells and mined obstacles tear apart the
beach. Hundreds of German machine guns, loaded with tracers,
pour out a red snowstorm of bullets.OFFSHORESUPERIMPOSITION:OMAHA BEACH, NORMANDY
June 6, 1944
0600 HOURSHUNDREDS OF LANDING CRAFT Each holding thirty men, near the
beaches.THE CLIFFSAt the far end of the beach, a ninety-foot cliff. Topped bybunkers. Ringed by fortified machine gun nests. A clear line-
of-fire down the entire beach.TEN LANDING CRAFTMake their way toward the base of the cliffs. Running a
gauntlet of explosions.SUPERIMPOSITION:THE FOLLOWING IS BASED
ON A TRUE STORYTHE LEAD LANDING CRAFTPlows through the waves.THE CAMERA MOVES PAST THE FACES OF THE MENBoys. Most are eighteen or nineteen years old. Tough. Well-
trained.Trying to block out the fury around them.A DIRECT HIT ON A NEARBY LANDING CRAFTA huge EXPLOSION of fuel, fire, metal and flesh.THE LEAD LANDING CRAFTThe Motorman holds his course. Shells EXPLODE around them.FLAMING OIL BURNS on the water. CANNON FIRE SMASHES into the
bow.THE MOTORMAN IS RIPPED TO BITSBLOOD AND FLESH shower the men behind him. The mate takes
the controls.A YOUNG SOLDIERHis face covered with the remains of the motorman. Starts to
lose it. Begins to shudder and weep. His name is DeLancey.THE BOYS AROUND HIMDo their best to stare straight ahead. But the fear infects
them. It starts to spread.A FIGUREPushes through the men. Puts himself in front of DeLancey.The figure is CAPTAIN JOHN MILLER. Early thirties. By far
the oldest man on the craft. Relaxed, battle-hardened,
powerful, ignoring the hell around them. He smiles, puts a
cigar in his mouth, strikes a match on the front of DeLancey's
helmet and lights the cigar.DeLancey tries to look away but Miller grips him by the jaw
and forces him to lock eyes. Miller smiles. DeLancey is
terrified.DELANCEY
Captain, are we all gonna die?MILLER
Hell no, two-thirds, tops.DELANCEY
Oh, Jesus...MILLER
I want every one of you to look at
the man on your left. Now look at
the man on your right. Feel sorry
for those to sons-of-bitches, they're
going to get it, you're not going to
get a scratch.A few, including DeLancey, manage thin smiles. Miller releases
his grip on DeLancey who moves his jaw as if to see if it's
broken. Miller pats him on the cheek and moves on to the
bow.MILLERLooks over the gunwale at THE HELL IN FRONT OF THEM.PAN DOWN TO MILLER'S HANDIt quivers in fear. Miller glances around, sees that none of
the men have noticed. He stares at his hand as if it belongs
to someone else. It stops shaking. He turns his eyes back to
the objective.THE LEAD LANDING CRAFT HITS THE BEACHThe six surviving boats alongside.EXPLOSIVE PROPELLED GRAPPLING HOOKS FIREFrom the landing crafts. Arc toward the top of the cliffs.THE LEAD CRAFT RAMP GOES DOWNA river of MACHINE GUN FIRE pours into the craft. A dozen
men are INSTANTLY KILLED. Among them, DeLancey.MILLERSomehow survives. Jumps into the breakers.MILLER
MOVE, GODDAMN IT! GO! GO! GOEXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE
Note how Rodat uses Secondary Slugs to ‘direct’ the action. Here they are in a list, stripped of any other scene description:
SWARM OF LANDING CRAFTOFFSHORETHE CLIFFSTEN LANDING CRAFTTHE LEAD LANDING CRAFTA DIRECT HIT ON A NEARBY LANDING CRAFTTHE LEAD LANDING CRAFTTHE CAMERA MOVES PAST THE FACES OF THE MENTHE MOTORMAN IS RIPPED TO BITSA YOUNG SOLDIERTHE BOYS AROUND HIMA FIGUREMILLERPAN DOWN TO MILLER'S HANDTHE LEAD LANDING CRAFT HITS THE BEACHEXPLOSIVE PROPELLED GRAPPLING HOOKS FIRETHE LEAD CRAFT RAMP GOES DOWNMILLEREXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE
Some observations:
* Rodat uses some of the secondary slugs simply to identify a location (e.g., OFFSHORE, THE CLIFFS) or a character (e.g., A FIGURE, MILLER), but other times he conveys action within the slug itself: A DIRECT HIT ON A NEARBY LANDING CRAFT, THE MOTORMAN IS RIPPED TO BITS, THE LEAD LANDING CRAFT HITS THE BEACH. He could have chosen to do this:
A NEARBY LANDING CRAFTHit directly by an artillery shell.THE MOTORMANis ripped to bits.THE LEAD LANDING CRAFThits the beach.
But he didn’t. Why? I think the reason he put the action in the slugs is because by capping the description, he makes the action BIGGER, befitting how big this sequence is. In other words, he makes the action impossible to ignore.
* Each secondary slug suggests a different camera shot, so in effect Rodat is able to ‘direct’ the action without using directing lingo — except of course when he does, which is twice:
THE CAMERA MOVES PAST THE FACES OF THE MENPAN DOWN TO MILLER'S HAND
But aren’t we told not to use directing language? Yes, and that still holds — for selling scripts. That’s the draft we write to sell the story. A shooting script is for purposes of producing the movie. In this case, Rodat already knew the script was sold: When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks say they want to make a war movie, you’ve pretty much already got a green light. So this draft is, while not quite a shooting script, also not quite a selling script either.
I’m sure Rodat had been working very closely with Spielberg as he wrote this draft and those two shots are probably something that Spielberg insisted go in the script, specific shots reflecting how Spielberg planned to shoot the scene.
And really, both shots are classic Spielberg, small human moments amidst the larger chaos, something viewers could dial into and experience to enhance the emotional connection to these characters as they transitioned into a living hell…
… a row of frightened young men, an incredible range of fevered emotions etched in their faces as the bombs rain down all around them…
… and a close up of Miller’s hand shaking to belie his own fear as well as set up a significant recurring image — Miller’s shaking hand is called back several times in the movie — shaking that ends only when Miller’s life ends, his hand finally still.
Secondary sluglines are one of the most valuable tools a screenwriter has to write action scenes, not only to direct the action by suggesting camera shots, but also, as Rodat demonstrates, by putting action in the slugs, we can convey to the reader just how big the action is.
[Originally posted February 4, 2010]
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