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Chapter 174: A New Perspective
🕑 Added 2024-12-03 07:21:57 +0000 UTCThe film began, and the audience in the theater fell silent. All eyes were glued to the large screen, ears catching the resonating soundtrack.
At first, the sound of a snare drum rang out steadily, as if marching from the distant smoke of war. The military bugle, with its distinct metallic tone, replaced the classical trumpet typically used in orchestral compositions. Accompanied by a low humming voice, filled with reverence and remembrance, it was like the first light of dawn breaking through the fog, quietly yet gradually stirring emotions. The music swelled into grandeur and then softly faded again.
In the dim light, an old and tattered flag fluttered in the breeze, the sound of the brass instruments drifting through the air. In this steady shot, the film slowly revealed its opening scene.
An elderly man walked briskly toward the camera. As he reached the cemetery, the camera zoomed in on his eyes, and the memories long buried in his heart began to unfold, as though the windows of his soul gradually brightened.
"Where's the big battle at the start?" Kunitz frowned and muttered under his breath. "Wasn't there supposed to be a beach landing scene right at the beginning? This isn't Duke's style at all!"
"Yeah, that's what we thought too," Allen and Jones agreed.
However, the next sequence proved that the film didn't disappoint them.
As the sound of massive waves filled the speakers, countless Allied landing crafts raced toward the beach. Some soldiers leaned over the sides, vomiting, and the shaky camera made Kunites feel dizzy, as though he himself were on one of those turbulent boats.
The camera shifted to the interior of a landing craft, showing the trembling hands of an officer, revealing the immense psychological pressure of the moment. The soldiers did not appear fearless—some were indifferent, some terrified, and others prayed. None of them knew if they would survive to set foot on the beach.
When the ramp of the landing craft dropped, the battle erupted without warning. There was no build-up, no shouting, just the merciless rain of bullets and soldiers falling one after another.
The war was brutal and bloody, revealing the frailty of human life. Bullets pierced helmets and tore through bodies; soldiers on the beach searched for their own severed limbs; after an explosion, Captain Miller dragged a wounded soldier, only to find he was pulling just half of his body... The realism of the war scenes was almost unparalleled.
"This... this is too cruel!" Kunitz heard a voice beside him. He turned and saw Owen, the man he had spoken with earlier, covering his mouth. "Is this what a real battlefield looks like? No indestructible Rambos?"
"There are no invincible heroes in war!"
Though he said this, Kunitz couldn't help but be amazed at how terrifyingly brutal this war scene was.
Sitting in the front row, Tom, who had already seen the film several times, focused more on Duke's filmmaking techniques, especially since he had been involved in much of the shooting. With his experience in the industry, he could make some insightful analyses.
"It's clear Duke used a completely different editing style in post-production."
Tom was certain of this. In the opening battle, Duke had clearly employed a series of continuous shots to capture the combat, using a variety of camera angles—mid-shots, close-ups—to portray the chaos of war.
To highlight the soldiers' struggles and the bloodshed, Duke painstakingly used close-up shots to create a visceral experience.
For example, when soldiers charged forward on the beach and in the water, one soldier was struck by bullets as he fought to advance. The close-up shot vividly captured the moment, with blood pouring from his body, turning the water around him red, before he collapsed and was swallowed by the sea.
The camera then pulled back, switching to a wide shot that revealed the blood-soaked and tragic scene on the beach.
War was cruel and unforgiving, and life appeared small and fragile, easily snuffed out in the face of violence.
Even the least perceptive audience members could sense this from the opening battle. As a seasoned film critic, Todd certainly wasn't an exception. His expression darkened; although only the beginning of the film had unfolded, he could already tell that this was a Duke film unlike any before it.
Recalling how critics had mocked the film during its promotion—calling it a sci-fi take on World War II, claiming there would be nothing but explosions—his face grew even darker.
Indeed, there were many explosions, and they occurred repeatedly, but these explosions were not gratuitous. In a large-scale beach landing like this, it would have been laughable if there weren't explosions. Most importantly, these explosions abandoned the exaggerated style of films like *Independence Day* and *The Rock*, retaining a level of visual impact while appearing far more realistic.
Next to him, Kenneth, a fellow critic, appeared less biased, able to assess the scene more fairly.
In this war sequence, Duke Rosenberg clearly abandoned his usual shooting and production style. For the first time, he adopted a documentary-style approach to portray the war—using handheld cameras to capture the landing, waist-high tracking shots, shaky frames, personal close-ups, slow and fast motion, and overlapping montage cuts that seamlessly strung together fragmented, impromptu shots.
All of these techniques combined to create a terrifying battlefield and contributed to the unique visual language of the film.
The extensive use of handheld camera work placed the audience's perspective almost parallel to the action on screen, or at a 45-degree angle to the subjects, creating a more authentic and believable visual experience.
As a film production graduate from NYU and a former assistant director in Hollywood, Anna felt the same way.
With the soldier's-eye perspective, viewers like Anna and Irene found themselves immersed in the chaos of the Omaha beachhead, feeling the shock of bullets flying and experiencing the brutal reality of war.
"This doesn't feel like a Duke movie at all!"
Even though Irene had somewhat prepared herself after seeing the trailer, she couldn't help but be surprised.
There were no sweeping wide-angle shots, no massive set pieces, no dazzling motion shots, no sharp edits, and no over-the-top special effects.
If she didn't know for sure that Duke Rosenberg was the director, Irene would have thought someone else made this film.
But she wasn't disappointed. The film was just as thrilling as ever, even if the bloodshed was a bit nauseating.
"Irene, you should be happy for him!"
Her friend Anna spoke in a low voice.
"For whom?" Irene asked, confused.
"For Duke Rosenberg," Anna replied softly. "Aren't you two friends? From what I can see, his shift in style is off to a great start. This could become his defining work."
This was Anna's genuine opinion. Just from the opening battle, the film had established an epic tone. As long as the narrative didn't collapse later, this film would likely become a classic war movie, perhaps even the most iconic one.
While Anna and Irene whispered during a brief lull in the war scenes, Kenneth continued his analysis.
This was clearly not Duke Rosenberg's usual film; the shift in style was obvious.
Duke Rosenberg seemed to believe that wide shots couldn't effectively convey the terror of war. So, he used few wide-angle shots to depict the entire battlefield. Strictly speaking, he only included one panoramic shot at the end of the battle, where the camera panned from the soldiers securing the beach to the vehicles, boats, and bodies scattered across the shore, eventually focusing on a backpack with the name "Ryan" on it.
Aside from this, the film predominantly relied on mid-shots, close-ups, and extreme close-ups, like Captain Miller's trembling hands or the soldiers' anxious, fearful faces. Duke placed these intimate shots directly in front of the audience, forcing them to confront the stark reality of war—the suddenness of death, its swiftness. There were no miraculous survivals, no over-the-top last stands, just the brutal immediacy of soldiers falling without fanfare.
By magnifying these death scenes, the film conveyed the fragility of life and the horrifying nature of war, capturing the despair, tragedy, and erosion of humanity.
Using the brutality of war to express an anti-war message may not have been a new approach, but Duke Rosenberg executed it with exceptional skill.
Even Todd, sitting nearby, had to admit that Duke had made significant changes. Judging by the opening scene alone, it seemed like a successful evolution.
Most notably, the length of the shots was different. Todd clearly remembered that in Duke's previous three films, the average shot length was less than 2.5 seconds, with long takes being extremely rare.
In this sequence, however, he used many long takes with a documentary-like realism. Todd estimated that the average shot length was over seven seconds. While this may have sacrificed some of the sharpness that came with rapid cutting, it allowed for a continuous portrayal of the battle, immersing the audience in the unfolding events.
Another difference Todd noticed was the editing. Duke had clearly moved away from his previous, often chaotic, editing style and returned to a more logical approach. The film's editing no longer seemed forced to maintain a certain shot length; instead, it followed a rational progression, cutting to the next scene only when necessary, or when introducing another crucial event.
Despite his personal bias, Todd couldn't deny that the flow of the editing felt natural and seamless.
Even though his opinion of Duke Rosenberg was at an all-time low, Todd had to acknowledge that the young director had made significant strides in his craft. His filmmaking skills had reached a new level, and particularly in the upcoming scenes, his emotional depth and subtle techniques were nothing short of impressive.
