I understand that you didn’t storyboard any of the movie. That must have made things a bit challenging, given the film’s elaborate battle scenes. How much improvisation were you able to do?
Spielberg: I had a very strong screenplay, and the actors and I were certainly following that as a blueprint. But in terms of my approach to the combat sequences, I was improvising all of them. I just went to war and did things the way I thought a combat cameraman would have. I had a very good advisor for the battle scenes: [retired Marine Corps Captain] Dale Dye. He served three tours of duty under fire in Vietnam, and he was wounded several times. In order to capture the realism of combat, I relied on Dale, as well as several World War II combat veterans who also served as consultants.
One thing that really helped me was that we shot every battle scene in continuity. For example, I started the Omaha Beach sequence in the Higgins boats, worked my way out of the ’murder holes,’ moved on to the beach obstacles and the ’sandy shingle,’ and finally proceeded up the Vierville draw.
How did you handle the dangers of the battle sequences, which involved explosions, gunfire squibs and other hazards?
Spielberg: We had crack safety teams and set safety supervisors, and our pyrotechnical work was supervised by some of the best ’powder men’ and women I’ve ever seen in the film business. We were slaves to their long-winded but necessary explanations of where the squibs and explosions were hidden, and we made completely certain that only stuntmen were positioned anywhere near an explosion. We had [approximately 750] members of the Irish Army helping us stage the retaking of Omaha Beach, and we kept them well away from the dangerous areas.
You shot the D-Day scenes at a beach location in Ireland. What kinds of benefits or drawbacks did you experience there?
Spielberg: I was a bit disappointed that the beach we used wasn’t as broad as the real Omaha Beach in France. I tried to use certain wide-angle lenses to extend the length of the flats on the sandy beach before the soldiers reach the shingle. I used wider lenses for geography and tighter lenses for the compression of action.
We were very lucky with the weather, though. D-Day took place in very inclement conditions, and many of the soldiers who fought there were seasick before they even reached the beach. During the four weeks that we were shooting the Omaha Beach sequence, which comprises the first 25 minutes of the film, we had very rough seas and bad weather it was overcast about 90 percent of the time. That was a miracle, because we were shooting at a time of year when there’s normally bright weather and the tourists are flocking. We were handed a huge break.
How did you balance the large-scale action with the human drama of the characters? The camera basically stays with the soldiers during the entire picture, but you must have been constantly tempted to set up epic, God’s-eye views of the battlefield.
Spielberg: I did a few of those, but not many. I tried to create a motivation for the God’s-eye shots by having a character holding the high ground to justify the point of view. There were a couple of times when I went up in an unmotivated way in order to show more of the action, but the movie is pretty much shot from the frightened viewpoint of a ’dogface’ who’s hugging the sand and trying to avoid having his head blown off.
You used a variety of techniques stripping the protective coatings from your lenses, flashing the film stock, applying the ENR process and desaturating the picture’s colors to give Private Ryan an air of absolute authenticity. How did those strategies come about?
Spielberg: To present war as ’up close and personal’ as we possibly could, we really deglamorized the technology we were using. The images we got involved a combination of several elements film stock, processing and a deconstruction of the slickness that you usually get with modern lenses. It was Janusz’s idea to strip the lenses, flash the film and use ENR; it was my decision to desaturate the colors. I came up with that notion while watching the color 16mm Signal Corps footage that George Stevens had done during the invasion of France. I was very taken with the desaturated look of that film; I have a feeling it was shot on Ektachrome stock.
You also used 45- and 90-degree shutters instead of the usual 180-degree configuration.
Spielberg: Not all the time we varied our approach. We used different shutters to create different realities, and we occasionally did speed changes in conjunction with shutter-degree changes. All of the special techniques we used were intended to make you feel as if you were right in the middle of combat, as opposed to watching it like an armchair civilian.
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