Film Analysis -- the Longest

Film Analysis -- the Longest Day

The epic 1962 film the Longest Day recounted the historic Allied landings on five beaches in Northern France during the D-Day Invasion of June 6, 1944 that marked the beginning of the end for the brutal Nazi occupation of Europe throughout the Second World War. In the eighteen years since the actual events depicted, the motion film industry had already begun relying almost exclusively on color film, but the movie was shot in black and white (Eberwein, 2004). There were other notable features of the film. First, several of the cast were actual veterans of the invasion. Second, the film relied heavily on script advisers and consultants who were directly involved in the events, from both the Allied and the Axis side. Third, whereas almost all major motion pictures depicting foreign-language-speaking scenarios used English scripts, this film used authentic French and German-speaking actors and provided English subtitles for their lines (Eberwein, 2004).

Realism

To achieve greater realism, the film employed script advisers and military consultants who were all actual combatants in the D-Day invasion (Eberwein, 2004). They included both German and American generals, various in-theater commanders, airborne assault leaders, and others with first-hand knowledge, including members of the Free French who fought the occupying Nazis from behind the scenes throughout the French occupation. The U.S. Navy allowed the film to use several of the actual light cruisers that were involved in the landing, as well as numerous amphibious vehicles and the infamous "Higgins" boats often credited in large part for the success of the entire mission (Eberwein, 2004).

Film Techniques

The film was, in many ways, a cinematographic predecessor of the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, in that it followed the soldiers from their assembly into landing craft-vehicle and personnel (LCVPs), and landing craft- personnel (LCPs), to their treacherous disembarking in waist-deep water while dodging murderous fixed machine gun and mortar fire from heavily armored beach defense systems all along the French coasts (Katz, 2004). The multiple camera views include shots from inside the landing craft, from the beaches, facing the coastal defenses and also from the German perspective looking out at the largest invasion of land by sea in history featuring thousands of vessels and stretching further out to sea than the human eye could see (Katz, 2004).

Realism and Social Response and Political Influence