War often brings out inhumane acts and a disregard for human life; where personal injury and murder, even assassination can become a norm to these soldiers. Losing their friends and family may be heart breaking but many with a fanatical view of their country lose their moral compass for a ‘greater reason’. War can have many forms. Significant battles such as the D-Day landings have made an imprint in time for their brutality and unmerciful like nature. Civil wars, such as the Irish Civil War turned blood against blood for the sake of their spiritual and political beliefs. By examining the texts Saving Private Ryan, directed by Stephen Spielberg and The Sniper, a short story by Liam O’Flaherty and being exposed to this brutal aspect of war my appreciation for the humanity and morality of everyday society has greatly increased.
The D-Day landing which occurred on June 6th 1944 was a horrifically violent episode in time. As the allies moved onto French soil to try and push the Germans out, they were faced with the randomness of war. In the opening shot an elderly man walks through what is presumed an American and French cemetery but soon collapses from what is believed an oppressed and painful memory; this soon switches to Omaha Beach with an extreme close up of his eyes. Spielberg in fact is foreshadowing the ending of the film while transporting us to the painful site of this memory. At the start of the beach scene we experience a de-saturation in colour, witnessing gloomy and extreme blues, visually affecting our mood, magnifying our emotions such as depression and anxiety. The brutality of the scene soon escalates; the injured and the dead fall to the ground; the lucky that have not been hit trying to survive. The violence and viciousness of many massacred men soon become a benchmark for our morality as we become desensitised to the bloodthirstiness of war. The onlookers soon see Sergeant Horvath. He is the calm voice on the landing craft, the figure that always seems in control. He compares sharply to Captain Miller with his shaking hands and his shocked reaction to the montage of horrific scenes men on fire, losing limbs and being randomly shot. Later in the scene as he gathers the fragments of sand, a mid-shot appears showing jars with different continents names on them. The juxtaposition of the scene with the preceding scene, where a soldier has broken down under the psychological stress of the battle, is important because it portrays Sergeant Horvath as an experienced and detached soldier. We observe that he seems to have completely lost his humanity and his morality to not react or empathise with these cruel acts he has witnessed. Because of the layer upon layer of brutality that Spielberg has created he has emphasised how quickly your humanity can become numb while under the setting, the ‘world’ of extreme violence under fire.
The separation of Ireland and the Republic of Ireland tore families apart; blood turned against blood because of their religious and political beliefs. The classic fanatic moved to keep their beliefs alive and press them onto submissive personalities. Liam O’flaherty used an
