Kurosawa

Kurosawa is a very interesting director that likes to use certain elements of film very frequently. One thing that he does in all of the films that we watched is that he adds long sequences with only nondiegetic sound. He will do this to make something stand out or tell the story without dialogue. We especially see this in Stray Dog with the enormously long 15 minute sequence in the black market. We also see one of these sequences in Ran where there is dreary music playing and we see many dead bodies, and then all of a sudden there is a diegetic sound of the gunshot on Hidetora's son. Kurosawa is a master of this technique and has used it to add more meaning to his films.
Another repeated thing that we see in Kurosawa's films is the importance of the use of guns. In Stray Dog the whole conflict appears because of a stolen gun in the beginning of the film. Then in Yojimbo one person has a gun and that makes him stand out as a major enemy to the protagonist. And then guns are especially important in Ran because they represent something that brings about death and destruction to the human race. Kurosawa has a very strong opinion with guns and we can see that he fells that guns only cause problems and lead to death and murder.

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan was probably one of Speilberg's greatest films. It tells a great story of a team of solders and their captain with a mission to rescue Private Ryan whos brothers have all died. There is a huge theme and conflict in this film that deals with risking the lives of many men for just one man. The reason that it is so important to save Private Ryan in the film is mainly for his mother so she doesn't have to suffer the loss of all four of her sons. I remember when the higher ranked officers made the call to attempt to save ryan that I asked out loud "why is Ryan so important?" I really disagree with the decision, I understand that the mother would be sad but this mission is risking the lives of many other men who have mothers and families as well. To me the risk is to great to save just one man.

There is one very important scene in the film that deals with the theme of the movie. It is somewhere in the middle of the film when Captain Miller, played by Tom Hanks is discussing why their team should risk their lives for Private Ryan. Miller talks about how when one of his men dies he rationalizes it with the idea that that one death probably saved 20 others. But when a few of thier men die on this mission Miller breaks down because he has lost multiple men all to just save one. It seems like all of the men are doubting this mission but Captain Miller obeys his superiors and they continue with their orders.