The iconic ‘Saving Private Ryan’ scene that was only shot once: “It was a one-take wonder”
For a movie that needed four weeks, $12 million, over a thousand extras, and 400 crew members to shoot its opening scene alone, Steven Spielberg’s approach to Saving Private Ryan was deceptively loose and improvisational.
Then again, maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising. Despite heading into the project with the intention of creating the most ear-splitting and pulse-pounding depiction of combat ever captured on film, Spielberg was open to collaboration with everyone and happy to fly by the seat of his pants.
The D-Day landing sequence is one of the filmmaker’s very best and easily among modern cinema’s most iconic, but the director didn’t even have a shot list prepared. With so many moving parts, it stands to reason that every aspect of Saving Private Ryan was planned to within an inch of its life. That wasn’t the case, though, with Spielberg turning up each day and letting his instincts guide him.
During the extended set piece that opens the classic World War II epic, Allied soldiers advance on an enemy position containing heavy weaponry. They toss a grenade to clear the area and then send in a troop wielding a flamethrower to finish the job. It was a beat that required plenty of moving parts, with Spielberg giving himself three opportunities to get it right.
“The taking of the pillbox was interesting because I wanted to do this entire shot in a single take without a cut,” he explained to the Directors Guild of America. “Which meant we had to do a lot of rigging so we could do three takes in a row. Again, if we weren’t able to get the shot in three takes, we’d have to set it up overnight and come back to do more the next day.”
The scene involved multiple cameras, cast members, extras, stunt performers, explosions, squibs, and fire, to name just a few of the components. If he couldn’t get it by the third take, then the crew faced an arduous job to clean up, reset, and have the exact same scenario ready to go the following day. However, Spielberg only needed one.
“We had to rig squibs all over the facade of the structure and also have a flamethrower standing by,” he continued. “And all that black smoke? Well, we burned a lot of tyres. When the pillbox was blown up, there was a lot of heat and chemicals that went off all at once. It was very intense for the stuntmen, but fortunately, it was a one-take wonder.”
Even though Spielberg had given himself plenty of leeway to have three tries at the sequence and then try again the next day if it didn’t go to plan, he didn’t need it. The footage used in Saving Private Ryan was the only time that moment was shot after everything worked out perfectly at the first time of asking.
