10 Great Movies That Inadvertently Ruined Cinema

6. Saving Private Ryan Made Shaky Cam A Staple Of Mainstream Cinema

It seems insane to suggest that Saving Private Ryan, one of master filmmaker Steven Spielberg's greatest cinematic accomplishments, could have done anything to "ruin" cinema - and yet Saving Private Ryan, for all the good it did, made what is perhaps the first prominent modern usage of this thing we call "shaky cam."

Yes, shaky cam had been a part of cinema for decades, but was rarely incorporated into blockbusters. Saving Private Ryan changed that when Spielberg opted to use the distinct technique for the opening sequence of his movie: the 1944 D-Day beach assault. The purpose of shaky cam, of course, was to create a feeling of disorientation amongst audiences - and also to inject the scene with a sense of the cinema vérité.

Spielberg's intention was to make you feel like you were right there on the beach, perhaps even as one of the soldiers fighting for their lives. But since Ryan brought the technique to mainstream attention, it's been embraced to the point of parody. Movies like The Bourne Trilogy made use of it to trademark effect; others employed shaky cam so extensively that it's near impossible to see what's even happening.