For all of Spielberg’s fascination with the Second World War going back to his earliest days as a filmmaker, it took him until 1998 to actually make a war film. The Indiana Jones movies are really an action-adventure series more than anything else, 1941 is a comedy on the home front, Always could have been a war movie but was updated, and Empire of the Sun and Schindler’s List are personal and social dramas set against the war. Spielberg hadn’t actually made a movie about the war; about the battles and strategies, the experience of fighting, and the physical and mental toll it takes on soldiers in the midst of it. But it’s pretty clear he’d always wanted to make one, and being Spielberg, it had to be one different from the generic John Wayne, Henry Fonda, or Lee Marvin vehicles pumped out in the 50’s and 60’s. And he saw that ideal war movie in the script for Saving Private Ryan.
Though not an adaptation, it’s loosely inspired by a true story: that of the four Niland brothers of Tonawanda, New York, all of whom fought in the war. After three were reported dead, the surviving brother Fritz, was sent home (as it happened another brother, a POW, hadn’t died either). Screenwriter Robert Rodat took this unusual occurrence and wrote a film based around the dangerous mission to bring home such an unfortunate soldier, told from the point of view of the captain of the escort team.
The movie opens on the Omaha Beach Landing of the Invasion of Normandy where Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and a number of soldiers under his command help take the beach, though sustaining heavy casualties in the process. He’s subsequently put in charge of a rescue mission to retrieve Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), a paratrooper lost somewhere in Normandy who’s three older brothers have just been killed and thus has been discharged. As Miller and his seven subordinates make their way through occupied France, their disillusionment with the mission increases with the danger it entails.
One of the first things you notice watching Saving Private Ryan is its’ paleness. The colours are desaturated and diluted, marking a visual distinction from the rest of Spielberg’s movies to that point. A lot of the film feels grey and gloomy and while this would ordinarily be a drab thing, it’s actually a really good choice for a film like this. It goes with the grimness of war and better suits the imagery of the period. And with a talented cinematographer like Janusz Kaminski shooting the film in continuously interesting and immersive ways (such as keeping most of the action scenes hand-held, or in the case of one, presenting it largely from the perspective of Upham’s spyglass), the look of the film is more vivid and exceptionally powerful. It proves incredibly effective and you can see descendants of it in war movies since like Hacksaw Ridge and Dunkirk.
The twenty minute opening sequence on Omaha Beach is famous for its realistically chaotic portrayal of a landing assault. So much so that it’s alleged to have reignited the PTSD in veterans who saw the film. And it’s what people remember most about the movie, from the shaky cam POV, the soldiers being mowed down or injured (actual amputees were hired for the film), to the depiction of shell shock and maintaining sound strategy under such disastrous circumstances. Unlike in most movies, it feels like a real battle happening in real time and the viewer is put right in the middle of it. We see much of it from Miller’s point of view, but it takes us into the quarters of others struggling on the beach too, including a few major characters and also unnamed extras -faces without names whose drama and tragedy here is no less significant. None of the violence is hidden or skirted around, it’s all there and it’s impossible to look away. And no battle scene since has been as brilliantly shot and paced while simultaneously introducing us to the characters its movie will be following. This is completely to the credit of Spielberg and Kaminski and their commitment to recreating and relating the battle so authentically and intimately.
The casting was also a matter of authenticity. Spielberg wanted actors who looked like the kinds of people you’d see in newsreel footage of the period. Whether this comes across is pretty subjective, but the actors are all very good, even Tom Sizemore nearly fools us into liking him. And Tom Hanks really gives one of the best performances of his career. It’s not a big performance by any means, more reserved than others that have earned him Academy Award nominations. His character is reserved by nature, keeping secret his home occupation and not disclosing his clear anxiety so as to give off the impression of authority and order. His men gripe about the foolhardiness of their mission, and he secretly shares their opinion that one person is not worth however many may die trying to find him. Miller’s best moments though are when he lets down the veneer and reveals how much the war has affected him. The shaking is one thing, the sadness in his eyes another, the ultimate justification for why he let the German soldier go perhaps the best one -this last after he made a mistake that cost the life of his medic. Hanks is utterly remarkable at playing the sadness, desperation, and pride of a commander broken by war.
Each man in the unit is believable, despite being somewhat stereotypical, from Edward Burns’ charismatic if dickish Brooklyn tough guy Reiben, to Adam Goldberg’s smart-mouthed cynic Mellish, to Barry Pepper’s confident, nutty sharpshooter Jackson. Giovanni Ribisi’s solemn Wade and Vin Diesel’s kind-hearted Caparzo are the early casualties, but still convey personalities and, in the case of Wade, a minor backstory. If there’s a true audience surrogate of the group though, it would be Jeremy Davies’ Upham, the timid desk jockey interpreter with little combat experience roped into the mission. He’s the moral centre of the group to a fault, and the most intelligent; but the best thing about his character is that the movie’s not afraid to make him a coward. During the climactic battle in the fictional city of Ramelle, the fear and intensity gets to Upham, and among other things, prevents him from getting ammo to Mellish in time to save him. Yet the movie doesn’t shame him for this. It understands how common it is in wars for people to succumb to hopelessness and terror. At least he kills the German he’d earlier defended, though it’s clear the scars of what he’s done and failed to do will haunt him for a long time. As for Private Ryan himself, Matt Damon is perfectly fine. The character is a little underwritten, though the scene of him reminiscing fleshes him out a bit. And Damon is certainly putting on his best idealist façade. The cast of minor characters could rival Amistad, with actors like Ted Danson, Harve Presnell, Dennis Farina, Paul Giamatti, pre-fame Bryan Cranston and Nathan Fillion, and Harrison Young doing a remarkably moving job as the older Ryan.
This character is the core of the movie’s sentimentality, but it’s not Spielberg’s typical kind that’s usually based in a personal relationship, conflict, or goal. Here it’s the mournful kind of sentiment that often comes with memorializing the people who fought in war. One of the criticisms Saving Private Ryan has received is that it romanticizes war, or glorifies the conflict at hand specifically as “The Good War”. On the contrary, this is one of the most anti-war movies ever made in America. While there is some grandstanding, mostly from General Marshall quoting Lincoln, on the importance of fighting tyranny, frequently it’s emphasized how horrible this war is, the absolute havoc and destructiveness of the battle scenes dissuading any viewer from seeing it positively. It is a film that honours the people who fought the war, both the veterans and the dead, not the war itself. And in this obviously the movie gets quite patriotic, emphasizing traditionally held themes of American identity and heroism. American nationalism in movies has a way of coming across conceited and gets tiring fast, but Saving Private Ryan, while overt at times, manages to keep its patriotism overtones tolerable, even admirable. I think because given the context of war, common values and losses, it’s more relatable across borders -somehow being both universal and distinctly American at the same time.
John Williams’ principal theme for this movie is called “Hymn to the Fallen”. That’s exactly what Saving Private Ryan is. It’s a tribute to the memories of all the men and women who lost their lives in any war. It’s a condemnation of the effects of war. And it pays tribute and condemns with an earnestness and honesty few American war films before or since have achieved. Perhaps the most moving moment of Saving Private Ryan is seeing the hundreds of tombstones alongside Miller, the character we knew so well. All of them were people too, sacrificed by the machine of war. Saving Private Ryan wants us to remember that.
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