There is an eerie surrealism as we descend from the gloomy skies over Omaha beach. The redundant waves mercilessly beat upon the transport boats carrying the first wave of American soldiers, each silently staring at their inevitable destiny. Some begin to vomit, a combination of seasickness and fear that can only mean one thing, war. The date is June 6, 1944, otherwise known as D-Day, the single most important battle of the last great war. And as the US LCVP boats finally begin to drop their doors to let the soldiers pour out onto the beach, a cold shock comes over you. You are no longer watching a war film. You have been transported onto those boats, and all the horrors of war that you have only read about suddenly become reality. What ensues is the most ferocious and horrific sequences in all of film history. Bullets rip through the air with wanton lust, tearing apart the first three lines of troops attempting to make it to shore. The camera is jolted as if to suggest that there is nothing anyone can do to stop this madness. German 75mm machine cannons relentlessly bombard the shoreline as rounds tear through the backs of helmets and blow off limbs. This is not Hollywood's glamorization of death, this is death in its truest form. Bodies drop by the hundreds, completely limp upon impact from the bullets. Soldiers lie screaming on the sand with only their hands keeping their insides from falling out. Medics begin treating the wounded and before long, become the wounded. The shore is soaked red in blood, yet the Americans continue on. And for nearly half an hour this onslaught carries forth, until finally, the beach is taken.
For Spielberg, the point is simple: War is Hell. There's no glory on the battlefield. Heroes die. Good men die. What we read in our history books means nothing. They merely consist of statistics of death tolls and fancy plans laid out by four star Generals. Saving Private Ryan is war seen through the eyes of a soldier, and what better choice to do that than with a man whose demeanor alone elicits courage and honor. Tom Hanks plays platoon captain John Miller who, after courageously leading his troops through the hell of D-Day, is sent on a mission to find and bring home private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon). The reason: Ryan, who was dropped behind enemy lines in France as part of the Airborne infantry attack, is the only surviving brother of four enlisted in the war (his mother will be receiving all three telegrams at once), and the chief of Staff of the US military is determined to "get him the hell out of there." So Miller assembles his best men to help him traverse the French countryside in search for the fourth Ryan. His platoon includes stubborn Brooklynite private Reiben (Edward Burns), the strong-willed Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore), shell-shocked translator Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies), wisecracking Jewish-American private Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Medic Wade (Giovanni Ribisi) and sharp-shooting private Caparzo (Vin Diesel).
As the men march on, we begin to see the true destruction of war-torn France. Towns are filled with the rubble of smashed buildings, and scattered gunfire snaps through the deserted streets. Along the way we slowly get an intimate glimpse of each of the characters, and we become closer and closer to the platoon. When one of them dies, we feel as if we have lost a close friend. But despite the tragedies there's always a feeling that things are still OK because of Captain Miller's presence. Hanks' performance is brilliant. He is the quintessential every man's hero, exuding both fatherly poise and human vulnerability, and is the binding force behind Spielberg's film. When the epic final battle concludes, Hanks and Spielberg leave us with a hauntingly powerful admonition of the truth of war. There is no happy ending. We are left only with a simple reminder that in war, good men die so that good men may carry on the flame. In what is no doubt the greatest war film ever made, Spielberg has shown us that even in the darkest moments of humanity, there is still hope.
By : Stephen Wong
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 5
The sequence is rightly praised for it's grim depiction of the chaos and casualties of the invasion of Normandy. Spielberg's approach is to portray the confusion and violence of battle on a personal, not a tactical, level. There are no establishing shots or god's-eye views of the beach. We never know how the battle is being played out because the hand held camera has a personal point of view, following only a handful of the film's main characters.
In a sense, the first sequence IS gratuitous, and Spielberg most certainly is showing off. The sequence is full of small details that must have been extremely difficult to set up. For each soldier the camera watches die, it seems two others are killed in the corners of the screen. Yet this whole sequence has little to do with the plot of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. If it were cut, the story could be summarized in the same way.
But the film's plot is not what the film is about. It is merely a thread that ties together the patches that make up the rest of the film. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is really a tour of the life of American soldiers in Europe. There are distinct vignettes in the film, each one showing a small part of the big picture. In that sense, the taking of Normandy is an important part of the tour, and therefore, its depiction is not gratuitous.
The plot is that Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) must find and return Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) to the States. Ryan's three brothers died in combat and his mother received the news of all three deaths on the same day. A general back in Washington, feeling sympathy for the mother and possibly seeing an opportunity for some good P.R., ordered that James Ryan must be saved.
But as I said, the film is not about its plot. It is about the war in Europe, and more deeply, about the value of human life. The film follows Miller from his landing at Normandy to the fields of northern France. From the rainy town threatened by a sniper to the wreck of an American plane. >From an isolated nest of German machine-gunners to the rubble-strewn bridge in need of defending.
In each episode, Spielberg finds a way to explore the value of human life.
At Normandy, one soldier suggests that they hide behind the defenses on the beach, because advancing costs so many lives. Miller points out that if they don't advance, even more soldiers will die and it will have been for nothing. By advancing, their lives buy two things: precious ground against the Germans and more meaning, a higher value, if you will, for the lives of those already killed.
When Miller and his seven men learn of their mission to save Ryan, they are outraged at the thought that so many lives should be risked for the sake of just one. Yet Ryan's life is worth so much more, at least to his mother, because his three brothers have died. An exponential curve is at work, making the last son's life worth more than the first three combined.
At the site of the plane crash, we learn that 22 soldiers died because one general wanted extra protection for himself. He ordered a steel plate to be welded to the plane under his seat to protect him from flak. But the weight of the steel made the plane fly "like a freight train," and the pilot was forced to crash-land, killing and wounding dozens of soldiers in the process.
While talking to his men one night, Miller recounts the number of lives lost under his command. He believes there must be a formula, some factor by which each lost life can be multiplied, whose product is the number of other lives saved. Losing 96 men must mean that at least 960 other lives were saved. True or not, it is one way Miller can assuage his guilt.
In one of the film's most interesting dilemmas, a single German gunner remains alive after a battle. Most of Miller's men want to kill the German, slowly and painfully, but, as Upham (Jeremy Davies, in a very interesting role) points out, that would be against the rules. They cannot take him prisoner because he would hinder their mission, so Miller must weigh the moral costs of killing an unarmed man against the possibility that, once released, he might live to kill more U.S. soldiers, perhaps even Miller's own men.
The movie is very well made. That's not surprising considering the skill of the director. Thankfully, this time Spielberg refrained from including his sermon and his directorial signature. InAMISTAD, there were signs throughout the movie that reminded you what a clever director Spielberg was. It was downright distracting. In SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, there are no directorial flourishes, just good filmmaking.
During battle scenes, the camera is hand-held. The picture is jittery, but not blurry. It's as though Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski used a camera with a very fast shutter speed, or else shot at double speed, then used every other frame. I can't say what the intent of this was, but it made the film feel sharper, edgier, less soft.
The film also pays very close attention to sound, making us feel much closer to the events on screen. As Miller prepares for the invasion of Normandy, the landing boat's motors are clear and distinct. It's a detail that makes the scene seem mundane and real, not heroic and romanticized. For a time the camera goes underwater and the sound becomes more distant, more dreamlike, but as soon as it breaks the surface, the nasty whizzing of bullets and screams of dying men return. At two points in the movie, the sound takes the point of view of Miller, mentally and aurally drifting away from the battlefield, before coming back to insistent reality.
Finally, the casting of Tom Hanks as Captain Miller was an extraordinary stroke of genius. At first he seems unlikely to lead a pack of soldiers in a war movie. He's too much the nice guy. His voice is a gentle tenor instead of a cussing bass. And yet, that seems to be exactly the point that Spielberg was making in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN: that World War II was fought by normal, everyday men. There were gruff generals and posturing politicians, but the men on the front lines were average Joes with wives, jobs, and rose bushes back home. And that makes the violence of the battle scenes all the more horrifying, the cost of 96 lives all the more painful.
One final comment is worth making. I believe this film raises the level of acceptable graphic violence in mainstream movies. Soldiers are disemboweled, decapitated, and blown to bits on screen. Perhaps the most difficult scene is a closeup of a German soldier slowly and gently stabbing a G.I. in the heart. It is hard to imagine this film getting anything less than an X rating as little as a decade ago, yet it got an R rating from the MPAA on the first try. Spielberg handles the subject matter well. He deals with a gruesome subject matter honestly and appropriately. One scene reminds us not to treat death lightly, even when it is too widespread to be comprehended. No scene glorifies the mass slaughter of enemy soldiers. Still, the standard has been raised, and the next war movie will have to be even more gruesome to make its point.
Let us hope the next filmmaker will be as thoughtful, careful, and serious as Spielberg.
By : Marty Mapes
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