Hollywood Goes War

Saving Private Ryan

Sai Sunkara

Hollywood Goes War

8/16/06

1a. From blood splattering onto the camera to shots of the soldiers drowning in the water, Spielberg managed to bring the graphic events at Normandy to life. From the very opening sequence at Omaha beach, the scenes are blurry and the scene is very chaotic. The gray scaled color helps give the audience the seasickness effect. Also with the first boats that land at the coasts, the first line of soldiers are shot dead. The camera can't even keep up with the number of people who are dying.

1b. I can see that Spielberg, one of my favorite directors has consulted war veterans in the process of making this film. We can clearly see that the historical accuracy is correct up to the guns used the soldiers. Veteran's accounts tell us that Normandy was like a living hell. Bullets flying everywhere, soldiers accidentally killing members of their own faction, and as the saying "Bloody Omaha" implies, there was a lot of bloodshed. The official record of the 1st infantry division reads: within 10 minutes of the ramps being lowered, [the leading] company had become inert, leaderless and almost incapable of action. Every officer and sergeant had been killed or wounded... It had become a struggle for survival and rescue . It was so realistic that reportedly a German War Veteran dropped out of the cast since he could not relive the horror of the battle.

1c&d. The first 20 minutes of the film also introduces us the cast. Including Private Ryan, going back to the war memorial, and lamenting over the loss of the man who saved him, and the other brave comrades in arms. During the flashback itself, we get to know Captain Miller, a brave leader leading his soldiers to certain death, but still making through it. We also see the rest of the cast as brave warriors fighting along side their British and American allies hopelessly trying to change the tide of war, to favor the allies. By depicting the movie so graphically, Speilberg is not trying to make our brave veterans relive the battle, but show today's generation, one that does not know fear, sacrifice, or bravery, what the battle was really like.

1e. I believe that Saving Private Ryan is very accurate, and is at par with Gladiator, and completely beats Troy. As we know, Saving Private Ryan and Gladiator are fictional stories, based of true events (i.e. D-Day in Ryan and the struggle between Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus), but are fictional (there was never a private Ryan or a General Maximums). Troy on the other hand was a good story, and might have been true, but depicted as a mass market, Hollywood Teenager Love Story. Rodger Ebert claimed that Troy sidesteps the existence of the Greek gods, turns its heroes into action movie clichйs and demonstrates that we're getting tired of computer-generated armies.

2. We have seen many war movies and the whole purpose is to kill as many men possible to prove a point and win the war but Steven Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan with the main theme being to actually save a man's life. The main significance of saving Private Ryan in the movie was to show the value for family relationships and life. After having successfully landed at Normandy and leading the first American offense in Europe Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) was assigned to a public relations assignment along with his soldiers. His soldiers are shown not to be very open to the idea of risking all their lives to save one soldier and Miller gives the reply, "orders are orders." However even Miller questions the significance of saving one man's life while risking the lives of his other soldiers and how one can justify that one man's life is worth more than another. Prior to the mission being assigned to the soldiers, the audience is shown the war offices where letters are being sent to the families of soldiers already declared deceased. It is here that we learn of Mrs. Ryan, a regular American woman who had four sons sent to war, three of which have been confirmed dead. General George Marshall who is informed of this matter reads a letter from Abraham Lincoln from the civil war informing