Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan Oh my god! That's really about all I can say about Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's new World War II epic. I'm afraid I won't be able to do justice to this movie in my review. My senses are still numb from experiencing the film. Not watching, experiencing. Because Spielberg throws you right down there in the middle of all the action, and you have no choice but to experience it. You are there, on Omaha Beach, as you watch thousands of civilians, with homes and families, get mowed down in an instant by the carnage of war. You witness the nausea, the insanity, the total death war brings. It is one of the most powerful antiwar statements ever put on film. After the carnage at Omaha Beach, we find out that one of the men who died on the beach, Daniel Ryan, also had two other brothers, Sean and Matthew, die in the same week. This leaves Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) as Mrs Ryan's only living son. General Marshall (Harve Presnell), who is not down there experiencing the bloodshed, decides that he must do the "proper" thing, and sends a platoon off its course from Normandy, with the sole intent being to bring Private Ryan home alive. The plato
The human scenes are just as engaging. A translator who's never experienced actual combat, he is afraid of war, scared of pulling the trigger on a fellow human being, and above all, scared of being shot. Saving Private Ryan is a powerful, disturbing look at war, and is arguably the greatest film of the 1990s. This is a movie that should be seen by everyone, especially younger men and teenage boys, who oftentimes think they're invisible. He takes off the helmet, smiles, and looks up as if to thank God -- as another bullet shatters his uncovered skull and chunks of his brain matter are spattered onto the camera. Much of the credit for this scene must also be given to director of photography (and Spielberg regular) Janusz Kaminski. As they make their way through German held territory, they wonder, as do we, whether the lives of an entire platoon of men are worth risking just to save one, for what looks to be a public relations stunt. Both of them are amazing films, but are too numbingly realistic to be considered enjoyable. War has never been portrayed this devastatingly, and, I assume, realistically, before. Spielberg chose wisely in not allowing music to intrude on the gruesome sounds of war. In the same shot in which we see her collapsing to the ground, sobbing, we also see a photo in the bottom-right side of the screen of the four brothers when they were in the same unit. One beautifully directed scene, miles away from all the action, consists of no dialogue, and very little light. The scene on the stairs where his psyche completely evaporates is touching and horrifying at the same time. Saving Private Ryan is just as harrowing as Schindler's List, and just as great a film as Spielberg's holocaust epic. Thankfully, the film doesn't answer these questions.
Common topics in this essay:
James Cameron,
Omaha Beach,
Schindler's List,
Private Ryan,
John Williams',
Corporal Upham,
War II,
Ribisi German,
Edward Burns,
Janusz Kaminski,
private ryan,
saving private ryan,
saving private,
omaha beach,
giovanni ribisi,
jeremy davies,
corporal upham,
majority film,
edward burns,
medic wade,
spielberg regular,
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Acceptance Essays
