Saving Private Ryan
D-Day. June 6th 1944. Europe is on the brink of collapse under the oppression of Hitler and the widespread German Army. Having been drawn into World War II three years prior when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the American’s assist their allies by storming the beaches along the coastline of France. Determined to take over the European continent by foot, the mission carries out in the background. But that’s not the focus of our story here.
As Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and his team are hand picked for a special mission, they must go deep behind enemy lines to save a soldier by the name of Private Ryan. He’s just lost his three brothers to the conflict, and being the only son of his family left, the soldiers must find him, save him and get him home to his mother – in the middle of the greatest military conflict in history.
War movies were all the range in the 1950’s and 60’s, mostly depicting World War II. Once the 70’s rolled around, movies changed focus until the US was neck deep in the Vietnam war, which then spawned a plethora of movies over the late 70’s and 80’s. For the most part, movies would use the war it portrayed more so as the backdrop to tell another story. However, there were some that took audiences right into the conflict in brutal fashion, such as “Platoon” and “Glory” for example. But the issue was, we were all too aware we were still watching a movie, and not experiencing what the life of a soldier in battle was like.
For the third time in the 90’s, Steven Spielberg got his camera and decided to make a movie that would change the way movies were made, and put the viewer in the middle of the action like never before.
Saving Private Ryan is most recognisable for it’s opening twenty minutes. Focusing on US soldiers during the Normandy landings, the world witnessed movie history in the making. Recreating this infamous day was done with such realism, scope and emotion that nothing like it had been seen on screen before. It was so brutally intense, that it was forgivable to forget you were watching a movie. With cinematography in the style of a camera man on the ground in the battle itself, we were thrown into the moment and could see, hear and feel everything the soldiers did, as they ran up the beach for their lives. It was truly an unforgettable opening to this movie, and any war movie ever made.
As he had done so many times before, Spielberg took the rule book of making movies he had helped write himself, tore it up and changed the rules. Once it was seen as possible to recreate moments from war in such believable ways, war movies became box office gold. An onslaught of war movies was green lit and started appearing on screens over the next few years, such as “Enemy at the Gates”, “Black Hawk Down” and “Pearl Harbor”.
Saving Private Ryan is not necessarily the greatest war movie in terms of story, but for total immersion into the realities of war and those who lived it, there is not much that comes close to it. Pearl Harbor owes a lot of its success to this film (and Titanic) for recreating a moment in history in vivid detail, but Saving Private Ryan set the stage for all others to follow. The film may not change your perception of World War II, or which side you empathized with. But it will transport you into the war, on the ground and all the way to the bitter end, where you will witness firsthand how the atrocities of war changed every man who fought for his country.
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