Monday, July 27, 1998
‘Saving Private Ryan’ worth watching if you can stomach
blood
FILM: Spielberg’s new movie realistically depicts emotional,
visual horrors of World War II
By Mike Prevatt
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The mission is simple: Dreamworks Pictures must brave the summer
movie slaughterfest and save their Oscar hopeful "Saving Private
Ryan" amid overwhelming publicity that has marked the Steven
Spielberg movie as horrendously violent. With reports that the
World War II epic missed an NC-17 rating just by virtue of
Spielberg’s name on the project, "Saving Private Ryan" seems to be
the one movie that people are almost afraid to see.
It’s too bad, because Spielberg’s latest dramatic exploration
into history is easily the most moving film of the summer. Based on
a fictitious story that begins on D-day, the June 6, 1944, battle
on Omaha Beach, "Saving Private Ryan" takes the human spirit to the
battlefield, pummeling it with all sorts of moral dilemmas that
come with such a mindless institution as war.
Tom Hanks plays Captain John Miller, the leader of a small squad
headed for Europe. But once Hanks and his crew get behind enemy
lines, they find themselves with a new mission: Seek out Private
James Ryan (Matt Damon) and send him home. The government had
ordered Ryan to return home to his mother, who was grieving over
the recent loss of her other three sons.
As they pass one battle site to the other, the same questions of
morality keep surfacing. The company constantly tries to understand
why their lives have been put on the line for one soldier. Each new
situation in "Saving Private Ryan" reflects this introspective
search for reason in a chaotic environment, and does so with
striking (and occasionally overly sentimental) emotion that
sometimes doesn’t even surface until the moment has passed.
Spielberg, whose ’90s dramatic works have represented the
anti-historical textbook because of their emphasis on human
morality, captures the horror, heart and detail of World War II
flawlessly. The battle scenes featured could easily be considered
the best in film. Unflinching in his revealing re-enactment of
D-day, he uses hand-held camerawork, massive amounts of blood and
plenty of graphic violence to get as close to the realities of the
battlefield as possible. The alarming realism is enough to make you
abandon your popcorn.
This makes sense, aside from potentially nauseating
implications, because this is no popcorn flick. Unlike the usually
dazzling, heroism-amidst-digital-catastrophe summer fare, Spielberg
aims to shock you with the truth and make you think about it. How
ironic, coming from the master of the big summer blockbuster.
Hanks’ Miller leads some of Hollywood’s brightest young talent,
portraying men of different, yet typical, backgrounds and
personalities. There’s the reluctant, rebellious soldier (Edward
Burns, of "The Brothers McMullen"), the southern, bible-preaching
sharpshooter (Barry Pepper), the melodramatic medic (Giovanni
Ribisi) and the revenge-seeking Jew (Adam Goldberg).
Yet the two most vital members of Hanks’ squad symbolize the
ends of the psychological spectrum.
As Sergeant Horvath, Tom Sizemore ("The Relic") shines as Hanks’
loyal and stoic right-hand man. The scene-stealing Jeremy Davies
("Spanking the Monkey"), plays Corporal Upham, the misplaced, timid
soldier lost in this foreign environment but eager to find the
right in every situation.
Upham, an untrained translator, is picked on by his fellow men
because he is clumsy and deathly afraid. His character breaks down
the notion of the fearless soldier and brings forth a new image:
the image of a shaken man thrust into an ungodly situation just
trying to survive. In his efforts, which are never short of spirit,
Upham learns how horrible and irrational war really is but rarely
reflects on the inhumanity of the other soldiers.
Hanks’ Miller, on the other hand, remains a distant leader who
expresses himself best through his silence. Spielberg’s
psychological realism comes through best when the aghast Miller
watches the carnage of the battles in complete (and unsettling)
silence. Yet Hanks is not without his heavy-hearted lines. Despite
unaffected moments in which he finds it necessary to hide his
emotion, he makes up for it in his talk with the unflinching
Private Ryan, telling him to "earn this" sacrifice that Miller and
his team must make for him.
In the end, "Saving Private Ryan" manages to balance the horror
and the gruesomeness of war with cinematic and emotional beauty.
Beyond the lasting impression of war in a nightmarish fashion, it
is the quest for survival and the search for the human spirit that
makes "Ryan" unforgettable.
Dreamworks
Tom Hanks plays Captain John Miller in "Saving Private Ryan," a
story about a quest to retrieve a man from behind enemy lines
during World War II.