'Saving Private Ryan'
staggering, hellish, heroic -- Best film of '98
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'Saving Private Ryan'
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Steven Spielberg's often
staggeringly powerful World War II
epic, "Saving Private Ryan," is
hands-down the best film of 1998.
Spielberg has clearly stated in recent
interviews that he made the film as a
monument to the brave men who fought
and died in that terrible war (and on
D-Day, in particular), but he's also
done something morally heroic in the
process. "Private Ryan" clearly
illustrates, once and for all, that war --
the real, appalling thing, not the
flag-waving glorification that you usually
see at the movies -- is hell on earth.
Spielberg accomplishes these goals with
a technical virtuosity that no other
director, arguably in the history of the
cinema, can even approach. Though he
too often jumps into films that are way
beneath him ("Always," "Hook," and
"The Lost World," among others), or gets too poundingly sincere for the
kind of choreographed glossiness that often informs his style ("The Color
Purple" and "Amistad"), Spielberg is the real McCoy. He's a director whose
work has grown right before our eyes from that of a precocious whiz-kid to
the complex, humanistic statements of a true artist. Whether or not you
always appreciate how he utilizes his skills, the man is an undeniable genius.
"Saving Private Ryan" is not a flawless movie. Robert Rodat's screenplay
falters a little too often for complete comfort. War movie clichés that get
dismantled in the latter part of the film still stand as nothing but clichés as you
watch them in the early going. This is a forgivable sin, though, because
Spielberg's camera (and a group of great performances, especially another
iconic one from Tom Hanks) pulls us deep into the action and never lets go.
I found tears streaming down my face several times during the film, not only
out of sadness for the characters I was watching, but also for the men who
actually got torn to bits out on those beaches. That doddering old man who
annoyed you yesterday by taking too much time in the checkout line at the
grocery store very possibly served this country and experienced the
unspeakable horrors of war firsthand. "Saving Private Ryan" drives that point
home unflinchingly, and it's about time.
Brutally like the real thing
The defiantly brutal battle sequences
that frame the story are almost too
visceral to bear, but you owe it to the
people who were actually there to
watch as they unfold. As the film
opens, Hanks (as Capt. Miller) is approaching Omaha Beach in a landing
craft full of soldiers who are literally vomiting with fear and seasickness. The
film doesn't make it very clear if you don't know anything about the events of
June 6, 1944, but Allied bombers were supposed to have destroyed
massive German fortifications that lined the cliffs above the beaches the night
before the landing. Dense cloud coverage caused the planes to miss almost
all of their designated targets, so the next morning thousands of soldiers were
hitting the shores of France and running face-first into what amounted to an
open-air slaughterhouse.
In the movie, as in the invasion, machine gun and mortar fire is so intense,
chunks of human flesh and blood go flying when the landing crafts' doors
open. Spielberg studied legendary director John Ford's documentary
account of the actual event, and he brilliantly duplicates that footage's
hand-held, washed-out look. You feel as if you're watching the real thing,
even when Spielberg reverts to Hanks' character's point of view.
The sound mix (which is spectacular throughout the film) slows down to a
dull roar as Hanks and several of his comrades climb over the sides of the
craft and sink into the ocean. You can see bullets whizzing past the panicked
soldiers as they struggle underwater to remove the binding equipment that's
pulling them down. Some of the shots hit their marks and clouds of red mist
float up from the now-lifeless bodies.
Obscene carnage
This opening sequence, which lasts 25 minutes, is one of the most
devastating things ever committed to film. The carnage is so obscene it
almost becomes hallucinatory. A stunned soldier calmly reaches down and
picks up his severed arm, then wanders along the beach in shock. At one
point (though it's hardly the focus of the shot) Hanks is pulling a wounded
man towards what little cover there is, when he suddenly realizes that he's
dragging only half a body. Another soldier screams in pain as he lies on the
sand, calling for his mother while literally grasping his intestines in his own
hands. Yes, it's hellish, and, yes, it's supremely disturbing. It also really
happened, to real people, not illusory figures like John Wayne or Errol
Flynn.
After making it across the beach (and
after we watch a surprisingly
heavy-handed scene concerning
General George Marshall back in the
States), Hanks is given a unique
mission. Three Iowa brothers have
been killed in combat - we see one of
them lying in the bloody surf at Omaha
- and now Hanks must take a group of
men into the French countryside to try
to retrieve the family's last remaining
son, Private James Ryan (Matt
Damon.) The moral dilemma of the
movie, outside of the numbing brutality
of war itself, is the skewed reasoning
behind sending eight men through highly
dangerous territory in order to rescue a
single soldier.
The covering-all-the-bases content of
the squad that Hanks assembles is
where a lot of the weaker elements in
the film can be found. We get a
Brooklyn loud-mouth (Edward Burns),
a sensitive medic (Giovanni Ribisi), a
timid language specialist (Jeremy
Davies), a sarcastic complainer (Adam
Goldberg), the tough Sarge (Tom
Sizemore), a southern-fried
sharpshooter (Barry Pepper), and an Italian-American goon (Vin Diesel.)
All of the actors do admirable work (especially Ribisi, who's the key element
of a gruesome, truly heartbreaking scene) but this grab-bag sampling of The
Great Melting Pot is a staple of the kind of war movie that Spielberg is
supposed to be deconstructing. I'm absolutely certain that the director's
aware of this; I just think it takes too long before those stereotypes start
getting shattered. When that moment comes, during another lengthy (and just
as harrowing) battle scene at the end of the film, it's fairly astonishing stuff. I
think the movie would have been better served, though, if the characters had
been a little less on-the-nose in the early going.
Seminal performance from Hanks
And then there's Tom Hanks. It's become rather old-hat by now to say that
Hanks is this generation's Jimmy Stewart, but Spielberg understands the
guy-next-door persona that's central to Hanks' popularity, and twists it
inside-out several times during the film. You can feel Capt. Miller fighting to
maintain his humanity while often giving in to his blinding fear and anger.
Sometimes he makes the wrong decision, but then you have to deal with the
question of exactly what the "right" decision is when you're in the middle of a
situation in which concepts like right and wrong don't apply.
Hanks is constantly described by critics as being an "everyman" performer.
In this film he's truly standing in for every man, exploring the often dark heart
that beats in all of us. This performance proves yet again that he's one hell of
an actor, the kind we should cherish.