My Life at the Movies 3.17.09: 1998 - Saving Private Ryan

Posted by DC Perry on 03.17.2009

I'd say this is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover, I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life, and the lives of my men to ease her suffering.

1998's Academy Award for Best Picture represents one of the all-time great triumphs of style over substance. Shakespeare in Love is clever, well-written, beautifully filmed, and its rash of in-jokes reward knowledge of the source material; in short, it's exactly the kind of movie I love. But where Shakespeare in Love makes you feel special and important for loving literature and recognizing its value, Saving Private Ryan forces you to take that literature out of the classroom into a very ugly place, and it dares you to put up or shut up.



1998 at a Glance

US President: Bill Clinton
Median annual salary: $38,568
Gallon of gas: $1.06
Dozen eggs: $1.09
New house: $181,900
New car: $19,560
Movie ticket: $4.69
Boston Red Sox: 92-70, second place, American League East
Me: Earning my B.A. in English. Getting married. Learning to go to bed at a decent hour and hold down a big boy job.

First things first: in a game of Six Degrees of Separation, Saving Private Ryan will be your best friend. Edward Burns, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Ted Danson, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Dennis Farina, Nathan Fillion, Paul Giamatti, Adam Goldberg, Tom Hanks, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Tom Sizemore, the disembodied voice of John de Lancie – it's Grand Central Station for linking celebrities.

Also, since Matt Damon is in this movie, I have to get this out of my system before we go on.



Sorry about that. Now, on to the synopsis.

I've never been in war. I've barely ever thrown a punch. But until someone tells me otherwise, I will believe that the first fifteen minutes of Saving Private Ryan is the most accurate a portrayal of war ever filmed. The fear, the chaos, the speed, and the terrorizing suddenness of death are overwhelming, both for the soldiers and the viewer.




Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) survives the initial landing at Omaha Beach and scrambles up the beach to find himself in charge, at least as far as anyone can tell. Slowly, Miller and a small group of soldiers work their way through the Nazi defenses and create an opening that allows the Allied forces to secure the beach. Among the piles of bodies that litter the beach, one is about to change Miller's life.


Theirs not to reason why; theirs but to do or die.

A War Department typist notices that one farm house in Iowa is about to get more heartbreak than anyone should suffer, and she brings it to her boss's attention. Three of Mrs. Ryan's four enlisted sons have been killed in rapid succession, and the fourth is somewhere in France after a botched air drop. To spare her losing all of her sons, Captain Miller is tapped to form a hand-picked squad and find Private James Francis Ryan and bring him home. He chooses as many men as possible from his soon-to-be disbanded company, but he's lost everyone who can speak French or German, so he recruits translator and aspiring novelist Corporal Timothy Upham (Jeremy Davies, before he was stranded on the island, but after he started channeling George McFly). Upham is eager to strike up bonds of brotherhood with his new squad, but he learns quickly that camaraderie is overrated. Miller is especially reluctant to discuss his personal life; there is an ever-growing betting pool on where he's from and what he did for a living before the war. Just outside Neuville, Miller's squad loses Private Adrian Caparzo (Vin Diesel) to a German sniper hidden in a bell tower. In what's left of the town, they have no trouble finding Private James Ryan (Nathan Fillion), but when he asks how his grammar school brothers could be dead, Captain Miller realizes he need to check middle names from now on.


This is why we don't pick up children.

Once they reach the airborne rendezvous point, they learn that Private James Francis Ryan of Iowa has been assigned to defend a bridge in Ramelle. Before they arrive, Miller's Rangers find the remains of soldiers ambushed by a German machine gun nest. Despite protests from his men that eliminating the machine gun nest is not vital to their mission, Miller insists that it is vital to winning the war, so they plan an assault. Although they succeed, Medic Irwin Wade (Giovanni Ribisi) is fatally wounded; add to this Miller's decision not to shoot the repentant Hitler-fucking, Steamboat Willie-loving German soldier (Joerg Stadler) after he dug graves for the men he killed, and it's all too much for Private Reiben (Edward Burns), who is ready to abandon the mission. Miller finally gives up the personal information his squad has been betting on – he's an English teacher from Pennsylvania. He reminds them who they were, and what they've become because of the war. Most of all, he reminds them of the things that unite them.


Fancy schmancy! What a cinch! Go fly a kite! Cat got your tongue! Hill of beans! Betty Boop, what a dish. Betty Grable, nice gams.

Just outside Ramelle, Miller's squad ambushes and destroys a German reconnaissance vehicle, with help from a group of paratroopers, one of whom turns out to be Private James Francis Ryan of Iowa (Matt Damon). He is stunned by the news of his brothers' deaths, but more stunned by his orders to abandon his duties on the bridge. Rather than force Ryan to leave with him, Miller offers his squad in defense of the bridge, forming a plan to disable the attacking tanks and fight off the infantry with limited forces. Miller allows Ryan to fight, but demands that he stay with him. During the battle, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, Miller is killed by a returning Steamboat Willie, who obviously did not turn himself over to the MPs. American fighter jets eventually destroy the bridge and turn back the German attack, but not before all of Miller's men besides Reiber, Upham, and Ryan are killed.


James, earn this... earn it.

World War 2 is often called the Last Great War, which has turned it into a pretty large ranch full of sacred cows. We like to believe that because the cause was noble, the soldiers were perfect. They've wandered into the portrait with the founding fathers and Abraham Lincoln and become figures from history books, not living, breathing, cursing humans. That's because we like to believe that people who do extraordinary things are inherently better than us. Takes off the pressure. Saving Private Ryan puts the pressure back on. Captain John Miller and his squad of Rangers are taken off the Clean Cut American G.I. pedestal – they argue with their commander, they nearly shoot a P.O.W., they gripe about being wasted on a P.R. mission. But this doesn't diminish them. Their recognizably human failings make their bravery, sacrifice, and heroism more powerful, because they are perfectly capable of not being brave, sacrificial, or heroic. The difference between a hero and a coward is not some great morality that is present in one but absent in the other. It's a choice.


Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind!

And it's a choice that James Francis Ryan has to live with the rest of his life. Captain John Miller and his men gave up the rest of their very worthwhile, very complex, very human lives so that he could have the rest of his instead. Thing is, we're all Private Ryan. We should all have to live in such an inescapable shadow of what our freedom to live as a flawed human being has cost others. For its three hours, Saving Private Ryan is our reminder, and that makes it the best movie of 1998.