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Saving Private Ryan is one of the best war-movies mine eyes have seen. It is one of the most realistic, it made me cry when the old dude thanked his dead buddies at the end. I am no gung-ho American. I'm just a slightly war-obsessed Dutch male. In Europe, there has been much criticism about this film 'monopolizing' WW2 for the Yanks.
Sure, you don't see any Canadians, Brits, French or other allies who participated in the landings. But this movie is more about war in general than history. Now at least I know, after seeing this movie, what all those old men are doing every year, visiting some old wargrave. They are reliving those days, they remember their buddies. And the image of their comrades' deaths continues to haunt them to their dying days.
Saving Private Ryan is a small story in a big war, someone said. So, when you land on Omaha beach and start looking for an American paratrooper in the hinterland, you're not gonna see any other soldiers than US military.
When a dying captain Miller says: "Ryan, earn this! Earn this!", in my opinion, he is not being very nice. Miller could just as well have said: "Look Ryan you fuck. Look what you have done. We're all lying in pieces because of you, you little prick. You'd better lead a long decent life and do some good, to make up for the lives you just ruined."
And so, a very old Ryan whispers at Millers grave: "Every day I think of what you have done for me." EVERY day! Some life he has had! And even after a lifetime together, he needs the assurance from his wife. That he is a good man. If this scene didn't make you cry, you either: A) are a heartless person; B) had very mean parents who told you never to cry.
Was there too much blood and gore in this great, great film? No way! If anything deglorifies war more, then it must be the sheer horror of young men being mutilated. If all casualties died a quick an mercifull death, then the idea of war wouldn be far less negative. All you would have to worry about then is dying. But as SPR shows, it is something different if being killed involves getting your arms and legs ripped off, dying very slowly and painfully. Or worse, surviving.
P.S.
If we're talking history, the peoples of the former Soviet
Union won the war with their blood and guts. The fighting
on the Eastern Front was horrific on a massive scale. They
lost about 25 million dead and wounded, military and
civilian. How unjust it must sound to all those veterans
from the Western Front, D-Day really was just a sideshow.
If D-Day had failed, the nazi's would still have lost the
war, but it would have been the Red Army who would have
liberated Europe. Personally, I am gratefull D-Day took
place and went as well as it did. Otherwise I would have
spent my youth in a poor country with no freedom of speech,
occupied by the Red Army.
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