Kerri Battles the AFI’s Top 100 — #71: Saving Private Ryan

This week’s movie is one I’ve owed a viewing to for quite some time. During the many years I spent in film school, it became readily apparent that the first 10 or so minutes of Saving Private Ryan were important since I was shown this piece and this piece only in no less than six different courses. Unfortunately, not one of those professors found the remaining 159 or so minutes to be nearly as educational or important because they never bothered the screen the entire thing. I, on the other hand, was so horrified by the scenes at Normandy that I’ve just never taken it upon myself to push past that to the rest of the movie. This week was the week I righted that wrong.

Saving Private Ryan begins with the Allied Forces storming the beaches at Normandy and subsequently getting almost entirely blown to smithereens. Tom Hanks and his unit manage to survive and make a hole for the second wave, thus turning the tide of World War II. In the quiet of the aftermath, Hanks is asked to take seven men deeper in country to find a Private James Francis Ryan (Iowa), the only surviving Ryan out of four brothers sent to the front. Hanks collects six of his best men — Tom Sizemore, Ed Burns, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Barry Pepper, and Chandler’s creepy-ass roommate from that one episode of Friends — and one translator who hasn’t held a gun since basic training — Daniel Faraday from Lost. Together, the eight of them head off on their mission to find “a needle in a stack of needles” and make sure a mother of four from Iowa isn’t forced to sacrifice all of her sons on the altar of freedom. Vin Diesel dies first from a sniper shot as he tries to save a crying child from a crumbling tenement. Giovanni Ribisi goes next as Hanks makes the arguably unnecessary call that the remaining seven take on a fortified machine gun. From this little skirmish, they leave one enemy survivor to wander off blindfolded, assuming Allied troops will pick him up as a POW. Ed Burns thinks it’s a really shitty idea, but lets it go when he finds out Hanks was a schoolteacher pre-war. They find Private James Ryan, but discover quickly that Nathan “Malcolm Reynolds” Fillion isn’t the James Ryan they’re looking for and continue on their way. The correct James Ryan — Matt Damon —  helps to save his remaining six rescuers by blowing up a tank. When Hanks tells Damon of their mission, he refuses to leave his small platoon even more short-handed in their mission to protect an important bridge. Unwilling to forgo his own orders to protect Private Ryan, Hanks orders his men to help with this bridge mission. When the Germans arrive on the scene, another battle ensues and everyone but Ed Burns,  Daniel Faraday, and Precious Ryan dies just before Allied relief arrives. With his last breaths, Hanks tells Ryan to earn the life they’ve all given theirs to secure for him.

I always take notes as I watch the film of choice each week so I have something to refer back to when it comes time to write. Depending on the film, the length and depth of these notes will vary. This week, I only wrote down one thing: “Don’t shoot! Let ’em burn!” This is a quote shouted by a random Allied soldier as Hanks and his crew set fire to an enemy bunker at Omaha Beach and flaming Nazis fall from its windows. It comes during the tail-end of the Normandy scene and, despite all of the blood and brains and explosions and guys carrying their own missing limbs, this line was the thing that struck me the hardest. I found it so telling of havok war can wreak on the human condition. At this point, I was further than I’d ever gotten before into the film, but still only scratching the surface. I had no idea what other darkness and weight lay in store just ahead. Spielberg has been praised by all for the level of accuracy and attention to detail he put into portraying the gruesome realities of World War II, even when he took artistic license for dramatic effect. From the violence and viscera to the bonds of brotherhood, Spielberg uncovers every last corner of what I presume it must be like for soldiers when the ravages of war replace the mundanity of daily life. And presume I must because, as far as I’m concerned, this movie is as close as this particular film nerd should ever get to real battle. Saving Private Ryan is engrossing and riveting. Spielberg and Kaminski did their damndest to make it impossible to look away. In doing so, they also made it incredibly hard to watch.

I’ve been at this whole Watch All The Movies game for … ever. Somewhere in that span, I started creating my own categories for movies for when conventional genres just aren’t specific enough to work for me. For example, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Reservoir Dogs aren’t crime dramas or action flicks. They’re what I like to call Vice movies — flicks where the protagonists aren’t necessarily good guys. And Labyrinth and The Black Cauldron fall into the Deeply Disturb Your Children realm. There’s one category that, until this week, has only ever contained two titles: Kids and Requiem for a Dream. That category is So Good You Must Watch, But Just Once is Enough. Saving Private Ryan is now the third entrant to this elite club. The subject matter, technical expertise, and overall impact should make it required viewing for all. But it’s also that impact — that intellectual and emotional torment it creates that both keeps you watching and makes you want to turn away — that makes one viewing enough for most. That’s what caused me to take just a single note. It wasn’t because nothing else in the film was noteworthy, but rather because I realized I wasn’t going to forget anything I was watching for a very long time. Saving Private Ryan isn’t The Shawshank Redemption. It isn’t the movie we’ll all quote from Pop Culture Hive Mind Memory because we watch it every chance we get. It’s the movie that strives to depict the burden of sacrifice and heroism in the name of maybe the greatest of all Greater Goods. It’s the movie that puts us closer than we’ve ever wanted to be to all the worst parts of life. For that, it definitely deserves a spot here. — KSmith