"What for you is the haunting memory of danger and sacrifice one summer long ago is for your country, and for generations of your countrymen to come, one of the proudest moments in our long national history. I salute you and thank you on behalf of our whole nation" -Hello! Number 82

The depiction of violence in the Hollywood movie

Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998)

by

Nora Emanuelle Boehmer

This essay will begin with a short description of the Saving Private Ryan movie-plot, even though one must consider that this "film is not about its plot. It is about the war in Europe, and more deeply, about the value of human life." This has to be described so that one has a foundation when discussing selected substances of the movie. I will then outline the depiction of violence in the movie Saving Private Ryan especially in the highly praised opening scene of the film.

The movie Saving Private Ryan (1998, Dream Works Pictures, directed by Steven Spielberg) begins with the screen-filling American flag flapping in the wind at a war cemetery somewhere in France and some time in the present. It continues with the main movie and the landing of American troops on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6th 1944, in Normandy, which is in the north of France. Captain Miller and his men land on the beach where the bloody battle against the Germans takes place. Meanwhile the staff in Washington realizes that three out of four Ryan family brothers died in combat. A mission of help is organized to find the last of the four brothers, James F. Ryan who was parachuted behind the enemy lines with the 101st Airborne division. Captain Miller, a literature teacher from Pennsylvania, and his eight elite soldiers get the mission to find Private Ryan and send him back to America. The soldiers are outraged when they discover what their mission will be. They do not understand why so many lives should be risked for the sake of just one. During their mission very personal talks tie them together as a team that can overcome all the mishaps of their journey through France. It is only later, by chance, that they find Private Ryan who is at a significant bridge in Merderet. He refuses to leave the soldiers he fought with.

They and Miller’s men unite and fight a fierce battle against the Germans. Only a few survive this battle, Private Ryan being one of them. Now his purpose in life is to live a life to honour the sacrifices made by the men who died to save his life. The movie closes with the present day scene of the war cemetery where the old Private Ryan visits the grave of Captain Miller and ponders about the purpose of his life. Again a screen-filling American flag symbolizes the patriotic message of the movie.¹

The first 20 minutes of the movie depict the landing of American soldiers at Omaha beach. This scene had been praised for it’s “grim depiction of the chaos and the casualties of the invasion of the Normandy. Spielberg‘s approach (was) to portray the confusion and violence of the battle on a personal, not a tactical, level.”². This is what makes the movie Saving Private Ryan so “brilliant not only in terms of technique but in the depth of viewer’s reaction it generates”³ Steven Spielberg consulted the historian Stephen E. Ambrose as well as the retired Marine Corps Captain Dale Dye to make the movie authentic. World War II veterans stated that Saving Private Ryan was the most realistic presentation of combat they have seen. But why exactly did this movie seem so realistic? The answer doesn’t lie in just one technique but in the numerous methods Spielberg applies.

There is for instance the choice of characters. Spielberg chose a “nice guy” as a captain and “normal guys” as soldiers. This makes the war seem even more hideous because the audience sympathizes with Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and his soldiers because they are “average Joes with wives, jobs and rose bushes back home. And that makes the violence of the battle scenes all the more horrifying, the cost of 96 lives all the more painful.”⁴

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1 vgl: www.dday-overlord.com/SPRHeng.htm

2 www.moviehabit.com/reviews/sav_gz98.shtml

3 http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/s/saving.html

4 http://moviehabit.com/reviews/sav_gz98.shtml