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PaperclipPerfector
14hr ago
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Notes -
Everyone says "the first half-hour is incredible, then it becomes corny patriotic schlock". I disagree: I think the film does an admirable job of sustaining the intensity of its opening throughout the subsequent battle scenes, which are almost as gripping and jarring as those in the opening, and which set the tone for how action films would look, sound and feel for decades afterwards.
On the contrary, I think the film did tell this story. Consider the conversation between Miller and Horvath in the church, in which Miller says that throughout his military career, he was able to rationally justify all the lives lost under his command with the reasoning that more lives have been saved as a result. But for this particular mission, he cannot employ that reasoning: many men must die to save the life of one, and the only way the sacrifice will be worth it is if Ryan "invent[s] a longer-lasting lightbulb or something". Ryan's closing dialogue indicates that he's spent more or less his entire adult life burdened with the knowledge that he's only alive because several men gave their lives to save his, as a public relations mission, and wondering if he has done enough with his time on earth to warrant the sacrifice. Spielberg himself openly stated that Miller's mission cannot be justified on moral grounds. If that doesn't say something about the absurdity and arbitrariness of war, I don't know what does. It may not be Joseph Heller but it's a far more disquieting and confrontational message than the movie is generally credited with. (Not to mention the fact that the film's viewpoint character for the back half is a coward who allows his squadmate to die because he's paralysed by terror, and who is clearly intended to represent how the typical audience member would behave in such a situation.)
Yes, Spielberg acknowledges that at least some of the American lives lost during the war were thrown away for cynical and arbitrary reasons, and that this is unspeakably tragic.
What he is unwilling to acknowledge is that the deaths of those German boys were also equally tragic and unnecessary.
I’m not willing to call the film “corny patriotic schlock”. It is an incredibly masterful film, and I agree with you that the battle scenes are thrillingly intense. However, you’re also correct that the film influenced battle scenes that came after it, and I don’t think this influence is wholly positive. Throughout the film, the Germans are almost universally treated as faceless foes, who die bloodlessly and instantaneously when shot. In contrast, American casualties writhe in pain, spurt blood everywhere, and cry for their mothers. It’s very affecting and humanizing, but it’s never applied to the Germans. There’s a YouTuber who does great analysis of this aspect of the film. The Germans can be mowed down without inspiring sympathy, because they are just villainous mooks.
This is not an anti-war film, and certainly not an anti-WWII film. It’s just an acknowledgement of how utterly horrible the sacrifices were that American soldiers needed to make in order to save the world from an unambiguously evil force of insane, feral monsters vaguely resembling human beings. It doesn’t ask you to stop and wonder whether the German soldiers felt the same way, let alone whether they would be correct in thinking so.
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