Saving Private Ryan

Film directed by Steven Spielberg, 1998

Steven Spielberg's Academy-Award winning film is a fictional story of honor, decency, and courage set against the 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. Saving Private Ryan and its bloody depiction of the landings on Omaha Beach in the opening sequence typified a new era of combat film, offering a gritty, realistic, and personalized view of combat that represented a stark contrast to Darryl F. Zanuck's treatment of the D-Day invasion, The Longest Day (1962). Generating increased interest in World War II, the film sparked the planning, design, and construction of museums and memorials to veterans nationwide. Its critical and commercial success prompted the making of other films about World War II, collectively helping return that war to popular consciousness.

The Robert Rodat screenplay is loosely based upon the story of Fritz Niland, a soldier of the 101st Airborne Division, who was withdrawn from his position outside Carentan, France, just one week after the Normandy landings. Niland lost two brothers in the Normandy invasion, and a third had been killed in the China–Burma–India theater. When the War Department discovered what had happened, they sent soldiers in after the sole surviving son, extracted him from the combat zone, and sent him home.

Saving Private Ryan contains the three elements that define the World War II combat film: hero, group, and mission. Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) plays the reluctant hero, an intrepid yet vulnerable high-school English teacher turned Ranger who leads his squad of GIs away from the horror of Omaha Beach only to be presented with a seemingly impossible mission: rescue Priv. James Ryan, a paratrooper lost behind enemy lines, so he may return home as his family's sole surviving son.

The squad under Miller's command contains stereotypical characters present in virtually every cinematic military unit. Unflappable Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) carries cans of sand collected from the hostile beaches on which he has landed. The translator, Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies), is skilled in language but not in combat, having joined the unit only after its other translators were killed. Jewish Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) sobs after being given a Hitler Youth knife on D-Day. Italian American Caparzo (Vin Diesel) cannot help but save a little girl, even if it means disregarding his captain's orders and losing his own life. The sensitive medic, Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), struggles to help men find peace on Omaha Beach, only to be killed when the squad storms a German bunker. Jackson (Barry Pepper) is the skilled sniper who calls upon the Lord while killing the enemy. The cynical Brooklynite Reiben (Edward Burns) repeatedly raises the question that is at the core of the film—specifically, why should a squad of perfectly good men be risked to save only one?

After a lengthy search, Miller's squad finally finds Private Ryan (Matt Damon), fighting with a group of misdropped paratroopers defending a bridge over the Merderet River in the fictional town of Ramelle that the Germans [Page 768]must take to successfully repel the Allied invasion. When Ryan refuses to leave his post, Miller, remaining true to his orders, has no choice but to remain and add the guns of his squad to those already holding the bridge. Making a dramatic last stand against overwhelming odds, Ryan, Reiben, and Upham survive the battle, but Captain Miller and the others die before U.S. reinforcements arrive.

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