Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Director:

Steven Spielberg

Writer (WGA):

Robert Rodat (written by)

Release Date:

24 July 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | War

Tagline:

In the Last Great Invasion of the Last Great War, The Greatest Danger for Eight Men was Saving... One.

Plot:

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of US soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Plot Keywords:

General | Invasion | Normandy | 1944 | Soldier

Awards:

Won 5 Oscars. Another 52 wins & 53 nominations

Cast

Tom Hanks	...	Capt. John H. Miller
Tom Sizemore	...	Sgt. Mike Horvath
Edward Burns	...	Pvt. Richard Reiben
Barry Pepper	...	Pvt. Daniel Jackson
Adam Goldberg	...	Pvt. Stanley Mellish
Vin Diesel	...	Pvt. Adrian Caparzo
Giovanni Ribisi	...	T-5 Medic Irwin Wade
Jeremy Davies	...	Cpl. Timothy P. Upham
Matt Damon	...	Pvt. James Francis Ryan
Ted Danson	...	Capt. Fred Hamill
Paul Giamatti	...	Sgt. Hill
Dennis Farina	...	Lt. Col. Anderson
Joerg Stadler	...	Steamboat Willie
Max Martini	...	Cpl. Henderson (as Maximilian Martini)
Dylan Bruno	...	Toynbe

MPAA:

Rated R for intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and for language.

Runtime:

170 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French | German | Czech

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #35942) | Taiwan:GP | Malaysia:18SG (DVD release) | Malaysia:(Banned) (theatrical) | Philippines:PG-13 | Brazil:14 | USA:TV-MA (TV rating) | India:A | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA (re-rating on appeal) | Australia:R (original rating) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Alberta/Ontario) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:18A (British Columbia) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-14 (re-rating) | Finland:K-16 (original rating) | France:U | Germany:16 (bw) | Hong Kong:IIB | Iceland:16 | Ireland:15 | Israel:PG | Italy:VM14 | Mexico:B | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R15 | Norway:18 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 (re-rating on appeal) | Singapore:R(A) (original rating) | South Korea:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Singapore:M18 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

Calvados, France

Company:

Amblin Entertainment

Trivia:

Just after the scene where Captain Miller "recruits" Upham for the mission there is a short scene that shows the motor pool. For a few brief seconds a jeep with a small trailer rolls by. If you look carefully you can see that the jeep and trailer contain Captain Miller and his men. The next scene shows Miller and the others walking through a meadow on foot with no vehicle in sight. This is due to the fact that the scene which shows how Miller and the men lose the jeep was deleted from the final cut. Later in the film Miller mentions something about losing "most of their ammo". This occurred when they lost the jeep.

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: They did have black plastic canteen caps in WWII, made from a plastic like material called Bakelite. Also German snipers did use soft rubber scope caps on their rifles, because often time they would have to lay behind the scope for an extended period of time before making a shot. Original pictures show both of these.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Ryan's son: [running to comfort his father] Dad?
[flashback to D-Day]
LCVP pilot: Clear the ramp! Thirty seconds. God be with ya!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing (2004)

Soundtrack:

Tu Es Partout

Numbing experience of SPR redeems baby boomers...

It's been over a year since first seeing Saving Private Ryan -- it's a worthy effort by Speilberg--his best since Shindler's List by far. You've probably heard about the amount of violence, blood, and gore and that's all true--it's got the Viet Nam movie style violence (and then some) but it's not gratuitous. Were it sanitized like early WWII movies, modern audiences probably wouldn't take it as seriously.

The movie has that trademark Speilberg style--the structure is all tied up and unified from beginning to end, the emotional symbols abound, the music swelling when he's working at your emotions, the hand held camera that worked so well in Shindler's List to give you a feeling of participation, camera angles and periods of silence to disorient you (like Shindler), suspense techniques learned from Hitch... It's a movie that stays with you for a period afterwards.

Hanks will be the early front runner for Oscar after this flick--Academy members like him AND it IS his best acting job ever. While Speilberg will likely be criticized for attempting to manipulate the audience's emotions while keeping a distance from the inner core of his characters, Tom Hanks reveals a really complex military leader in this story, and does so without overacting--somehow it comes from within. While you may not empathize deeply with many of the platoon, you will still feel something because of the relationship that is formed with Hanks.

After the initial set-up, you will have the opportunity to participate in the D-Day operation and experience the horror of it. Those who have been in a real war can comment about how realistic or not Speilberg captures its chaotic horror in this scene.

In my case I again feel very lucky that my draft number was high, so I never had to face Nam like many of my classmates. Speilberg reminds us brutally in "Saving Private Ryan" that we All have a debt to pay to the brave souls who have sacrificed so much for us. What Tom Hanks does with his performance is to remind us of this debt in a very personal way.