THE LAST WAR FILM.
A REVIEW OF SAVING
PRIVATE RYAN.
[1998]
CRITIC: RICHARD MATICH.
Steven Spielberg made a film when he was just 13
years old called "Escape To Nowhere". It was 40 minutes
in length, and was shot in the dessert near his home.
Now comes Saving Private Ryan, a film that shows
shocking simalarity to that movie made way back in
1960. The camera movements seen in his new epic are
what the young filmmaker wanted to get then. Due to
technical and financal restrictions Nowhere was not to
prove a masterpeice. His next war film would be. I had
this in my mind and heart as I sat
down with a large crowd of both young and old. They probably did not know the fragments of film history that I knew, yet we sat there as Americans of diverse ages and backgrounds. All where expecting history. An old man sitting in front of me greeted a freind who just happened to be sitting across the way. He yelled to him, "They say this shows a thing or two about patriotism!". He and his freind were in for quite a shock. The film proves to be the best war films[showing much combat] ever made. The
cinematography, by Oscar winner Janusz Kaminski, is done in a newsreel style. Some of the movements are done in slow motion, without sound, or with just a "signifagent" sound effect to add dramatic texture. The films cast, headed up by Tom Hanks, is another element to talk about. They almost all get signifagent screen time to stretch their acting muscles. Without this element, all the action and carnage in the world would not make a difference. But Spielberg keeps it as intiment as its possible to get in a brutal war epic.
That is what makes it worth seeing. In King Vidor's The Big Parade[1925] the action seems to stop as the soldiers rest for the night toward the middle of what proves to be a long film. The action lags and lags! Spielberg probably knows this. His freind Francis Coppala seemed to have trouble finding an ending to Apocalypse Now. Brando mumbles it to a close! One of Spielbergs movie heros was David Lean. The Bridge On The River Kwai had a great acting pace to it also. It was a model for this movie you can be
sure. Also you may recall elements of The Longest Day. It does not hold a candle to Ryan though. Saving Private Ryan will stand the test of time. It stays with you like the Robert Capa photographs that inspired the movie's look. Film, after all, is a visual medium. No war film since All Quiet On The Western Front[1930] is as grand a cinematic war experience as this. The old "patriotic" man was standing up by the door during the last 45 minutes. Maybe he was in a hurry to leave. Or just maybe the film got him. It
was not the "star spangled"/"gung-ho" fighting flick he was expecting to see. John Wayne or Robert Mitchem were not in this one. Their movies did not show heads exploding apart. Nor did they show blood soaked screeming,crying,begging, and praying young American boys dying. Their severed limbs, sreams of agony, and constant confusion aparent to all who view this powerful screen treasure. This is not your father's war movie! I cringed and looked away during many parts of the movie. It just gets to you!
Jean-Luc Godard made Weekend in 1967. At the end appear the words "The End Of Film" followed by "The End Of Cinema". Godard did not think that he had any more to say in film after that. It would have been appropriate for Steven Spielberg close his war movie with "The End Of The War Film". After this nobody can make one better. Right? Thats what people seeing All Quiet On The Western Front, The
Deer Hunter, or The Big Parade might have thought. There was a young man in the crowded theatre who clapped loudly in one section of the movie when planes come to rescue of the battered troops. That young man was me. I usually don't do that sort of thing in public. It just got me "patriotic".
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