Yes, I too, finally, this week caught Saving
Private Ryan. (I like seeing movies, particularly Big Movies, in
nearly-empty theaters.) It was good, and great, and compelling,
and about as realistic as it gets, apparently. I kept expecting,
though, and this must be from lifelong movie-watching, to get
more 'inside' the heads of some of these people, particularly
Cap'n Miller (Hanks). I felt, as a viewer, so insulated from the
thoughts -- not the feelings, but the thoughts -- of the players.
The only one I got much of a feel for was the
translator/coward/semi-narrator, and felt a disgust/pity for him
in his fear-induced thrall on the stairs, though I obviously
cannot say what I would do in the same position. The scene he was
frozen on, BTW, where the German slowly puts the knife in the NY
Jewish kid's heart was just about the most compelling death
scene I've seen in sometime. The kid's anger and fear were
very well presented.
I thought the ending was stupid. (Hell, I
thought the beginning was stupid.) When Ryan asked his wife to
tell him he was a good man; that he'd lived a good life -- I'm
sorry, it pissed me off. It was television drama. I don't know
what I wanted to wrap it up, but it wasn't that.
Was crazy about the sniper's character. That
"Swagger" character -- that kid had it down pat. I've
known a couple of snipers and they have a composure and
confidence that is beyond belief.
i'm not sure whether or not spielberg expects
the audience to gravitate in sympathy to upham and then be
revolted or take his pacifism as a lesson. in retrospect it may
very well explain something our the more muscular american
attitude - i wonder if the upham story is part of the ww2
apocrypha we just don't regularly hear.
I
couldn't understand Hanks'/Miller's closing lines, either. Still
not sure precisely what they were, except about having to have
earned it. Hell, I thought the kid earned it when he refused to
go away, to be saved; stood by his comrads in a hopeless
situation.
Thought about the Bridge on the River Kwai, of
course, when they were laying line, setting the detonators. And
when Hanks/Miller had to crawl out (and essentially for naught),
was sure there would be a brilliant shot fired by Upham that
would detonate the bridge and redeem his cowardice in a trice.
But that would have been too trite. Ho-hum.
BTW -- didn't cry at the 'end'. Didn't cry when
Miller died. Only got teared up when the mother of the three dead
Ryan boys sank to the porch. I guess being a mom, or a parent --
that can get to you.
It definitely was a Big Movie, but it's not the
best movie I've seen. Not by a longshot.
