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Having seen the recently released Saving Private Ryan video, I
now fully understand why it was neglected in favor of Shakespeare
in Love at the awards. Most academy awards voters see the films
on video, reportedly, so this would be the version they saw.
On video the script has to be good. This script seemed
more like a first draft. Why he didn't call in Zallian or another
similar good writer is a mystery.
Other things I noticed:
- The beach seemed much too narrow in the beginning. Even if you
allow for the nonletterbox format and doubl the size, it still
just seemed too small compared to shots I've seen of the real
thing, and newsreels.
- Minus the overwhelming immersiveness of being in the theater
you notice things more, like that Americans and Germans seemed to
be from two different species: an American when shot screams for
2 hours while dying. Germans just fall over in a clump.
- The deaths of several in the end seemed unnecessarily
manipulative, less evoking of sorrow than of exasperation at the
writers who felt the need to make pile on the tragedy, to "go
for the oscar".
- While the acting was mostly very good (except for the man who
played Upham and seems incapable of playing parts other than
wimps), the characters didn't seem all that 1940sish to me, they
seemed quite 90s, especially Rieben and Caparzo.
- On a positive note, I noticed one little gem of a moment: when
before a major battle near the end, Hanks's character leans over
and picks up a piece of fruit from the ground and eats it. Don't
know why, but that seemed like a nice touch the way they did it.
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