Speaking of the opening sequence, the Normandy landings where a part of the first phase of D-day in 1944, and where crucial to the allied victory, the Americans, British and Canadians invaded France, whilst the British, Americans and later the Italians pushed up into Italy from Sicily, all in an effort to converge on berlin. Normandy was the allies' attempt to gain a foothold on mainland Europe, it was a hugely important battle to the war, the victory and history as a whole, and we see none of it. We don’t see the pressure and all that was resting on the actions of these brave men until 35 minuets in, 10 minutes after the Normandy sequence. I view this as the film just wanting to show us the horrors of war, not having our minds set on victory or defeat, most of the sequence it feels as if the allies were losing. It's just made to make you watch and feel whatever you feel for the men involved, taking you out of the victory and defeat mentality and just watching what these brave and courageous men went through to save our futures and stop evil, many of whom would never see sed victory. Within this scene there are a lot of little nods to history and real aspects to the war that take you back a bit and make you think, three such nods are when the Americans push up onto the mainland and off the beech two Americans find two soldiers who they perceive to be German and they shoot them on the spot, these soldiers were actually Czech and they were saying “please don’t shoot me I am not German, I am Czech I didn’t shoot anyone I am Czech”. The Germans conscripted men from Czechoslovakia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and all-over eastern Europe towards the end of the war to make up numbers, these men where often caught up as being German and killed in acts now considered to be war crimes. In this scene, private Jackson (Barry Pepper) has a bruise under his thumb nail, this was a common injury for WW2 allied soldiers to have as their figures often got caught up in the loading mechanism of the M1-garand. And the final nod to history is also one of the saddest, private Caparzo (Vin Deasil) finds a small knife on one of the German soldiers, a Hitler youth knife, the Hitler youth was the Nazi’s version of the boy scouts, consisting of boys between the ages of 10 and 16, some of the soldiers break down and cry as the reality of this conflict sets in.     

       

Another very impressive and impactful scene was the village sniper scene. This is the second battle of the film and is important for two, maybe three, reasons. In this scene the significance of private Jackson is demonstrated to its fullest, private Caparzo is shot out of nowhere, by an enemy sniper, around 11 allied soldiers and four French civilians, become pinned down by one man with one gun. This scene shows just how deadly snipers are and just how vital having even one on your team is, the German sniper would've sat in the bell tower for hours and picked the allies off one by one, it could've taken him anywhere from 4 to 15 hours, but he would've done it, and all the Americans can do is stay hidden and not be able to move, with private Jackson, he was able to analyze the surrounding of where's best for a sniper to hide, find a vantage point for himself and kill the enemy sniper, Abeling the American to move through the village and carry on their mission, with the difference of one man, the Americans were able to escape the village or resigned to their deaths. Before the sniper reveals himself, the father of two children wants the Americans to take his daughter and escape the village, Caparzo takes the girl much to his captain’s disgust and then he’s shot by the sniper, the girl becomes separated from her family by a gap of around 20 feet, but should she try to run shed be shot. Caparzo tells Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) that she reminded him of his niece, this is another case of the soldiers' personal lives and emotions creeping through.

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Each character brought something unique to their role, each actor was extremely well cast and whenever I see them in any other role, I can’t see them as another role but only these characters. Typically, people associate an actor with the first role they saw them in, but for many of these actors this was the second, third or, in Tom Hank’s case, fifth role. Each actor slipped perfectly into their role and was completely believable, it was as if these roles were written for these actors. I can't pick a favorite or selection of favorite characters because I'd just end up listing the main cast, there were one or two who really stood out to me, like Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and Private Reiben (Edward Burns), and this is because I see both characters being fairly opposite to each other, Reiben has become blunt and harsh in war, he’s confident and forward and not afraid to throw himself into the forward, or at least this is how he portrays himself, and it's not that Captain Miller isn't all of those things but he’s more of the case of being a classic Tom Hanks character and me being a big Tom Hanks fan, I like him because of who he is, there are certain great qualities that Tom brings to Captain Miller, such as him being a family man and genuinely comprehending the sheer magnitude of the conflict that they’re in, not to say that the others don’t or can’t comprehend it either but Captain Miller shows it, he’s the only member of the team that suffers from a clear or displayed form of PTSD, and Tom Hanks displays this so subtlety with just the shake of his hand, and this is the case when not in the Normandy Landings and he has his black out moment, but this black out moment is significant for other reasons, I view this as his real self breaking through, his real world and non-soldier mindset shows and is subjected to the utter carnage all around him and then when he snaps out of it he snaps back into that soldier mindset that he and all the others have had to develop, and every soldier shows this all throughout the film.

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As I mentioned earlier, Saving Private Ryan has changed war films post 1998, they’ve become more violent and portray such themes as PTSD more, even in the moment. PTSD (formally known as shell shock) wasn’t known about, if at all, it had been a recurring form of injury and hot debate topic ever since WW1, way back in 1914. War films have been made ever since a 90 second short in 1898 (during the Spanish-American war), and the first world war film was a film called ‘Soldier Arms’ made in 1918, and this obviously doesn’t have any themes of extreme violence or PTSD, but it did change the world as showing the world the war.

 

One of my favorite war films is a film called ‘A Bridge Toon Far’ from 1977, and stars the most amazing cast: Saun Connery, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford, James Caan, and many many others. This film doesn’t show themes of PTSD or extreme violence, but it is a classic and was the beginning for many great actors. This film follows a great parashoot jump in late 1944, the allies have the upper hand in land warfare, a combined British, American and Canadian, paratrooper force of 750, plans to take control of a major highway leading from the Netherlands into Germany, that the Germans have been using to retreat, but the allies may soon learn that they’ve been overconfident. This film shows a rare ally defeat, this isn’t something that war films usually depict, but this film was forward and not afraid to show this. At nearly 3 hours long, it never feels like it's going to end but when it does you kind of look at it like ‘is that it’, but upon either rewatching it or at least thinking about it more you appreciate the film more and just realize that not every battle was a heroic allied victory, sometimes they just ended and sometimes the allies just lost, and this film shows that perfectly. This is just a classic and very unique being made much closer to the events it portraying than most films in this review, I would highly recommend watching it.                                                                                                                              

 

The next film I want to talk about is Dunkirk, this film is about Dunkirk which was when the Germans had pushed the British, French and Belgians to the beach of Dunkirk and the allies awaited the ships to take them to safety. This was an early war event, taking place in 1940, PTSD is a much more and resent theme, Saving Private Ryan is set in 1944 and by this point war had become the way of life for most soldiers who’d survived to this point, the battle of Dunkirk was a lot of men’s first battle and first exploits into the war effort. This film had a very interesting structure, with you never actually seeing the Germans, from the scene of the soldiers in the town to being trapped in the boat and any other scene, you never see the Germans. This is a similar case with one of the characters in this film, Farrier, one of the pilots is played by Tom Hardy but his character is only revealed to be Tom Hardy within the last minute of the film, this was a choice by the director to put Tom Hardy’s acting to the test, as the only part of him on show were his eyes and he was tested to see if he could convey all the same emotions from his eyes as his entire face. Dunkirk isn’t the most violent of all war films, but there aren’t any large-scale confrontations like in Saving Private Ryan, as mentioned before you don't even see the enemy, but PTSD is ever present, one character is rescued as the sole survivor of a shipwreck with casualties in the high hundreds or even the thousands. Dunkirk is a very unique and interesting war film, it offers much more of a look at PTSD just after the event that caused it (PTSD in the moment), not seeing the enemy with them being an elusive threat, missing but yet ever present.

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To conclude, Saving Private Ryan, is one of if not the most influential war film ever, being the first to implement the themes of extreme violence, PTSD and the fact of soldiers not being soldiers but just being normal men, they often talk about their lives before the war and what they hope for after the war, what is so sad is them not knowing how close the war is to ending and the fact that they’re in the end phase of the war, from when this film is set it’s only 11 months until Germany's surrender, and this period of the war largely consisted of allied victories, big and small. Saving Private Ryan is one of the grates, it's renowned as a classic and I’d recommend watching it at least once in your life, it helps to picture what you should be remembering on remembrance days, it’s a fantastic film and I think that’s enough said.