Review: Saving Private Ryan

3/4

Two days ago I watched Apocalypse Now. Saving Private Ryan is much more of a "war film" than that; in fact, this film redefined the war genre for me. Now that I have seen this extremely high level of realism, I have realized that Apocalypse felt like a movie. FMJ as I remember felt like a movie. In fact, most other movies feel like movies compared to the intimacy of Saving Private Ryan. It is truly excellent filmmaking with respect to its vision--to place the viewer in the center of the action and connect him to the characters so as to achieve a filmgoing experience that is intimate and emotional and tense and exciting. The emotions run high in this film due to the realism.
I gained immense amounts of respect for Steven Spielberg in the last few hours. I fully expected family-friendly cinema, good feelings, drama, justice. But what I respect most about this film is its injustice. Its statement, again and again, that its characters are not invincible. What an emotion when a certain character gets a knife slowly pressed into his chest after the typical struggle that would always end in victory for the good guy. It's disbelief for anybody who has ever seen a morally typical movie (99% of movies). No director that's playing at this level of Hollywood respect and big budgets does something like that.
I am not calling Stevie a revolutionary. At least not in this sense. I suppose I have forgotten that he did not write the film... He only gave it its epic scope and dramatic touch. He gave it John Williams, and millions of dollars. So I guess we can conclude that the writer, Robert Rodat, deserves much respect for his boldness and unpredictability, and Spielberg is applauded for deeming this screenplay worthy of his direction, and then Spielberg is praised for excellent direction. I feel odd congratulating him like this, as I would never have called myself a Spielberg fan in the past and am much more interested in the anti-Hollywood of Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson and such, but perhaps it is time I give him some more respect. Even critics who recognize the conventionality in Spielberg movies recognize his talent. Schindler's List is considered an all-time great movie, isn't it? Perhaps I should watch more from him and consider his direction, independent of the screenplay, even if it was he who wrote it.
This was a very enjoyable film for me. I had emotions running through me during it: nothing earth-shattering, but I can't remember the last time I experienced that. Particularly I love the war of it. Apocalypse Now was about other things. It was a journey, and it spent no time in one place. It was psychological. Philosophical. Allegorical. With Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg obviously made it a point to portray war extensively and in a realistic fashion so as to educate viewers. And I was incredibly interested in the military tactics, behaviours, patterns, nature, operations, etc. I suppose I'm just very interested in war. Maybe this is from Call of Duty. Maybe I'm destined to become a soldier or militaryman of some sort. The idea always excites me, though it is so far off from my life. In any case, if you like war, watch this. You will be watching maybe a solid hour of pure battle footage altogether. Maybe more. I would like a film that is 100% focused on military operations. That learns me tactics. The inner workings, and the big picture.
I leave this film with only 3 out of 4 stars. But I said it felt like less of a movie and more of an experience than Coppola and Kubrick, didn't I? Yes, but there's something more to those films. They have layers and meaning. There is some very interesting moral conflict in SPR, and some terrific decisions as plot devices, but it is mostly only an experience. It pulls on emotions and some interest strings but doesn't dig quite deep enough. I could never put it in the same league as the intellectual revolution of Kubrick or the dark, strange beauty of Apocalypse Now. The dialogue is too conventional. That said, the battle scenes are terrific, maybe the best I've ever seen. Kudos, Stevie.

Oh yeah, and Tom Hanks' character is morally questionable, but not in the anti-hero understandable kind of way, just in a "is he even nice? Idk. This is just weird" kind of way. But that's only at some points, not overall. Overall he's a definite hero. It's just odd. I think I would have preferred for him to have been a better man. Just so that the ending would feel stronger.

And I could be John Williams. It's sickening how lauded his music is...