Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks about the legacy of "Saving Private Ryan"

May 31, 2019, 12:40 UTC

By Daniel Arkin

Steven Spielberg, a child of the 1950s, grew up with Hollywood drama series about the sacrifices of the Second World War. But with "Saving Private Ryan", the Oscar-winning director decided to make a war movie like none other than the one he – nor the audience from around the world – had ever seen.

"Saving Private Ryan", an unapologetic epic on D-Day and the invasion of Normandy, would reshape America's cultural memory during the Second World War, exposing millions of viewers to the violence that swirled and at the unsettling intensity of this chapter the war.

"If we proceeded in the right way – and it stood the test of time – it would modestly solve what these children experienced at 6:30 am on June 6, 1944" Spielberg told Tom Brokaw, of NBC News, the date of the Allied landing on the beaches of Normandy.

In almost 21 years since "Saving Private Ryan" debuted with a $ 481.8 million global ticket sale and five Oscars, few war movies have captured the public's imagination with as much force as the acclaimed saga of Spielberg. And many filmmakers, big and small screens, were inspired by an unprecedented and flawless realism.

"What Steven wanted to do from the start was to use all his magic, all the tools that existed in the cinema since 1997, and to make a war movie that would break all the tropes, cinematically, all the war movies had," Brokaw told Tom Hanks, who plays the lead role in the film.

Fathom Events, a company that broadcasts classics in country theaters, is betting that a new generation of viewers will find "Soldier Ryan" equally captivating. The company plans to reissue it in some cinemas on June 2 and 5, just weeks before the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

"This monumental film requires a movie viewing experience," said Ray Nutt, CEO of Fathom.

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In the eyes of most critics and legions of fans of the film, the brave piece that opens the movie "Private Ryan", which represents a frenzy for the Normandy landings, has become his most influential and lasting contribution to the pantheon of the American film.

"We took every inch of this beach – as filmmakers, not as veterans," Spielberg said with a laugh. "It took us 25 days of shooting to capture 25 minutes of these landings."

The scenes on Omaha Beach, partly recorded on a flickering portable camera and soaked in clumsy shades of green and gray, uncover Captain Miller of Hanks and his troops caught in a whirlwind of bullets, blood, bombs and viscera in a seemingly endless stretch of sand. .

The long sequence – once and now hailed for its raw and aggressive honesty – was a radical break from the more stylistically restrained and sometimes sanitized war dramas of the 1950s and 1960s.

"This has changed the game," said Steven Jay Rubin, screenwriter, film historian, and author of a book on American fight movies. "It was dramatically dramatic, visceral, immersive, I did not touch my popcorn because it seemed like sacrilege to eat while I was watching it."

Spielberg and his production team were tireless in their quest for historical authenticity. Hanks and his co-stars, including Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper and before "Fast and Furious" Vin Diesel, were subjected to a rig "training camp" under the command of Navy Captain Dale Dye, who is now 74 years old.

"The legend is that we stayed in the icy wood for weeks and weeks, I think it was only five days," said Hanks laughing. "When a false ambush occurs at 3 am and gets you out of your tent, your adrenaline rises."

Rubin discussed parts of more recent cultural works that, in his view, clearly owe Spielberg: the psychological anguish of Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" and the disorienting intimacy of "Dunkirk" of Christopher Nolan for video games such as "Call of Duty".

Matt Shakman, a television director who directed the latest episode of "Game of Thrones," in which Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) flames King's Landing with the fire of the dragon, recently told the New York Times that He had consulted the violent opus of Spielberg before the production.

"I watched" Save Private Ryan ", the opening battle on the beach, where the sound was interrupted and Tom Hanks saw men being burned alive and shot. Is for me what it should be for Jaime, watch the men die around him, "Shakman told the Times, referring to another character from" Thrones, "Jaime Lannister.

Spielberg and Hanks hope, however, that the most enduring legacy of "Saving Private Ryan" lies in its resolute yet earnest celebration of the men who gave their lives for the defense of their country and their armed brothers.

"I think the danger is that it gets into some sort of mythological place," said Hanks. "If we ever forget that it's a group of people who have been there, and that they all had names like Ernie, Buck and Robert, that's when we did not feel good about being citizens of the world, I think. "