And that’s one view of it. But just one.
Add my father to the list of vets who think the movie wasn’t that profound. And there is a chance he taught David Simmons how to fly those B-26s!
How many different people do we have to poll to discover that everybody has a different opinion of a movie, and that each opinion is a valid one?
If I suggested in any way that SPR was profound, I apologize. It’s not, by a long shot. But it does have a theme–a simple one, but a theme none-the-less. But I would argue that that theme is not “War makes you a Hero, so Death and Carnage aren’t all that bad.”
You didn’t see it? It’s right after the sniper kills the machinegunner on the beach. Tom Hanks turns to him and says, "Dude! You’re enobled!
No, there isn’t a line of dialogue where any of this is stated baldly. But it was communicated, to me and to others, very clearly by the theme, tone, and general attitude of the film.
Well, I do think “What a bunch of heros.” Because <cue swelling music> I love America!
Seriously: do you not think that the point of the movie is to make us respect the sacrifice of the characters in the film? That we’re not supposed to see that what these men did was honorable, brave, and necessary? The sense we’re supposed to get from the shot of the graveyard is not just loss, but sacrifice. A terrible, but necessary sacrifice, and one that the movie would have us emulate, were such a situation to come around again.
Would it kill you to assume that my opinion is as honestly come by as your own? People react to art in different ways. It’s what makes us people. I had a different reaction than you did. Doesn’t mean I have an agenda, it just means that I had a different reaction. That’s all. Again, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what Spielberg did in this movie, thematically speaking. I just don’t see the movie as anti-war.
But if the movie were genuinely anti-war, it would be arguing that we shouldn’t have fought at all. That there should never have been a war in the first place. Paths of Glory, or All Quiet on the Western Front are anti-war movies. The war, as presented in those films, is stupid, wasteful, and useless all around. Which is a fairly good summation of WWI. I don’t think you can make an anti-war movie from the viewpoint of the Allies in WWII, because the war itself was too necessary. As terrible as it was, the alternative, rolling over for Hitler, was far more unthinkable.
Do you think anyone in this thread is approaching this movie entirely tabula rasa? Do you think anyone can do that with any movie? I mean, RikWriter’s got a pretty transparent agenda in this thread, too, but so what? He’s a right-wing, pro-militart type, and that’s going to color any analysis he makes. I’ve got my own biases, so does lissener, so do you, so does everyone else who’s capable of forming an opinion. Which is, y’know… everyone. That’s not the same thing as having an agenda, or cherry picking to prove a presupposition, just that we’re all coming from different philosophies and viewpoints, and those viewpoints are going to inform how we react to things.
I would argue that the theme is “War makes you a hero because death and carnage are so bad.”
I realize that that is the received groupthink about me and Verhoeven. But every time someone trots this out, I have challenged them to find me a cite to support it. I have gotten angry in Verhoeven threads, but only at how people who DON’T like Verhoeven have been insulting and dismissive of me and my opinion. I have never attacked a person for disagreeing with me; I have only allowed myself to overreact to personal attacks against me.
Cite me a contradiction to that and I will apologize. (The last time I presented this challenge, I received the apology.)
Sigh. I mention discussing the movie as opposed to making personal attacks on other participants in this discussion. I never suggested that discussing a movie should not include whatever cultural context is relevant to that movie.
Well, perhaps because you imply as much about your misremembering of my “attacks” an non-Verhoeven fans.
You don’t simply take those into account; you suggest that they invalidate opinions that disagree with yours.
You still haven’t read the thread. I said that I thought SPR was a great film until the epilogue. Where’s my bias there? I’m sitting through a Spielberg movie, thinking “THis is a great film.”
In the second place, it’s ludicrous to suggest that overall familiarity with an artist’s work and a recognition of themes that might only present themselves with such familiarity constitutes an unjustified bias. Art does not happen in a vacuum. Conveniently pretending it does when someone disagrees with you (on something where disagreement is perfectly legitimate and valid, like a movie) is not something I would expect of you, AG. Do you take Ford’s larger themes into account when engaging with a Ford film? Do you call that a “bias”?
To continue with the hijack, The Thirteenth Warrior also has a nicely done language transition scene when Antonio Banderas gradually learned the Vikings’ language.
To recover from the hijack…SPR was technically brilliant, but I feel was also a flawed rehashed propoganda piece on the level of John Wayne’s Green Berets. The only horrors of war that were portrayed, were the simple bloodiness of the dying soldiers, and those horrors were ultimately held up to be a patriotic sacrifice. We saw nothing of the impact on the citizenry, or the human faces of the other side (just snarling sterotypical German soldiers). It was a bald-faced tribute film to give a big hug to American war veterans, which is fine and commendable as long as no one is pretending it to be otherwise.
To clarify:
I think Spielberg is a brilliant craftsman, but a bad artist. He’s Thomas Kincaid with a big budget.
But, like Thomas Kincaid, I think we would live in a better world if he were able to use his powers for good, instead of for evil. I live with the hope that someday he will have an awakening and will do so. I thought I had begun to see an inkling of a possible new maturity in SPR, but then Spielberg himself blew it and took the easy way out at the end. AI also gave me reason to hope, and I think in many ways he came closer with that movie, but I think that ultimately he was unable to pull it off.
Nonetheless, my respect for him as a craftsman gives me an undying hope, and I always see a new Spielberg film with the (ever diminishing) hope that someday he’ll grow up and accept responsibility as an artist. If he ever does so, I’ll be the first to glorify it here, but as I said, my hopes wither with the years.
Now, I can’t deny indulging in a certain childishly self-righteous satisfaction when, near the end of SPR, I discovered that, yep, Spielberg was still a hack, but I was rooting for him up until that point.
The movie was specifically about a squad of U.S. soldiers so I don’t know how much you expected them to spend time putting a face on the enemy. They did have a scene with a French family who were stranded in their nearly demolished home and that German machine gunner they caught later in the movie sure didn’t seem like a stereotypical snarling soldier to me. I do agree that it was a big hug to American war veterans, I just don’t see that as a bad thing necessarily.
Marc
For once, I agree with lissener whole-heartedly about a movie and the reasons for my reactions to it. Will wonders never cease? 
Thanks for stating it so well.
What about when Out of Africa won out over The Color Purple? I may have only been a college-aged punk at the time, but thought this was a huge injustice. And this was a Spielberg-directed flick… oh the irony of it all!
See, and I guess that’s my point–“It’s there! No cite or anything, but honest.” Nobody dies in a picturesque fashion, nobody spouts on about higher causes, the soldiers who relish the combat are portrayed as monstrous, there’s no anthemic march music to cue us in on the nobility of the enterprise. You can read whatever you want, I suppose, but the only demonstration of ennobling that the content of the film itself “has”, IMHO, is whatever assumptions about WWII, soldiering, and the military we bring into it.
Which has nothing to do with “being a man” (with the implication of machismo validation) that your original post asserted. Of course the film is about heroism, but the cost of it, not the glory of it, which is what lissener was originally claiming. For 2 hours we see the cost; even the ham-fisted coda demonstrates that Ryan didn’t see himself in that way. The film suggests these veterans were heroes, but war doesn’t make them heroic, the sacrifice does.
I’m not denying your reaction and didn’t mean to cause offense, and I suspect your position got conflated with lissener. I’m not one to argue how “anti-war” the film is–I have no dog in that hunt; I took issue with the assertion (or, as lissener put it, “fact”) that the film is “pro-war”, a very different sentiment.
Actually, I think there are movies that can take place in the WWII theater that are anti-war, but they operate in a political vacuum, where That War stands in for All War, and the horror and pointlessness of War are depicted as universal truths, since a war can be horrific with deaths seemingly pointless while the cause is still terribly necessary.
I don’t question any of that. For me, it still comes down to the evidence the film offers. If I hear generalizations about “Spielberg does this” or “Spielberg does that”, but can get no specifics, than I have to wonder if they saw the same film, or if they have some other “agenda”. It’s only when I don’t see an argument that to me feels substantive that I have to wonder if there’s something else going on–and in your case, again I think you got conflated with lissener; that’s a broader brush than I intended and I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way.
Which I guess I can go along with because that theme, while problematic, seems to represent his position, which is more simplistic than one would like to see from a film so well-made technically.
You may not have attacked someone for disagreeing with you, but you have been condescending and dismissive of those who weren’t convinced of your arguments. This attitude was based on your inability/unwillingness to appreciate that people could “get” a position without giving it the credence/importance/weight you do. This is what I meant by circumstantial.
And I didn’t attack anybody. Calling arguments “glib” and speculating about the possibility of prejudicial thinking is not a slander.
I never said somebody’s motives invalidate their opinions–the lack of a persuasive argument does. I did not find a persuasive argument in anything you posted. You probably feel the same way. Yet I’m not the one who asserted his opinion as Fact. You did. More than anything in this thread, this is what I took issue with.
Again, it had nothing to do with disagreeing with you. I recall several print critics who didn’t like SPR, but they were able to articulate a position that had me walk away with a “Agree-to-Disagree” sentiment. You haven’t. Maybe, the way you communicate and the way I assimilate, there is no way to bridge that impasse. Which is fine, since SPR is not a film I cherish defending. But you said this:
And your “ace in the hole” for this incontraverible position? The U.S. Army meme. You may not recognize this as smug and arrogant behavior, but that’s how I would characterize it. By any SDMB standard, that merited a call-out. I’m sorry Miller got caught in the crossfire.
This is bullshit, and only flies by removing it from all context. I never asserted anything as fact. I just responded to RikWriter’s insistance that my interpretation was “unique.” The only thing resembling objective factuality I have posited in this thread is where I suggested that since the Army is using SPR as propaganda, then that’s a pretty substantial support for my interpretation of it as propaganda. If you define a thing by how it’s used, then the Army’s use of SPR renders it propaganda, even if Spielberg never intended it that way. If you can put it on your head it’s a hat.
America’s involvement in WWII was heroic and necessary. But the war was launched by a madman. A film that addresses that could very easily take the thematic position that war itself is unnecessary. War is not a natural disaster. It’s a madness perpetrated by mankind. Even WWII. A film that addresses the madness of the entire enterprise would probably be anti-war. Yes, even a film about WWII. A film that treats the Nazis as a natural disaster–as evil caricatures, monsters rather than men–and focuses instead only on the necessary and heroic response to the madness is in danger of justifying war. This is the mistake (my word; my opinion) that Spielberg makes with SPR, and this is what makes it a pro-war film; that HE made it in a political vacuum, addressing only the effect and not the cause. Not that he should have, or anything like that; only trying to understand the film as it is, not as we wish it were.
Want to see a film about WWII that is pro-military but anti-war? Try The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, or The Search. It’s possible for an artist to make that distinction, and to indict the human madness of war while still acknowledging the humanity of the participants. I’d argue that a political vacuum is entirely antithetical to making an anti-war film about WWII. Films that acknowledge the entire political context must, necessarily (in my view), be anti-war films.
Not substantive enough to change your mind? I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m only trying to elucidate my own opinion.
The prejudices here are yours, AG, not mine. I have said the same thing several times in this discsussion, but your hostility toward me won’t allow you acknowledge them, while you agree with the same ideas as presented by Miller.
I have to say this is a bit bewildering to me. Before I returned from my hiatus, you were one of my favorite Dopers. We often had fun together in movie threads. Suddenly starting with my use of 12O’H, you’ve got nothing for me but dismissive hostility. I still have no idea where this stems from.
So you’re backpedalling, and we remain cite-free.
I’m not talking about any legal definition of slander. I’m talking about insulting and dismissive debate tactics. You totally dismiss my opinions by suggesting that I manufactured them to justify a previous conclusion.
This is calling me a liar. Twice. Once, because I have said many times in this thread that I started out liking SPR. Twice, by suggesting that, deep down, I actually view the film the same way you do, but I’m making shit up to justify my “bias.” For some reason you seem to feel personally attacked by me here, so you’re probably more likely to chew your own foot off than acknowledge that you went too far here. That’s unfortunate. I’d hoped we could ratchet this back down a bit.
Not persuasive enough to change my mind, no. Why do you insist that the goal here is for one of us to change the other’s mind?
I was throwing RikWriter’s ridiculous assertions of objectivity back in his face! What I said was, “as far as that’s possible,” which means that I’m acknowledging that in the final analysis it’s NOT possible. I meant that if RW was going to “open the door” to making an objective judgment on whether or not SPR is propaganda, then—only as far as that is even possible—the “evidence,” in my opinion, was against him. Period. If you hadn’t seized on that with both teeth and been typing away in a wild-eyed frothing rage ever since, perhaps you might have seen that my qualifications in that “statement” were meant to convey that I acknowledged that objective factuality has no meaning in the interpretation of a piece of art. The only FACT here is how the Army is using SPR. They are using it as propaganda. That is the ONLY fact I have suggested here.
Everything else is a debate on artistic intentions, which I usually enjoy. But your and RikWriter’s hostility—and my reaction in kind—have made this a very, very unpleasant discussion. In your example, I was only being “smug and arrogant” to RW because I felt like he was acting like a jerk. Insofar as I was attacking anything, I was attacking RW’s ridiculous position that the uniqueness [sic] of my interpretation rendered it invalid. You put yourself in the crossfire by misconstruing my tone as directed at the film, when it was directed at RW.
Well, to put it simply, it’s just plain okey-dokey that you have and express an opinion, buyt those gratuitous little sneers you throw for shits and giggles may be the problem. I mean, geez, “nothing but the baldest prowar propaganda”? We’re not a buncha rubes around here; you can afford to be a little bit subtle now and then.
So what you’re saying is it’s perfectly understandable that people would be hostile toward me for expressing dislike of Stephen Spielberg’s films. I should discuss a filmmaker’s work with the delicate apologetic tone one would take when visiting one’s dying grandmother?
You’re telling me that you take personal offense at my criticism of Stephen Spielberg?
Well, in all fairness, Bryan Ekers is Kate Capshaw in real life. So you got to expect a little defensiveness there when people dis Spielburg.
I just don’t understand the “oh, the first 30 minutes are good, and then it’s rehashed poo” position. There are some ENORMOUSLY powerful moments later in the film, including:
-The medic dying, blubbering, calling for his mother
-The argument over what to do with the captured German (I still don’t know why they didn’t shoot him in the thigh, or some other debilitating but non-fatal wound… maybe even break his trigger fingers badly…)
-The little French girl
-The serene moment with the Edith Piaf record
-The interpreter freezing in horror as the German guy knifes the Jewish guy while whispering in his ear
There are also a number of very memorable, well-made twist and little moments:
-The first Ryan they find
-The scene where the wall collapses and suddenly, a bunch of Allies are staring at a bunch of Germans from 5 feet away (I suspect this was based on a real incident… anyone know?)
-The glider with the reinforced steel floor
The acting and writing in this movie are absolutely top-notch. One could certainly legitimately argue that SiL’s are BETTER, but SPR is not Armageddon or Independence Day.
And I have yet to hear of any actual plot holes. Our worthy David Simmons has pointed out some historical inaccuracies, but there’s a big difference between that and a plot hole, and they seem (to me) to be quite minor. It might have been odd for a group of soldiers that small to be wandering around through enemy-controlled territory, but the way the movie presented it, no one seemed to be quite sure what WAS enemy-controlled territory… and that’s at least plausible enough to fool someone like me who’s read quite a bit about D-Day and WWII in general. The impression I have is that after all the (mostly failed) glider landings and parachute drops, there were large areas that had large pockets of Americans, but no real American “control”, but there wasn’t such a dense concentration of Germans that you wouldn’t be able to wander through the fields without getting shot.
I also don’t understand Lissener’s revulsion towards the closing endcap. It wasn’t saying “oh, you all died heroes” or “it was all worth it” or “USA! USA!”. Rather, it’s showing one man thanking another man for a heroic sacrifice. Which strikes me as a totally reasonable and realistic way for someone to act in that situation. I mean, what’s old Ryan gonna do… find the grave of some middle ranking officer who fucked up some aspect of the D-Day landings and spit on it?
Let’s put it this way… if someone watches SPR, are they going to be more or less likely to support the war in Iraq? Does that answer change if the endcaps are removed?
I think the answer is that they’ll definitely be less likely… one of the problems with the way war is frequently portrayed is that the blood and gore are glossed over. When we talk about D-Day, we talk about the massive fleet buildup, the clever intelligence dodges, the fact that Ike wrote a “we fucked up” speech ahead of time just in case, etc. When we talk about the dead, we talk about the murderous casualty rate, but in a kind of a dry sense… “platoon # 17 came under withering fire and suffered losses of over 80%”, as if, 80% of platoon #17 were picked at random and died. We don’t say “80% of platoon #17 were shot in the gut and died bawling and in unspeakable agony, and the other 20% were so enraged that they killed Germans who tried to surrender in cold blood, and refused to shoot Germans who were burning to death in order to end their suffering”. What SPR does is it shows this side of war without having a message that is purely “war is so awful. See how awful it is? It’s awful! Look, it’s awful! And here is some more of war being awful!”.
I apparently didn’t get lissener’s interpretation of SPR - meaning, I can’t find it on the thread. I got to page three (of four) before I had to post… y’all know how it is. 
Anyway, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the film but IIRC the ending
Has an elderly Private Ryan tearfully asking his wife if the life he lived was worth the ordered deaths of so many other men.
Assuming that I’m right, I don’t get the objection. Here is a man trying to live his life as if it were literally worth five others, not to mention his brothers, who themselves had to die so that Hanks’ platoon could die so that he could live and go home while his generation is going through the defining event of their young lives.
I don’t know about you, but that is a terrible burden to bear, the sort of debt of honor that is impossible to repay and almost impossible to live up to. But he tried, silently as the men of his generation were taught, but he tried as well as he could. And when he broke the silence, he brought it home to his descendants what had happened in France and how it changed their (grand)father.
Sorry. I admit that the American flag at the end was incredibly cheesy and needed to be edited out (or a montage of Allied flags, or something), but to say that the end “glorified” anything was to miss the import of Ryan’s question to his wife, which was to miss the import of the movie.
This isn’t a movie about a war, it’s a film about one mans almost unbearable moral obligation. That’s how I view it.
Well, add my late father to the group that liked it, and since he as there I tend to respect his opinion.