Okay, what does this prove? The number of vets who did or did not like Saving Private Ryan has no bearing on wether or not any of us, as individuals, should like Saving Private Ryan. I’m sure a lot of WWII vets really dig Matlock, but that doesn’t make it the greatest TV show ever made.
Yeah, i was going to make the same point.
I’m from Australia, and probably know more about what it’s like to live there than most Americans. Does that mean that my opinion of an Australian movie, as a movie, is more valid than an American’s viewpoint? I think not.
Sure, i can make some reasonably authoritative statements about the accuracy of certain things, but simple accuracy is not the only—or even the most important—measure of a film’s appeal.
It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I’ve never heard this. I’d be interested to read that speech. Can you point me in a direction to find it?
FWIW, I found both movies to be entertaining, and for very different reasons. Maybe it’s just me, but I paid my $8.50 both times to be entertained for a few hours, and damn if I wasn’t. The same can be said about this thread, too. 
Incidentally, anyone seeing the Google ad that says, “Saving private ryan: Free Online Banking!”
WTF?
It’s been a long time since I saw SPR but I do remember one thing at the beginning that spoiled the mood. In fact I found it so outlandish that I sort of nit-picked the rest of the way through.
There were a whole bunch of WACs, as I recall, busily typing “The Secretary of War regrets to inform you …” telegrams and an officer appeared to notice that Ryan’s brother or brothers had been killed. How he knew that Ryan was in the Army I don’t know. That scenario was so far out that I never really developed an interest in the movie from that point on.
I should never go to WWII movies. They never quite get it right. The Omaha Beach scenes were technically well done but still didn’t seem to me like anything but a picture show.
I literally didn’t have to read further before forming a negative response, because I’ve seen that what near-universally follows “so what you’re saying is” is some strawman version of the person’s actual remark.
Now I will actually read your complete statement and see if I was right.
Of course not. You’re so predictable. What I was saying is that in a thread where previously people had been discussing the relative technical and artistic merits of two Oscar-contending films, “baldest prowar propaganda” was unnecessarily hostile to the people who actually liked Saving Private Ryan. Did you think otherwise?
No, just that you shouldn’t feign surprise when your hostility begets hostility.
Wrong-o, Einstein! :mad:
I’m Amy Irving.
Hmmm… seems to me this is what happened: lots of people are typing letters, which are ending up in piles sorted by either region or last name. In either sorting scheme, somene could easily notice that three letters are going out to the Ryan family at the same time. This by itself is unusual enough to alert someone to take special notice of the situation. Then, and only then, do they discover that there’s a 4th Ryan in uniform.
That doesn’t strike me as particularly outlandish…
OK, it appears to be “remarks” rather than a speech, but here you go: Second one down
Would you have taken it less personally if I had said “In my opinion, SPR is the baldest prowar propaganda”?
Am I not allowed to express my opinion that SPR is prowar propaganda without opening myself up to personal hostility?
I ask this in all serious.
I have felt, in past threads, when I have shared an interpretation of a film and been told that I’m “reading into it,” or that what I see in a movie is not, in fact, there that such responses to my expressed were dismissive and hostile. I’ve been roundly told in such cases that I had no right to take such a response personally. Is this the same thing, with me on the other side of that equation?
It was not my sense that I was responding to anyone else’s stated opinion, or minimizing the opinion of anyone else. I didn’t actually have any of you in mind at all when I entered this thread; I was addressing only the film and my interpretation of it.
Seriously, are you suggesting that expressing a negative–even a dismissive–opinion of a work of art, made by a third party entirely external to this Board, justifies the personal hostility of other Dopers who disagree with that negative opinion?
Rereading this thread from the beginning, I can honestly only see RikWriter and ArchiveGuy taking it personal. I overreacted to RW’s bizarre hostility, and ArchiveGuy leapt unfathomably to his defense (indirectly; by way of offense), but I honestly can’t see anywhere in this thread where I threw the first punch.
I am honestly bewildered. Do Stephen Spielberg fans really feel personally attacked when someone expresses a negative opinion about a Stephen Spielberg film?
You have a touching faith in the WWII army’s personnel capabilities. They lost track of me for 3 months when I went overseas.
It wasn’t an officer, it was the woman who was assigned to type the letters for that section of the country. She was the one who realized that she just typed another letter, about a different person, to the same address.
As an indication that I’m not averse to debate on this matter, here’s a previous thread wherein I took the opposite position, and was pretty well handed my hat. I went away from this older thread feeling that complaining about feeling insulted about others’ negative opinions about a work of art would be pretty well landed on with everybody’s both feet. At any rate, I came away pretty roundly convinced that I was gonna have to get over it.
So, I guess it’s OK when everyone else does it, but it’s smug and arrogant when I do it.
I stand corrected. Score one for SPR.
I loved SPR, and would easily put itinto my top 10 list of favourite movies. However I wouldn’t agree with any of these statements.
Nobody dies in a picturesque fashion? Capt. Miller’s death was probably the most picturesque death in the history of American film making. Miller dies fighting against overhelming odds, literally firing with his last breath. In the middle of the freakin’ bridge he is sworn to defend. He is being portayed as a modern Horatius. His death is incongruously free of gore (a couple of blood spots in the chest IIRC), a point which was jarring considering how everyone else in the movie died mutilated and/or in buckets of blood.
Nobody spouts on about higher causes? Ryan gives a 5 minute monologue about how his fellow soldiers are the only brothers he has and how his mother will understand the sacrifice he’s making. Miller spouts off about how finding Ryan will earn him the right to go home. Miller and Horman talk about how the deaths they cause can be justified because they prevent even more deaths. And so on and so forth. Nobody talks about truth, liberty and Mom’s apple pue, but they spend a huge amount of time talking about higher causes considering how little ‘menaingful’ dialogue the movie actually contains.
The soldiers who relish combat are portayed as monstrous? It’s hard to think of any soldier in the movie who relished combat. The closest I can think of is the sharpshooter (Jackson?) who declares himself to be “A fine instrument of destruction”, but he doesn’t actually relish combat. Nobody wants to go into combat in the whole movie that I can recall.
Ther’s no anthemic marching music to cue us as to the nobility? Marching music specifcally, no. However the soundtrack for the scenes in the graveyard are pretty obviously meant to reflect the nobility of the sacrifices made, notably the musical link betwen Miller’s death and the return to the present.
I don’t see SPR as being pro-war. I personally saw it as being very anti-war in the same way that “All Quiet on the Western Frint” was anti-war. It made it quite clear that war isn’t an adventure, it’s one long horror-story where individuals have no control over their own lives and no way of escaping.
However I can see how someone could interpet it as pro-war simply because it’s so fiercely pro-American. As others have said, it’s very hard to do a WWII story and give the impression of meaningless waste because WWI was a war with failry clear outcomes where we all agree the good guys one (if we dicount that Russia allie dwith the good guys). It can never be meaningless so long as well all agree Hitler had to be stopped.
But Speilberg went beyond justified sacrifice and dropped into a pro-American stance. That could be easily misinterpreted as being pro-war. I personally think “Band of Brothers” did a far better job at avoiding that whole issue than SPR. It simply presented the story of the soldierswithout the schmalzy Americana. As a result SPR does become somewhat pro-war simply because it uses war to justify how wonderfully noble the US is.
To the extent that we saw the other side at all they were portrayed in a very human way, and certainly not streotypically.
“Steamboat Willy” for example was portayed in a very compassionate manner and humanised every bit as much as any American character. He was simply a frightened and bewildered young man and in no way snarling or stereotypical. The same was true for the German who stabbed Mellish while urging him to go quietly.
These are about the only Germans who get more than a few seconds of screen time in the entire movie. If you believe their portrayals are in any way stereotypical then you should be able to name 3 previous movies that portrayed German soldiers in a similar manner. Care to take the challenge?
The other German soldiers are indeed just faceless soldiers, some were snarling, many were not, many were despondent prisoners or dying wounded. But then the faceless American soldiers were portrayed exactly the same way. In fact given that the Germans are never portrayed shooting prisoners it would seem they are portrayed as far more sympathetic.
I sometimes wonder if I actually see the same movie as other people. I really can’t think of a (serious) movie where the portrayal of German soldiers was less stroeotypical.
It’s also completely untrue to say we see nothing of the impact on the citizenry. One major scene revolves entirely around the impact of the war on French citizens. And of course a central theme for the movie was the impact of the war on American citizens: Ryan’s mother, Miller’s wife etc. Beyond that we get constant reminders of the damage done to civilians simply by the broken property left behind. These aren’t hidden or glossed over, they are deliberately highlighted: an overturned apple cart, a gramophone with a record, the empty cafe and so forth.
I wonder how you might suggest portraying more of the impact of war on civilians without adding another 30 minutes to an already lengthy movie? I really can’t think how it could be done within the plot of the movie. At best we might have had the squad passing a line of refugees but given that they were moving in seceret that’s hardly plausible.
The most surprising thing about the development of this thread is that even people like myself who are no great fans of SPR are forgiving of the 20 minute bloodbath segment. When I first saw the movie this was the first thing that seemed questionable and coloured my feelings about the rest of the movie. While I’m sure Spielberg felt his “war is hell” message HAD to be communicated it, perhaps surprisingly, wasn’t news to me. Just as I can watch Silence of the Lambs without a 20 minute prologue of a body being hacked up to realise that serial killers are bad men, I don’t think the movie loses any significant story element by coming in later. After all no one of any interest on the beach will be killed or wounded now will they. Talk about cannon fodder.
Great production values very low story values. And then the cliches go rolling along.
Umm, Ryan’s brother is killed on the beach. That’s the begining of the whole story. So yeah, someone of great interest is killed on the beach. Also killed is the company’s translator, which is why our ‘everyman’ Upham can be introduced.
If you mean that nobody who plays an important roll later in the movie is kiled, that’s true. But that’s because the beach scene appears at the start of the movie. Kind of hard for important characters to be killed in the first scene.
I’m not even a fan SPR, nor of Spielberg generally, so this notion that I’ve taken your comments personally are without foundation. If it makes you feel better to keep assuming so, knock yourself out.
Nope. Sorry. The only protections you have are whatever rules the Café moderators choose to enforce. And unless they crack down to the point of blocking just about everything, it’s quite likely that people who know how to write in English will find a way express animosity toward you and your opinions.
It’s all taking heat and leaving kitchens, pal.
Well, you’re not convincing. Sorry. If you want a free pass, go… well… wherever it is that people give out free passes. I just hope the SDMB never becomes such a place.
You have the right to take whatever you want personally. That doesn’t translate into a compulsion for others to take your hurt feelings seriously.
This is the disingenuity I’m picking up on. What do you think the word “propaganda” means? Allow me to use a little playlet to demonstrate:
A: I like that work of art.
B: That work of art is bald propaganda.
If it predictable that A will take offense, because B’s statement contains the implication that A likes the work of art because A was manipulated into doing so? And since it’s a “bald” work of propaganda, isn’t the implication that A was dumb enough to fall for a fairly obvious bit of manipulation?
If can’t recognize that A’s reaction is a normal one, then there isn’t really any point continuing.
No kidding.
I’ll bet.
Really? It’s been longer since I saw the movie than I thought. Boy, the army really had its shit together to discover that Ryan was a sole surviver while the 101st Airbone Division was still not linked up with the main invasion force.
Wow.
It has been a long time since you saw the movie.
There’s a rather dramatic longshot of the beach, then it zooms in on the shoals of dead fish and corpses rolling in the breakers. Then it slowly pans up the shoreline until we see a corpse lying face down in the surf. The camera zooms in closer to the name on the pack: Ryan, S. Cut to the letters office where they are busy typing up the letter to Ryan’s mother. The letters are brought to the officer in charge and are taken up the chain of command. Someone points out that Ryan 1 was killed at Omaha, Ryan 2 at Utah. And the third brother was killed last week in New Guinea.
This wasn’t just a case of the 101st not being linked up. Ryan was part of a mixed unit at the time, so his official unit could have been fully re-integrated even if the company he was with was still effectively isolated. They had been ordered to remain with the bridge until they were relieved, remember.
I have no idea how long it was between the landing and all units, even those guarding essential structures, being relieved/reinforced and allowed to report in full. The movie suggests it was maybe a couple of weeks at most, although it’s never made clear. Long enough for Miller’s company to fight several engagements at least.
Since Ryan’s brother was lying on the beach he would have been one of the first bodies to be identified and buried, so it hardly seems implausible that the letter would have been typed out within a week of his death. I don’t know what the actual time was for reporting on the deaths of soldiers, but I can’t see why even in those conditions it would be more than a few days. My understanding is that by that time shipping between the US and England was pretty safe and military communications were regular. The movie states that casualty lists from New Guinea were finding there way to the US for processing in less than 13 days. If that is the case then lists from France could certainly be processed within a week.
You seem suprised at this. Do you have any idea what the actual processing times were for casualty lists?