Gritty, Grisly, Genius

Rating: Null/10 (19 March 1999)

Saving Private Ryan. The title alone is brilliantly written, obviously by Robert Rodat, but the title doesn't really even begin to match the movie's over all breadth and scope. Yes a hodgepodge of war-versed soldiers enter into heavily German infested French countryside and find many little happenstance adventures along the way to Ryan, but that is not what this film 'wants' to be about. The long extended scenes of pure adrenaline horror, was an exercise in realism by Spielberg, never sophomoric, but absolutely true in its depiction of terror while in combat. In past attempts at 'experiencing' film terror, or as Alex from Clockwork Orange would say, "Vidying terror", I viewed some 8 or 9 snuff films known as the 'faces of death', and my memories of those grisly scenes coincided at times in SPR. One scene in particular, when Tom and his men are clinging for dear life on bullet ridden sand dunes, and the camera frenetically shifts back and forth between screaming characters, then captures Tom pulling over a man with his face caved in. I swore at that moment that I had seen something similar in faces of death. Scenes like this, or Cpt. Miller kneeling on the beach with stream of blood trickling down his face as soldiers engulfed in flames try to carry on fighting, or Medic Wade vaingloriously claiming to have 'stopped the bleeding' as a bullet rips thru the soldier's helmet, remind me of the gritty atrociousness not only in movies, but in life. Yes, real life. The opening of Ryan, not the Normandy beach opening, but the Normandy cemetery is very poignant. Line after line of white marble headstones, extending into the vanishing point, and the bereaved veteran humbled into silent weeping in their presence. Then, another genius stroke of Spielberg, the camera dollies slowly into the veteran's deep transcendant eyes, and then the crash of waves into the rusted hedgehogs; saltwater ebbing and flowing cautiously thru its iron legs. Although, as I watched SPR, the critic in me couldn't completely be astonished by the 'warrior poetry'. I saw Spielberg draw influences from such directors as Kubrick, De Palma, Kurosawa, and even Tarantino. One scene, I think borrows heavily from True Romance, a movie written by the feverishly popculture zeitgeist genius of Quentin Tarantino, in which the soldiers are locked in a Mexican standoff with equally surprised Nazis, chaotically yelling profanities at each other. Peckinpah I think would be especially proud with the usage of chameleon-like and unexpected violence and gore. There's one scene in The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah's answer to the 7 samurai, in which a bank robber's horse wobbles and then crashes through a plate glass shop window, whilst the camera frenetically weaves between slow and fast motion. In the final battle in SPR, this Wild Bunch scene re-emerged in my mind when a bomb blasted soldier hurdles thru a shop window ala Peckinpah. There is so much to write about this movie that it would take several days and nights to fully begin to encompass its creative inputs. I'll leave with one final comment; I think the final battle was a homage to Stalingrad, one of the last and greatest sieges in military history, where Nazi and Russian soldiers battled it out tooth and nail in the bomb hollowed city and in such odd places like wine cellers, church bell towers and antique shops. Saving Private Ryan definately does it justice.