In Saving Private Ryan , popular culture returns from the celebration of resentment, whether through the display of victimization or of gratuitous violence, to the memorialization of our last, foundational sacrifice. I hope I will not spoil the film for anyone by revealing the simple but powerful narrative trick of the frame story. This reassures us that he will survive amid the carnage. But after the body of the film is over, we see that it is not Captain Miller but Ryan himself who kneels before what is now revealed to be Miller's grave. The memory of the landing at Omaha Beach, in which Ryan himself did not participate, is seen through his eyes because it was his and not Miller's survival that the landing made possible.
Culture is, before anything else, about survival.
We use representation to defer violence not because it is prettier or more intelligent than prehuman communication, but because we need it to survive. Unknown Survivor Ryan and his wife, his well-groomed and healthy children and grandchildren, are the representatives of all of us. We don't know what Ryan does or did for a living, nor do we want to know. When he asks his wife if he's been a good man, worthy of the sacrifice of Miller and the others, he is asking the question for every American and, by extension, for every member of the global civilization that has survived the war. This is a sentimental moment that transcends all sentimentality.