With hand-held camera and sometimes the point of view from just behind a Nazi gunner's shoulder, these opening shots at once demythologize and redefine the war movie. War is hell. War is tide turning blood red. War is dismembered limbs. War is men lying in agony beyond relief or saving.
War is life one moment and death the next.
After that battle, Capt. Miller is ordered to recruit a small platoon to find and save Private Ryan. But even the initial 30-minute battle sequence is set within a broader context. The film begins in the present day as a Second World War American veteran and family approach a field of white crosses. The veteran, on seeing one, cries out in tears and falls to his knees.