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medic screams. That is the point: When huge armies con-
verge, hurling high explosives and steel at each other, one’s
chances of survival are unaffected by ethics or aesthetics.
But having made this point with heart-pounding
emphasis, the movie subverts it. Hanks, unnerved and dispir-
ited, initially hunkers down in the relative safety of the sea-
wall. But then he does his job, rallying his men. They blast a
hole through obstacles, crawl toward the concrete fortifica-
tions above, penetrate trench defenses, blow up bunkers,
and seize the hill. Many perish in the effort; Hanks, an infantry
captain, is among the survivors.
Then comes a new mission that occupies the remainder
of the movie. George C. Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, has
learned of a Mrs. Ryan who has been notified on a single day
that three of her sons were killed in action. Her fourth son,
James, a private in the 101st Airborne, has just parachuted
into Normandy behind German lines. Marshall orders that
Private Ryan be returned to safety. This mission is given to
Hanks and the eight surviving members of his platoon. They
march inland, encounter snipers, ambushes, and, in the final
scenes, a large detachment of German armored vehicles. But
they also find Ryan (played by Matt Damon).
Along the way, the movie asks many provocative ques-
tions, such as whether war improves those who fight. “I think
this is all good for me, sir,” one earnest soldier confides to
Hanks. “Really,” Hanks says with a faint smile, “how is that?”
The soldier cites Ralph Waldo Emerson: “War educates the
senses. Calls into action the will. Perfects the physical consti-
tution.” “Emerson had a way of finding the bright side, ” Hanks
deadpans, and the movie endorses his cynicism. Delirious and
catatonic soldiers stumble across the battlefield. Others, terri-
fied and jittery, shoot enemy soldiers who have surrendered. A
sniper, intoning Old Testament verses, takes
aim at unsuspecting enemies. Hanks’s hand
twitches uncontrollably, a physical manifesta-
tion of a disordered soul. War, demonstrably,
has not made men better.
Except it has made men better in one
sense, and that may be all that matters: Hanks
and his men have repeatedly demonstrated a
willingness to give up their lives for others.
Indeed, the movie’s central dilemma concerns
the moral arithmetic of sacrifice. Is it right to
risk eight men to save one? To send a thou-
sand men to near certain death in an initial
assault at Omaha Beach to improve the
chances of those that follow? To make one
generation endure hell so that another may
have freedom? The movie provides no ready
answers. But in nearly the final scene it does
issue a challenge. Hanks, mortally wounded, is
lying amidst the corpses of his platoon, and
he beckons to Ryan, who is unhurt. “Earn this,”
Hanks says, vaguely gesturing to the others.S
teven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan(1998), starring Tom
Hanks, has been widely praised as the most realistic com-
bat movie ever made. This judgment is based chiefly on its
re-creation of the June 6, 1944, Allied assault on Omaha
Beach during the invasion of Normandy. The camera focuses
on Hanks, rain dripping from his helmet, huddled in a
crowded landing vessel. Explosions rumble in the distance.
The ship plows through heavy seas toward a blackened brow
of land (see accompanying photograph). Around him, men
vomit. Explosions become louder and sharper. Nearby ships
strike mines and blow up; others are obliterated by shellfire.
Hanks’s landing craft lurches to avoid the mayhem. Like hail
against a tin roof, gunfire riddles the landing craft. Some of
the men are hit, and the others hunch lower, still vomiting. A
deafening din envelops the ship as its bow opens. A curtain
of bullets cuts down the men in front. Hanks and several oth-
ers leap into the sea, but the ship has stopped far short of
the beach. They sink. As bullets tear through the water, rip-
ping into those still submerged, Hanks struggles to the sur-
face. He swims, weaponless, toward the beach.
He has crossed the threshold of hell, and over the next
fifteen minutes viewers descend with him the rest of the way.
Saving Private Ryandiffers from other combat films not
in the graphic horror of the bloodshed, but in its random-
ness. The audience expects Hanks to survive the opening
scenes of the movie in which he stars, and he does. But all
other bets are off: a valiant exploit, a kind gesture, a hand-
some face—none of these influences the grim lottery of bat-
tle. A medic frenziedly works on a severely wounded man,
injecting morphine, compressing arteries, and binding
wounds. Then more bullets splatter his patient beyond
recognition. “Why can’t you bastards give us a chance?” the
RE-VIEWING THE PAST
Saving Private Ryan
Actual photograph of American troops approach code-named Omaha Beach at Normandy.