Saving Private Ryan

the_13th_redneck said:
Your UNCLE? How old are you?
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52.

My Uncle was the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry during D-Day operations. He was seriously wounded 19 days after the invasion and never returned to combat duty - Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Purple Heart.

He passed away about two years before Saving Private Ryan came out.
 
"Personally I would rather he made a film about ordinary G.I.'s - the regular infantrymen. Being by turns bored, wet, hungry, scared and wanting to go home!"

Doesn't sound to me like you saw the movie.
 
Whispering Death - I take your point - my comments at this point lacked clarity of logic - I think that means I may have got it wrong!
Charge -7 - I did see the film, but your inference is accepted. The ending of my piece was inappropriate.
As my name indicates I am an armchair general. Consequently my views have much of the second-hand about them.
My interest in Normandy has been limited - even though my father served there.
And although it may seem that I am pushing a British point of view at the expense of primarily the Americans, in fact my interest is in the ordinary conscript or enlisted men as opposed to the elite troops of D-Day and the Normandy campaign.
Alexander McKee wrote 40 years ago of the British infantrymen training and marching in England for some distant return to Europe - and of how the Germans would die laughing when they encountered them.
It is in the manner of this self mocking attitude that I write. It is the ordinariness of the British and US soldiers that interests me.
My father was part of the assault on Villers-Bocage and the continuing move towards Caen. His active service in Normandy lasted less than a month. His life as a civilian afterwards lasted more than half a century and some of those years were coloured by his weeks in France.
So my interest is a personal and selfish one.
 
Remember that there are plenty of World War II films that include the British in them. Saving Private Ryan was not a historical documentary. It was a story about a guy (Miller) who justified his actions by concluding that by doing what he did.... and sometimes losing a guy or two, he was saving ten times the number. In comes a new mission and that justification is thrown out the door.
That's what it was about. That's why the other beaches weren't shown.
The 2nd largest foreign presence in Vietnam after the US was South Korea. How many Vietnam movies or TV series have you actually seen South Korean troops in Vietnam? Practically none. I just heard "Korean" once in an episode of Tour of Duty. But hey, I don't ***** about it. We make our own movies that take place in Vietnam. So Britain's got to make its own movies about its own folks.
 
"my interest is in the ordinary conscript or enlisted men as opposed to the elite troops of D-Day and the Normandy campaign"

Actually the vanguard of the assault force at Omaha Beach "Bloody Omaha" was accomplished by National Guardsmen from the 29th Infantry Division composed of citizen soldiers from Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Connecticut. So although there were elite forces there to be sure, the worst of it was shouldered by a divison that was not even in the regular Army.
 
You're probably right about that 13th. The 29th "Blue and Grey" though showed them that there was plenty of fight in the National Guard. In later campaigns they were used as any other divison without regard for what would be easy. So they proved their worth that day.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Remember that there are plenty of World War II films that include the British in them. Saving Private Ryan was not a historical documentary. It was a story about a guy (Miller) who justified his actions by concluding that by doing what he did.... and sometimes losing a guy or two, he was saving ten times the number. In comes a new mission and that justification is thrown out the door.
That's what it was about. That's why the other beaches weren't shown.
The 2nd largest foreign presence in Vietnam after the US was South Korea. How many Vietnam movies or TV series have you actually seen South Korean troops in Vietnam? Practically none. I just heard "Korean" once in an episode of Tour of Duty. But hey, I don't b**ch about it. We make our own movies that take place in Vietnam. So Britain's got to make its own movies about its own folks.
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Once again, I am humbled by your insight 13th. If the American film makers attempted an action drama based on the everyday feelings, actions, and reactions of the South Korean troops serving in VietNam, it would be a flop because there is no way they could portray the SK side as effectively as a film maker in South Korea. And vise-versa. The story of a country's idea of how a war movie should depict that country's participation should be made by that country. America may be "into" war movies a little more than most other countries resulting in more being produced and, obviously, coming from an American perspective.

A lot of countries are more likely to make artsy or present day life situations type films and violence is not a big box office subject. Some totalitarian Governments simply dictate what can and can't be made. My humble opinion only.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Remember that there are plenty of World War II films that include the British in them. Saving Private Ryan was not a historical documentary. It was a story about a guy (Miller) who justified his actions by concluding that by doing what he did.... and sometimes losing a guy or two, he was saving ten times the number. In comes a new mission and that justification is thrown out the door.
That's what it was about. That's why the other beaches weren't shown.
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While this has proved true, the 4 brother situation was modeled after a real one in WWII... except they were in the Navy I think - but they did get that idea off of a true story and that with the combination of Capt. Miller = a good WWII action movie with a compelling story.
 
Four Sullivan brothers perished on one ship, but there also was a soldier named Niland who was ordered to be evacuated from Normandy because of circumstances very similar to those in the movie. He was a paratrooper who was separated from his unit behind the German lines. There was no rescue mission for Niland. He walked through the American lines and was evacuated.

I think the writers also had the following true story in mind when they wrote the scripts:

...Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, who were part of the first wave at Omaha Beach in WWII. Initially, 103 of them left the small town of Bedford, Va.-now the site of the national D-Day memorial-when the local National Guard was called up in 1940; 34 were still with the company on D-Day. Of these, 19 died in a matter of minutes and three more perished in the Normandy campaign. ....


By telling a story that never happened they were trying to tell a true story of all men who served. I think they accomplished that.
 
Saving Private Ryan was inspired by a story of a soldier in the 506th PIR 101st AB Division. I can't recall the soldier's name, but his brothers had died, he had jumped into Normandy and the guy had recieved his orders to go back to the US. He didn't have many complaints.
It is mentioned in the book Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose. Knowing his tightness with the 506th, it's not unreasonable to believe that Saving Private Ryan was inspired by that one incident.
Obviously Spielberg etc. found that it would make a great premise for a fictional World War II story.
 
Just watched Saving Private Ryan again and don't mind admitting it brought tears to my eyes again. It's pretty accurate as far as I can make out, having never been in that position myself. The events depicted in the movie seem to be accurate although I think there's a little too much antagonism between the platoon members that Tom Hanks has to look after, especially seeing as they're Rangers and not just National Guardsmen. I also think he'd get more than just a single platoon to help him out.

I'm from the UK and I don't see it really as saying that only the US took part in D-Day. It's a story at the end of the day, that accurately depicts what a horrible business war really is. Yet, for how horrible I know war really is, I can't help but be fascinated by it.
 
Antagonism makes for a more interesting movie so far as Hollywood's concerned. Also National Guardsman aren't anymore disposed to it than Rangers. Perhaps even less so given as they come from the same towns and are often childhood friends, brothers and cousins.
 
http://www.sproe.com/n/fritz-niland.html ........this is a good website i found that explains a whole lot bout the movie...like wats fictional and wats true... for example there was no rescue mission done by rangers to rescue a paratrooper... i watched an interview betwwen a senator and Major Winters...
http://www.reppayne.com/index.cfm?SectionID=93&ParentID=0&SectionTypeID=5&SectionTree=93
.... and he talked about how spielberg and hanks came up w/ the idea for spr from 3 sentences in the book Band of Brothers(i believe its in the normandy chapters). this is my very first post and i just wnated to say hi to every1 and ive been studyin WW2 since i was 12. hope this will clear some things up...thanks bye
 
the one bit that ALWAYS gets me with saving private ryan is when the old Ryan turns to his wife and says "have i been a good man"

EVERY time
 
chewie_nz said:
the one bit that ALWAYS gets me with saving private ryan is when the old Ryan turns to his wife and says "have i been a good man"

EVERY time
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When you owe your life to people like Private Ryan did... it must put some enormous pressure on him to live up to the almost unattainable standards set on that day.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
chewie_nz said:
the one bit that ALWAYS gets me with saving private ryan is when the old Ryan turns to his wife and says "have i been a good man"

EVERY time
Click to expand...

When you owe your life to people like Private Ryan did... it must put some enormous pressure on him to live up to the almost unattainable standards set on that day.
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just the power of that simple question....and the way it was delivered...had more impact on me than the rest of the movie. that ryan had lived his life to make up for all the good men that died for him
 
Gosh...

That movie stunned me with brutality of war. I couldn't sleep the first time I saw that movie. I kept feeling the bullets ripping through my skins, knife tearing my flesh, blood oozing out of bullet holes. I was really feeling sick to the point of vomitting.

I felt so grateful for the sacrifices that allied soldiers did for us. It helped me to understand more on wars: the inhumane side of the drummed up glories.

Respect!
 
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