Saving Private Ryan Deconstructed

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

1945. Omaha Beach and the Allied Forces storm the beaches of Normandy. Saving Private Ryan opens with a 30-minute war scene, that is without doubt, one of the finest half-hour scenes in film. On one of the landing vehicles is Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks), a school teacher in vocation, who’s right hand shakes occasionally. The D-Day invasion of Normandy is gnarled with blood, mud, vomit, noise, and gore images. The camera movement Spielberg adopts has no motive or direction, as that’s the purpose of his style, serving chaos and brutality in depths.

After fighting the battle on D-day, Capt John Miller is assigned another mission. To recruit a group, and rescue a paratrooper by the name of Private James Ryan, who has lost all three of his brothers in the same war. It is one of the simplest themes Spielberg has worked on, as in his early works in Duel (1971) and Jaws (1975). But also, where he suffocates layers of war terrors with gritty reality, and suffuse emotions of plain complexity.  John Miller assembles eight soldiers, risking their lives to save one. The film raises a question, “When is one life important than another?” which never really is answered. The eight men can do the math for themselves. “This Ryan better be worth it?” one of the men grumbles.

Corporal Upham

Capt. John Miller leads the eight men across the French countryside, where morality is questioned in the wake of this mission. Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies) somehow reflects us of John Miller, in terms of uneasiness portrayed with macho heroics. His voice is fainted by seven others. In contrast, Sergeant Mike Horvath (Tom Sizemore) portrays a man-on-action figure. The drama revolves around men who are lost, and just want to go home. Spielberg drenches the first act with mindless action, and uncovers layers of characters across second act of the film. The film’s cinematography is undoubtedly brilliant. It transports you right back to the taste, smell and fear of war. The bleak-quality image stays throughout  the scenes. The cinematographer (Janusz Kaminski), has always experimented with over-exposed brightness in many of Spielberg’s film with tad stroke. And here, he drapes that quality again, melting with the synchronous sound used, just to produce unforgettable frames. The music subtly embraces the emotion of Capt. John Miller, whose past is muddled with horrors of war. He doubts his wife will ever recognize him. On the verge of breakdown, all he does is follow orders that might lead him home. It takes someone like John Miller to poise the temperament he brings. Another interesting character here is Corporal Upham, a brilliant German and French translator. He has no combat experience, and wages fear at the heart of the mission. We see his fear, and relate with it. Through the course of the mission, his ideals are twisted, and perspective is broadened.

Reaching at the town of Ramelle, their objective exhausts with the finding of Private Ryan, a young soldier of American ideals. At first, he renounces the thought of leaving his fellow soldiers at the outbreak of German foothold. His reaction doesn’t go well with the remaining men of mission. Some died through the journey. Private Ryan loosens his hold after sensing their anger and loss. Miller and his men face another attack from Nazi tanks and soldiers. The key line comes at the very end, when Miller, dying, looks into the eyes of Private Ryan and says, “Angels on our shoulders.” Two American planes roar overhead.


With Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg reminds the values of human strife. The notion of patriotism is well observed. That link is established between the past and the present. Capt. John Miller never loses his hope to get home, and in a way, elegantly transpires Private Ryan his Life!! I’d like to point out one extraordinary scene when Private Ryan’s mother is about to be informed of her three son’s deaths. Spielberg pulls focus from Mrs. Ryan’s eyes on the net curtain to the approaching car shown in the reflection. Such imagery encapsulates themes of family and loss. At the farm, Spielberg conveniently avoids showing the teary-faced Mrs. Ryan. To fill this important element, Spielberg shows the silhouette of Mrs. Ryan dropping on the porch, as the information is passed. She represents every mother. Mrs. Ryan is not made that specific. Every mother’s quotient can fill that same shadow of loss. Saving Private Ryan, to me, is more of a somber-felt movie, than action. Its emotions are played through wonderful sequences of grim choreography. You feel for every character, for the sadness of John Miller, through the closing scene of Private Ryan, weeping at Miller’s grave. 

5/5