Saving Private Ryan

[Music] Hello and welcome to the National World War II Museum's podcast series, "Service on Celluloid." Each week, our in-house expert sit down with special guests to discuss the pictures of World War II on film. Sit back and get ready for a lively debate that will reveal the good and bad of how Hollywood shows the 20th century's most dramatic event. My name is Seth Paradon, historian and digital content manager here at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana. And as always, we're sitting down with. Dr. Cristele Lafarsha, we're such a historian at the Institute for the Study of War on Democracy. And today, our special guests for the episode are Dr. Martin Loicano, executive director of the Institute for Study of War and Democracy. Very glad to be here. And Kayleigh Martin, historian here at the museum. Thanks for having me. Today we'll be discussing the 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan," directed by Steven Spielberg. This film is set around the Normandy invasion, better known as D-Day, and initially focuses on a company of US Army Rangers set to land on Omaha Beach. Following the landing and the brutal fight to get off the beach, Captain Miller, played by Tom Hanks, is giving command of a hand-picked squad to retrieve the soul-surviving brother of a family of four who is somewhere inland with the scattered airborne drops. And Private Ryan stars Hanks, Tom Saismore, as Sergeant Horvath, Edward Burns, as Ribon, Barry Pepper, as Jackson, and Matt Damon as Private Ryan, among many others. The movie was a tremendous commercial and critical success, nominated for a total of 11 Academy Awards and winning five, including Best Director for Steven Spielberg. So to get our discussion started, our first question that we always ask is, and I'll pose this to you, Cristele, how accurate is "Saving Private Ryan." Well, I will say pretty accurate, especially the first 20 and so minutes, and it's the depiction of the landing on Omaha Beach, specifically the dog-green sections. You know, the bit of fight with the Germans, the very, very, very high casualty that, you know, the first divisions and the Rangers among others experienced. Well, since there's always a couple of details, I've been reading that the being shot by bullet in the water was probably not as likely. You know, there's a lot of physics against that, but altogether I think this is a very impressive first scene. I would agree with that. I think that's easily the most well-known scene in that movie is the first 20 or so minutes, and as you said, it depicts the landing on the dog-green sector of Omaha Beach. That a lot of the details from that scene were taken from a guy that we know here at the me, or we knew here at the museum quite well, Dr. Harold Baumgarten. He wrote a book called "I Witness Omaha Beach," and Spielberg used that as the base for his research for that opening scene. It's a lot of the stuff that you see that, well, they cap and miller sees, that Tom Hanks his character sees in the movie, or some of the things that HAL saw that he related to, like including the guy bending down to pick up his severed arm, and the guy's coming out of the Higgins boat on fire from the flame throw out, when I see him, the flame thrower exploding inside the boat. Those are things that HAL saw. A lot of that stuff is very accurate to his memories, his personal memories, and that's pretty cool in my opinion, anyway. There's a lot of little gist of him, Kelly, can talk about that about, you know, the tanks, just not making it and others. One of the things I thought was interesting is they actually get a mix of units landing on the beach, so they show the naval beach battalions, and a lot of people aren't familiar with that, they're landing. And then the mix of the 29th Infantry Division were the ranger, so I think they did a good job of depicting the mix of units landing, and that's not something you always see. Also the fact that, you know, in that particular section, especially on my habit, the naval gunfire support had just not been very successful, so like the other sections or the other beaches, you know, they arrived and pretty the drummen were pretty much standing and ready to defend very fiercely, and so that was also very well. You know, they picked, of course, this particular section, this particular beach because it hadn't been as successful. Yeah, I think those are really good points. One of the things that's most interesting about it, and I think it's because it's from that man on the ground's perspective, you can't even tell whether it's German incoming or American incoming artillery mortars, there's so much chaos. And I think that it really captures the mood, the experience in such a powerful way, and it doesn't really bother me about that scene that there's little things that are not quite right tactically. You know, the German machine gun nest is up there, that MG42 is just pounding away at a rate that is just not possible for that weapon. It would have melted down in about 60 seconds flat. There's no infantry flanking that position, but none of that takes away from this overall mood and the reality, the panic, the fear, the confusion from that infantryman's point of view, and this is why I've always thought this was really some of the best teaching footage to get people a sense of what combat in the second world war was like on that day. I would agree with that 100%. I think you hit the, you drove home the perfect word chaos, because that's what it is. When those guys land, I mean, nothing goes to plan. I mean, they dropped the ramp of the boat and you know, your first 8, 10 guys in that boat are slaughtered. And they start going over the sides and then guys are drowning. I mean, all these things happen, you know. And then when they get on the beach, all the plans are gone. You know, they're all thrown into the fan. I mean, it's over with you. You're just trying to survive and you're trying to get to that shingle that get, I think one of the lines is, one of the soldiers on the beach asks, "Captain Miller, what do we do now?" Just get the hell off the beach or I don't remember exactly what he says, but something along those lines, what's the rallying point and he says, "Anywhere but here." And I mean, you know, that's very, very true. I agree that there's no way a 42 could have ripped off 5,000 rounds without changing the belt or the barrel of that weapon without it melting down. And then too, you know, it's, I read that Spielberg tried to pick a stretch of beach that looked like Omaha Beach. And I think it's somewhere in Ireland. I don't remember maybe all, one of y'all knows where in Ireland, but it was a beach in Ireland and I think I've been in Normandy, I know you have. It does look like Omaha Beach to a point. The defenses don't. No. And that's one of the big marks strikes for me is that there were no huge concrete. They'd have been, you know, like we were saying, they'd have been targets for 14 inch naval rifles within seconds. And the one problem I had with the beach is that it's not nearly as wide as it actually was. It doesn't really do justice to how far those guys had to go to get to safety or relative safety of the shingle and the clip there, but you understand in a film, you can't have them on the beach for that long. So it's one of the things that you understand, they have to adjust that, but it wasn't nearly as wide. If you've been there at low tide, it's a very long way to go. And I think really it's a good, good moment to talk about the cinematography. I think everybody presses the film for this particular scene and it's very interesting the decision that Spielberg made with his cinematographer, which is going with N-held camera working. Okay, so the sound effect we talked about that are very impressive. I read that they wrapped a dead cow and then put a military uniform and then shot bullet through it to try to get the sound of bodies being impacted, for example. But also I don't know if you noticed the kind of washed up colors. So the user's unfelted lens is really like there's no beautifying Hollywood beautifying of what's happening, which we know plenty of warm movies where it's so beautifully lit and everything looks you know, not the quaff, but everything looks so nice. And here you get this visceral sense, the chaos that we talked about. There's a few things like, you know, they broke one of the cardinal scene of filming, which is making the camera, the presence of the camera way up by having water and blood splashing on the camera, which should have been this big moment of, wait, there's a camera there, you're not in there, but I think it did the exact opposite, like you just, you felt like it was just washing on you. So this is just all those little really attention to details that make this scene just, yeah, you feel like you're in it. And we know of course that it's based on, you know, accounts of survivors. I think it's a very, very impressive scene. At one of the things that Spielberg had said he wanted to do was take the viewer, put the viewer on Omaha Beach. And I think when you say when the camera is splashed with blood and water and sand and whatever else, it does. It puts you there in that moment. I mean, I watched the movie last night. I've seen it, I don't know how many times, a ton of times. And I remember the first time I watched it in the theater, that first 20 minutes, I literally, I didn't realize it till afterwards that I was gripping the side of my chair. I was white knuckling it, the first 20, 27 minutes of that film. And you didn't realize it because it was so intense. And last night I watched it. And again, I've seen it a dozen times at least. And to that first 20 minutes of the movie, I just sat there, transfixed on this sofa watching this again because even on to exactly what's going to happen, it's just very, very, very gripping. One last point, sorry. What's interesting also is that we do have very few, there are a few footage from British film companies, almost non from American. And it's just, it just doesn't give you the same impact. So it's interesting that in order to give a good sense of what the experience side you have to basically stage it. So again, I've been reading about that, what, how you know, the film crews there were there were asked, you know, do not have handheld and everything needs to be static, which then turns the whole experience into this, into a film and spill back when the other way. So it's interesting you have to add the extra artifice, artifice, in order to create a real, the impression of a real experience. But yeah, beautiful, magnificent scene really. Excuse me. Now let's move on to the rest of the movie. Well, I think that two movies really, there's this opening one, part A, which is should, you know, just, I agree and I think, you know, people here at the stable sometimes just film to teach and will never, ever use the entire film. And we just, just this first one and then that's it. And the rest we are falling into tropes of, um, yes, it's pretty much that. And it's, it's really too bad. It is, but I like the pivot. I like the pivot where the guys get up on the top of the hill and they are not archetypical heroes. They're gunning down Germans who are surrendering. I mean, and I don't think it's shot or it's portrayed in a judgment away. I think it's a really powerful piece that their experience on that beach was so overwhelming and so profound and just essentially had them in such shock that they're not thinking about anything other than killing the people who've been killing them and their friends and that that's such a powerful transition scene. I think, and I agree it gets a little bit oversimplified from that point, but I really like that piece immediately after the beaches has recognizing that even these decent men did awful things in the wake of that experience because it just goes beyond any ability to process or deal with it anyway at that time. That's a perfect segue into something we need to talk about is the depictions of the Germans in this film and I think, I mean, that's one of the scenes that really sticks out to me as far as I know and I could be wrong, but I've seen a lot of World War II movies. I think that's the first movie that ever showed in American shooting a surrendering soldier in cold blood. I mean, they just blasted those guys right there and didn't care. I mean, that's war. We've talked about this before on different things, but that's what war is. It brings out the absolute worst in humanity every single time. I applaud Spielberg for showing that because everybody thinks that Grandpa was a hero and while he may have been, but Grandpa was a killer. That's how we won the war and that's how wars are fought. It showed that I think that a lot of times the Americans weren't really much different. Maybe I'll get some flak for this, but the American soldiers really weren't much different than the German soldiers that were defending that beach. They were there to do a job. The survival. Yeah, and survive and protect your buddy to the left and to the right of you. That's it. They weren't fighting for apple pie and mom. So again, I'm getting kind of off track, but what do you think about the depictions of the Germans in here? I mean, I felt they are kind of downplayed in a way. You really, you don't see a lot of them. You see in the opening scenes once they get on the beach, once they get up the hill, and then when they run into steamboat Welley at the radar station, but you don't get a lot of up close and personal interaction with the Germans. They are kind of a distant enemy, I would say. And I thought that was interesting, but that's kind of how a lot of the fighting was. This is one of the times that you're not marching neatly in a line face to face. It's not like trench warfare. You're going over the top and you're facing this line of enemy. You're somewhere upon them. You may not see them. You come around a corner and there they are. Yeah, I agree. One thing that really, I think a few of us on the table speak German. I was really, really disappointed that they did not translate the German, although I understand because this was the experience of the soldiers. So you encounter or wherever and there's screaming at you and you don't know what they're saying. There's right when they come up the top, there's actually two soldiers that raise their hand and they check soldiers. The language is different. It's not German. This is Czech and I say, you know, so they say in Czech, they say, you know, I haven't shot anybody. I'm not German. I'm Czech. I'm Czech. And then they just move down. And the soldiers are laughing about that, which again, I'm not criticizing them for that. So I'm torn. I understand the thinking behind this is the experience of those American soldiers who did not speak German. So the sound came to them that way, this kind of girl-or-old typical Germans, which I think just, you know, the scene when the wall fell off, this just a screaming match is this so cliché German. The German is, you know, the barking sound. The German has this ordering, you know, hiles, you know. But I think, you know, they could have the scene where I wish they had found a way in terms of script to give us a translation is, you know, the close encounter with Mellish. I think where, you know, they go from fighting with weapons to hand-to-hand to drawing the knife and then slowly putting in his heart. And I think it's such an intimate moment. And what the German is saying is, you know, just don't fight it off. It will make it easier if you don't fight off. And it's, there's this weird, I don't know, there's this weird closeness in him trying to do that. And then the sound of his voice is actually very soft in that moment. I'm not saying he's being a nice guy because of course he's, but I wish, I don't know, I had some issue with the lack of translation. For American audience. I don't know what you guys say. You know, I agree, because I studied Germans, I understand what he's saying. And I think that's part of the reason that scene is hands down the hardest for me to watch. I could watch the first 20, 30 minutes over and over. I hate watching that scene. And I think because it is so intimate. And on the beach it's impersonal. This guy is shooting at you from, you know, 100 yards, 200, 300 yards away. You don't see him. And there's something so intimate and so personal about that scene. And I agree that if you understand what the German is saying to him, it just makes it that much more shocking or just difficult to watch. And I agree, I think you lose a lot if you don't understand what the German is saying to Mala, at that point. And I have to say, quick criticism here. Of all the team member that's really, really, I could have picked. Of course, he picked Melaich, who is a Jewish soldier, who is being stabbed in the heart by a German. It's just like. In the SS. Yes. It's like, I don't know. I think this is one of the moments that is so manipulative in terms of like loading tons of symbolism and meaning onto one thing that I'm just saying, this is just too much. Just don't do that. And would you extend that metaphor all the way though to the inaction of the companion soldier who just refuses to intervene? Of him? Okay, I realize what's fear. We need to talk about him. Definitely. We're going to get to help him. But I thought that the depiction of the Germans in this movie was cardboard. Yeah. They were mindless robots. And they weren't. I knew German veterans and they weren't mindless robots. And it was your stereotypical portrayal of the German soldier. It was just this. And the castings. They're Nazis. No, they're not the Germans. The castings, the castings. I mean, most of them in close up looked like this big guy, strong figures. You know, Aryan type. And I was like, soft heads. Everyone had a shaped head. Yeah, a lot of them. Yeah. Which is a bunch of belonging. Yes, exactly. And it's like, yes, again. So I don't know if he was, Spielberg was shooting for this is the perception. You in the middle of fighting and you have do is in whatever they look scary. So you project whatever went to them. But yeah, I think it's too bad that he had an opportunity here to kind of fine tune a love at the pictures of German and he didn't. Well, does this movie, it sounds like a closing question, but it certainly is not. But does this movie portray the war as it should be portrayed? And I'll answer that one because that was my question is, yes. I think it does. The first 20, well, parts of it. Yeah. Let me, let me be abundantly clear. The first 20 minutes of the movie, the Omaha Beach scene. Yes. It's a lot of us extreme violence, flesh tearing, bone shattering, visceral nightmare. Yeah. That is how war should be portrayed. And then there's other instances in the movie that are just, you scratch your head and you go, come on. I mean, nobody would have done that. Like when they go into the town and Caparzo, you know, Disso Bay is Captain Miller's orders to get the little girl because it quote reminds him of his niece, unquote, yet he's standing in the middle of an open street where there's no one to be snipers and he takes one through the chest. I mean, any well-trained, I'm not saying that there's a momentary lapse of discipline or a momentary lapse of judgment, sure. But I mean, come on. Yeah. You know, there's things, it's like Jesus, God. There's no way that would have especially with an elite unit like the Rangers. Yeah. They're elite. And as far as we know, they're all seasoned. This isn't their first combat. So you're radical anyway. Yeah. So in past, you know, it had been to these collecting the sand. The sand. It was in North Africa, Sicily, Italy. Yeah. Now they made it. It survived Normandy. Yeah, they would not have some working space for sure. It's just some of that stuff is really goofy. But then again, you talk about the combat scenes like the mellusk scene or the even the scene where I don't think he has an name, but the pair trooper who tries to stick the ID for lack of a better term on the wheel of the tiger. And he just boom. He's blowing up right then and there. When they turn that 20 millimeter flack on those troopers who are trying to get inside that tank and heads come off. And arms are being blown. Yeah, that's what a weapon that size would do to a human body. But at the same time, talking about ridiculous things, one of the things when I watch out is why are there eight guys on that tank? Right. Eight guys exposed. Right. So it's like, you do these great things that are, you know, very realistic and then you do things that just like you said, they're hair scratchers. Why do you have eight guys on that tank exposing themselves? And you have this juxtaposition of like, you just say, guys getting blown apart, but the Captain Miller character can take about 15 bullets and still have a very significant conversation with Private Ryan before he cacks out. Right. I mean, it just sort of like, your actor billing depends on how long it's going to take you to die. And that was kind of an unfortunate device in a movie that otherwise. I mean, I would have liked to have seen somebody with a big name just boom gone. It doesn't happen. I mean, you fall into stereotypes when you're an important part of the story. They surrender so much of that reality to enable the narrative that it sometimes it really hurts. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot of inaccuracies in this movie. And as far as the accuracy is concerned, again, I think most of the combat scenes are in my opinion, anywhere very accurate. But then there's a lot of inaccuracies as well. And we'll get to that in a minute. But, uh, Chris Stella, you mentioned Corporal Upperm. Yes. Let's talk about him. Spielberg said that he most closely identified with Corporal Upperm, which I don't think that's necessarily a good thing to say, frankly, but that's just my opinion. I don't know. For me, it's, um, it's a very, um, it's a very, it's a negative character. And I think in the sense of also piles up a lot of cliches about the, um, the meek intellectual. He's obviously, you know, an intellectual. He speaks different language. He likes, he likes, he likes French music. And what does he end up doing? He's, you know, he's frozen by war. So on one hand, yes, you could plot Spielberg for showing soldiers that have these six bands, which of course happen. But on the other end, the way he sets it up is that this is not a trained soldier. He has, he just did basic training, never shot a rifle. So you almost expect him to do that. And he piled on him. He piled so many cliches, you know. Upperm has his idolized version of the war that he only knows through books and movies. And he say, oh, this is about forging bonds of brotherhood. And they're like, real guy. They have the experiences, of course, laugh and make fun of him and try to. And then again, the fact that he's identified with somebody who reads books, somebody who is an intellectual. And then you put those guys in the war and looks what happened, which then you have that balance with Miller, who is also, you could argue, is an intellectual because he's an English teacher. But then I don't know. I was very unhappy with Abham. And I applaud the depiction of him as being completely frozen, unable to do anything. And the randomness, of course, he's one of the survivor. I don't know. The character did not make a lot of sense to me. No, I agree. And we just talked about how this is second-rangeers. These are extremely experienced guys with several campaign ribbons. Captain Miller sees this guy as a bumbling idiot, dropping his helmet, dropping his type. One can bring his typewriter and still makes the decision to bring him along anyway, instead of seeking an alternative. So I mean, it's almost a forced necessity. A seasoned commanding officer would have seen that and been like, "No, what, nothing, we'll be alright without you." There's an interesting transition in the character, though, for good or bad. And you see that at the end when he sees steamboat Willie. And it's kind of like he has this change in him. And you almost wonder, what would he be like after that? I mean, was that his breaking point that now he's going to be able to stand up and fight? Or was that just a moment of weakness? That's one of the things I was always interested in, for all his don't kill him when they're at the radar station. And then suddenly he doesn't mind dropping him right there. I see. He let all the other one go. Yeah. Well, you only had seven shots left and then one. But he repeatedly, you know, like when the brick wall fell and then covered the drum. And what he's shooting in German is, don't shoot, don't shoot, you know, let put your weapon down. So he's consistently the one that advocates for not shooting prisoner and finding a different resolution than, you know, through killing. And then you make him kill one guy. But then he let the other one go. And then in the end, he survived because what is Spielberg saying, this is the kind of guy we want to lead? No, no, not all the other one I did. I don't know. I was very. And that final scene where he was that German prisoner or steamboat Willie or whatever his name is, is a bunch of Bologna as well. I mean, he's surrounded by. Surrounded by. Eight or nine, often assess, including if you look at night's cross recipient. So I mean, come on. Those guys would have kicked his ass up and down the street. And that's just, it's horrible. I up him is despicable. And the physicality of it too, of course, they took Jeremy Davis, he says, the name of the actor, you know, who is very skinny. So again, he doesn't fit any of the typical image of a soldier. And then he's piled down all this characteristic of a non-soldier, you know, again, and intellectual. I think it's a very negative depiction. There's not a good thing about him. Even the debate when they argue about, you know, this is, we shouldn't kill him, we don't kill prisoner. He's not even, he's not making a convincing argument. He's not even winning this argument in the interaction when they had the radar. So it's like, he's ineffective. You could argue, you know, he's part of the reason why Melis dies. He survives. He is the reason that Melis dies, yeah. And it's like, I mean, even the German coming down, just like, you're not even worth it. Yeah, and that's what I was going to say. Here's the same guy who had to eliminate Melis, and he walks down, looks right at him, and he's like, I'm not even going to bother with him. He keeps on trucking. You can say that in a different way. I agree completely with what you guys say. He's just almost despicable. But it can be sort of seen as a symbol for the fact of the randomness going back to that first scene of who survives, who gets blown apart, who doesn't. You have this capable, amazing soldier, you know, Captain Miller, Sergeant Horvath, and then they don't make it. And yet this guy, who for no reason should make it does. And I think you can say that a way of thinking of that is, it's that chaos again. There's no predictability. Nothing can protect you from the war. You may live. You may not. And he goes to that conversation that he and Miller are having in the church, and he's trying to figure out what Miller's background. And he says, you know, what's the pool up to? And he says, last I heard about 300. They go back and forth, and he says, well, I'll give you the answer when it gets the 500, and we'll split the money. And then up him says, well, why don't we, is my duty under your command? Why don't we wait till it gets a thousand? And Miller says, well, what if we don't live that long? He says, 500 is good. That's a good. That's kind of a little shot there. But what about the impact on veterans and the American public that this movie had? In my opinion, it was profound. It was, it was, I mean, this was the first big blackbuster World War II movie in a long time. And this movie was made in '98. I can't even really think of a bigger one that had come out in the 10 years previous. I mean, if I'm missing one, somebody shouted out, but I don't even recall. And it came out on the heels of Ambrose's D-Day, which I think came out in '94, if I remember correctly. So this is four years later. So it's not terribly long after. And America's interest in World War II was picking back up because Grandpa's getting older, Grandpa's dying now. And not coincidentally, this museum was founded a couple years later. But it, it, I think the, the impact that this movie had on American veterans, or veterans period. And then the American public was, was, was great and that it, it brought about the interest in the Second World War again. What do you all think? Oh, absolutely. I mean, was it two, three years later, you have band of brothers and HBO's sunk millions into a mini series that we, we still, people still watch today, is still very, very popular today. And I remember, I was younger when the film came out. I remember hearing all about it. I mean, you heard it everywhere, you heard reactions. And even as someone who wouldn't have gone to see it in the theaters, I, I, I was aware of it. And I think it definitely had a major impact. You do hear a lot of veterans say, well, you know, after this, I kind of felt like I could tell my story. And I think that, in a way to the way they portrayed Ryan at the beginning, clearly, well, you see it at the end, actually. His family doesn't know the story. And so I think a lot of veterans could identify with that. Oh, well, I haven't told my family either, and that's okay. And I think that the way they set that up, having him there with his family, it was a very identifiable situation and for the veterans and for the families. Oh, you know, grandpa or dad might have a story like, doesn't, it's incredible that I've never heard. I agree 100%. I think the opening, the prologue and the appellogue of the movie is sappy. Yeah. It is. It's sappy. It's, you know, when I saw it for the first time, I didn't know too many World War II vendors. I saw it in the theater numerous times. And it grabbed me then. But as I've gotten older and especially after having worked here for as long as I have, you recognize it as being pretty mom and apple pie. Very sappy, very yay, you know, yay great. It's amazing. It's amazing. Yeah, it's melodramatic. Yeah. It's melodrama. But what you just said is that, you know, it was very evident that his family had no clue what that man had gone through. And that I think is a very, I didn't really think about it until you just said that. But that is a very, very accurate statement from, I can't tell you how many times I heard people tell me after they told me, I never told anybody that. And this is 70 years after the fact. So it was, I almost want to say that movie was kind of cathartic to a lot of veterans is that it was okay to talk about your nightmares that you'd had, you know, covered for at that point 60 years. And in that respect, yeah, while the opening and ending is sappy and, you know, playing the world's smallest violin kind of a thing. But it did some good. I really did. I really think it did some good. And for this movie in particular, I think it's actually a good scene I really do. But that's just my opinion. That's guys, for me, this is really part of an national conversation. The film was more than just a film. You talked about the 80s. The 80s was the decade of the Vietnam movie. And the veteran was depicted as broken and damaged and suffering. And we didn't talk about World War II because we did talk about Vietnam. And you really couldn't get into the war. The Second World War is a real war with suffering and trauma. And because it was meant to be the opposite of Vietnam, it was good. We won. Our guys came home and built a country. And I feel that in a sense of how people talk politically and otherwise, like it is a really big part of our national political discussion. That's how this film is so important. It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate. It can work from stereotypes and still achieve that. That, hey, even the Good War is horrible in a thousand ways. And those men are broken in a thousand ways because we had to extend our gratitude to them. And I think that's been a good thing for the country ever since. I would agree with him. That's very well said. What about your perspective? I would agree to, with Martin, especially the paying respect or gratitude to the soldiers that fought the men and women that fought during that war. And coming at that particular time, I would agree. I think the trauma of the Vietnam War, you know, finally was replaced with the last Good War that the US had. I had a question, though, for that table of esteemed historians. Spielberg had said that he used, you know, the true story of Ryan Slash-Nellen as the kernel of truth around which he did a morality play. So what's the moral of the movie? Something I've been thinking a lot about. War is bad. Well, that's a thing. I mean, is it an anti-war movie? I mean, does he manage to be almost a manageable of doing a movie that is anti-war in the sense of showing the senselessness and futility of war? And at the same time, he manages to contribute to the soldier. I think it's a tribute film. I don't think it's necessarily an anti-war film. I mean, if it's done right, if it's shown-- if war is shown for what it really is-- and it is in this movie, you know, I think, yeah. In that respect, yeah, to that point, it's an anti-war film. But I think it's a tribute film. I really do. His dad was a World War II veteran. Steven Spielberg, Arnold Spielberg, was a CBI veteran. And he made no bones about, you know, his dad was his hero, and his dad now passed away. But his dad was his hero, and his dad influenced-- and his father's experiences in China, Burma, India, theater influenced a lot of his life-- Steven Spielberg. And I think it was a tribute-- and I don't want to say a thank you-- but it was a tribute film to the World War II veterans, because they were, and obviously now still are, dying off at a rapid rate. And it was kind of a salute to them. And to that point, what we were talking about earlier, it did good. And then it-- like you were saying, Martin, it did good that it brought about this pouring out of emotion, not just from the veteran, but from the American public as well. Kids-- young kids at that time, now adults now, took an interest in the subject. And it brought about this hero worship of World War II veterans, which is good and bad, by the way. But that's another discussion for another day. But I think for all intents and purposes, it had a very positive effect on American public, any American veterans, and that respect it's good. It's very good. But-- you got-- God. It doesn't say maybe if you have to put kind of a moral or a message, maybe it goes back to Martin's point, it's kind of saying they suffered too. So everyone's thinking about the suffering of the Vietnam veterans, and it's the way of saying these guys have been suffering too. Don't forget about their suffering. They may have come home, gone on about their lives, and may have never told you about this. But they've been suffering in silence and in secrecy for decades. And it's kind of a-- we need to be aware of this. Understand the price of far political decisions and actions, and that even a good war comes in a terrible price. I think that's something for people that vote for a living in this country to think about. Again, very well said. So this movie is-- we have dubbed it "SPR." It uses many tropes of classic World War II films. And we kind of talked about this a little bit throughout this discussion. But does it manage to still be unique among World War II films? And I'll answer, but I'll give somebody else a chance to answer first. Does it still manage to be unique? I think because it was the first of its kind, it does. I think if it were made today, after some of the movies we've seen since, someone was like Fury that are very-- Much-- In depth-- yeah, it wouldn't be so unique, but I think it will always stand out because it was really the first of this new genre of World War II and of war films. Well, what was unique? I mean, do you mean the hyper-- The depiction of violence. The hyper-realistic depiction of violence in the opening scene? I think so, yeah. Because the difference is if you watch Kelly's Heroes, it very much feels like a '70s, hippie movie. You know, they're like, oh, whoa, dude, we're fighting the Germans. And it's this very unrealistic depiction of the time. And there's something about Savin Povert Ryan watching it again. It's for one thing, it doesn't feel dated. To me, you watch a lot of these films from the '70s, and they're very dated. They're very evident when they were made. Savin Povert Ryan looks like it could have been made five years ago and not 20 years ago. And I think that it just-- it hits on-- it was different because for one thing, it was the details. The accuracy in a lot of the details and the gear, and it looks right and it feels right. And I think that that's what set it apart and set the bar for other war films, is that it's this kind of weird detail accuracy that is there, actually. It's surprisingly there. There's some surprising details that they nail. But it just really set the stage that if you watch any of these other ones, they've got a lot-- they kind of live up, try to live up to that level. Especially, you know, one other thing I just-- here, you're talking the fact that death is chaotic. It's also slow and painful. A lot of previous movies, you know, you were shot, you died, it was it. But here, you just-- you see the interstine being out. You see-- you hear soldiers crying for their mother. And just so you get-- I think, again, a more realistic depiction of death. Also, a death that is not immediately revengeed a lot of war or two movies, you know. We attacked, we die, and we come back, and we eliminate the enemy. And he gets like, well, no, it doesn't work like that. Sometimes it's random, and sometimes, you know. It's going to take us as we know, take over a year, you know, to really win in the war. So yeah, I agree. It was war and all this glory. Well, we talked about, of course, the opening question for every podcast is how accurate is it? We kind of discussed what we didn't kind of. We discussed in detail the first 20 minutes of the movie. But the rest of the movie, as far as accuracy is concerned, both historical and tactical, strategic, whatever you want to say is grossly inaccurate. And we said, I said, it's Cowboys and Indians. And it is. I mean, it really is. The P-51s come in at the last minute, like the cavalry. Yeah. Saving the beleaguered settlers. This trope of having the medley crew with like every-- raised a unique thing. This goes back to 1941. I think one of the 42, one of the first movie in the bomber I forgot was the same thing. A New Yorker, a Jew, an Italian, you know. So we have all the thing and then they complain and they fight and they question the decisions but in the end, you know, they get cemented and fill the mission. The great melting pot. The other boy, we have a southern boy who's of course a world class marksman. And he's a Bible quarter to the entire movie. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it's it's stereotypical backwards southern country boy. And Ryan is from Iowa which is the, you know, the hard land of America. So this is this is such a trope how you put his team together. It was just some of the other inaccuracies. Kaley. Well, I would say geographically the film's a nightmare. If you're looking at the geographic makeup of the Normandy landings, you're not going to necessarily send guys from Omaha Beach to look for airborne behind Utah Beach, especially once they get to the murder at River, you're very, very deep behind Utah Beach. And so with, in that sense, it makes no sense. Like in that regard, it's just absolutely like this why we talked about the defenses on Omaha Beach. You know, I've been to Omaha. I think we've all been Omaha. There's nothing. Now anywhere near that size on Omaha Beach, dog green sector at Viraville that, you know, the bunkers are still to this day. Well camouflaged up in the, up in the bluffs and along through the draw and everything else like that. And there were no huge concrete monstrosities that, you know, that were directly facing the sea and all this other baloney. But something that really stood out to me and I know they tried to correct it and beyond, and beyond. I'm not just put to abandon brothers and the Pacific was the age of the people in this movie. Yeah. You know, Paul Jumeid, we talked about. He's a sergeant. He's a paratrooper. And that guy does not look like a paratrooper. No. And then Ted Danson, who was 51 when they made that movie, 51. Yeah. I mean, come on. Gavin was only 47. Something like that. And it was a kernel at that time. But then, you know, I mean, I know you're chomping at the bit. Yeah. No, more about the next. No, it's just it's one of the things that's kind of crazy to me as you watch it. And there's these weird details on weird random things that they get right. And then they've just missed these big points. One of my biggest annoyances with this film is I think everyone who has heard me talk about it knows is they mess up the challenge words for the day. I mean, that to me is one of the things that from the first time I saw it, I was like, wait, that's wrong. So the challenge was flash and the response was thunder and they get that backwards throughout the entire movie. And it's just one of those weird things that for some reasons, like, you get these weird details right. Paratroopers taking pockets off their jump jackets and sewing them onto their sleeves. They did that. But then you miss these things like that. It's kind of a random bit, but they get. Sorry. I like the fact that they talk about the scattered, you know, airborne troops and the glider. I just finished a work on the glider infantry regiment and the danger, the very high chances of crashing and how it's depicted. I thought that was kind of insightful and well done. Yeah, they'll get that right and then we'll put snipers and bell towers. Yeah, and leave them there. Yeah, the glider scene is very well depicted. And if you notice, there's the sparigus and the barbed wire strung between the details there. And that's, yeah, I think what makes some of the errors more egregious as you've got some of these details in these scenes. So beautifully set up. And then you do something like have a 51 year old and listed. Well, that and the history from, you know, they had the 101st airborne. I mean, I know it's a fictional town and blah, blah, blah, but they got the 101st airborne holding the bridges over the mid array. Yeah, there wasn't that was the 82nd at Chef DuPont and Wade Fort Lafayette. Yeah. So it wasn't, it wasn't the 101 at all. And it's depicted like that in the movie and it, and you know, to a point, I think that's again, God bless them, but that's given a sort of a heroic God-like status to the 101st airborne division, which not saying that they don't deserve all the recognition that they get, but a lot of people forget the all Americans and they fought longer than the 101 did. And the 82nd, you know, I mean, good God from North Africa to the end of the war. And they're completely ignored in this movie. Completely ignored. Orps says they're dead guys. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's whatever, but, but the main enemy for Miller, not obviously not on the beach is the Sherman Army, but it's the second SS Panzer once they move inland. And the second SS didn't get there until what late July, early August. And they fought the Second Armored Division. They didn't fight in the range. Yeah. It's after the German change. You come in. Right. Yeah. I mean, the second SS was nowhere near, but they had to get the SS in there because they're bad. Yeah. They mean, or, you know, or they're dumb. They're just like us. They're just like, they drive their tanks in with no cover. Next thing I'm going to like, it's like, here, let me just drive my tank and it's like, blitzkrieg tactics man. You didn't send the tanks down the middle of the damn road inside of a town that you had no intelligence for that you didn't know that anybody was there. And by the way, sorry, 15 guys can hold up three tanks in a small battalion of off in a SS Panzer Grenadier. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. Those guys would have rolled through them, like Patent said, like crap through a goose. They didn't go through that town so quick that it would not have even, they wouldn't have been a road. They wouldn't have been a speed bump in the road. And there's also this weird thing where when they gather the left over soldiers and make a plan. It's unclear how many they are here with Ryan. It looks like there's like a handful and then when the Germans are coming, it looks like they've waved more of them. I don't know where they came from. Extras. Yeah. The numbers, the numbers seem to be shifting. I was like, wait, they were like, I don't know, it doesn't. And now it looks like this way. A lot of you running around. So yeah. One of the things that's going back to these Hollywood tropes about war or two films, it's something, again, it's a little detail that's always find interesting that Hollywood gets wrong is a dog tags. You don't remove a dog tag from a body. And so this whole scene where they're going through this bag of dog tags is totally unrealistic. And it's something that you see though in every Hollywood movie. They always do that. And it's just one of those weird things to talk about. These cliches that they pick up. That was a big cliche that goes all throughout the film. And it's, I guess, unsurprising to see there. Yeah. That's that one scene where I forget, I think it's Robin holds up that one dog tag and it's got the bullet hole right through it. And as a remark, Jesus, look at this poor bastard. It's very, very, very true. Well, I mean, we could, there's a lot of inaccuracies in it, but there's a lot of inaccuracies as well. The minute that's with any movie, there's we've discussed before. There's no, I don't think there's any perfect World War II movie or any war movie for them. World War II or otherwise. But the ultimate question is, did you like it? And would you recommend it? Martin will start with you. I have to qualify this. It kind of depends on who I'm recommending it to. If you're talking about the community of military historians, then we're going to go as crazy as all of us did watching. This film, but if it's somebody that any general audience that you say to them, I genuinely want you to understand fundamental basic and important things about war. Don't get caught up in the story. I just want you to see this visually, viscerally understand this intensity, understand the potency that the of every event in war that is just beyond the real experience that these people have to go through and understand, especially in this country, that you're the one that put them there. For me, I'm willing to trade off inaccuracies and recommend this film to anybody that's never seen it because I think anybody that's a citizen should understand what we do even when we have to. Even when the cause is so clearly just and right and proper, that's what I loved about it as a teaching tool and just as sort of a way to inform our citizenry of the price, even of just victory. Okay, I agree a lot with all your saying. I think it does depend on the audience, but I think we can also ask a question, "Do the inaccuracies kind of touched on this? Does it really matter as long as people get that understanding?" And they understand what war is like that. I think especially for these younger generations that are involved, like still caught up in these video games, and it's just this kind of fake world, that if this is something they can show those young people, like this is a brutal gruesome thing. It's not just a video game, it's not just stories and a book that you can overlook those inaccuracies, but I think it's something that I think people should watch. I think they should watch to understand what these young men went through and maybe better understand Grandpa, you know why he was the way he was. And I think that's something that everybody, I think most people should see it. I will totally agree. Yes, I think regardless of his story called inaccuracy or weakness in the script, I think it's a seminal movie. Because of its effort to render the experience of the everyday soldiers, I think we talked about a previous movie that dealt with leadership. I think those movies like Private Ryan, where we had on the grounds with the privates and others, I think is important. So yes. Yeah, I agree. I would I recommend like you Martin, what I recommended to, you know, professional historians know, but what I recommended in terms of seeing it and getting an education. Yes, absolutely. And I don't think Spielberg tried to make a history film. I do think I will say this though, I do think the first 20 minutes he did. And for better or worse, I think he scored. I think he did accomplish that goal. He showed and has been topped and it probably never will be the goryness and gruesomeness of dog green sector of Omaha Beach. And that, you know, having known people that were there, I would say that that is right. But that wasn't the total purpose of the movie. I think the total purpose of the movie was to, as I said, was a tribute film. And I think people should see it. You know, I debated heavily my son, I have a nine year old son and he's totally into World War II history having, you know, yeah, really I know shocker there. But a little gentle pushing from his father, but he's into it. And genuinely, and I told my wife, I said, I want him to watch this with me. And I could see it in her eyes. I don't know. And I did relent and I did not show it to him because he is only nine. But I want him to understand that war is not a little green army soldiers, running around to kitchen floor. And yeah, the ships are really cool looking and you know, the guns make a big boom and all that and the planes are really sexy. But people die and it's a nasty horrible thing. And I think maybe nine might be a little bit too young, but not too much younger. I'll be honest, which is not too much younger. I want him to get it in his head real quick. But yeah, I'd absolutely recommend this is anybody who hasn't seen it. And I don't think there are too many people who haven't, frankly, but this is a fantastic movie. It really is. And sum it up in one sentence for me if you can. After a first must see 20 minutes, the film falls back to generic tropes and finish as a typical spell back film, emotionally manipulative and with overbearing pathos. Wow. What did you just call it a great step in the right direction of depicting war as it is? I see it's a film that changed all war films. I agree. I think it's I think it's a must see and sum it up in one sentence. I don't think I really can. It's just something that you have to see. And while it is a Cowboys and Indians movie and it is, you got to see it. And it's just it's a damn good movie. It really is. It's a really good movie. So I think the first part. Well, I mean, it has it has it's good points throughout the movie. It really does. You know, we were talking in another podcast about lack of character development. There's a lot of character development in this film. You know, I mean, from the conversations with the medic, wait, and you know, talking about his mom and and and and and then private Ryan talking about his mom and his brothers and you know, the famous story of falling out of the ugly tree and hitting every branch down and you know, all this stuff. There's a lot of character development. It's a good move. He really is. But I guess that'll do it for this week. And I want to thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to hear more about the events we discussed today, listen to our mini episode next week. We will share oral history from those who are there. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at service on celluloid. Be sure to write and review us on iTunes if you like what you hear. I'd like to thank everyone who made the podcast possible, our producer, Tessa Jager and our sound engineer, Jeremy Burson. This has been a production of the National World War II. [Music] (upbeat music)