Critical Analysis of Saving Private Ryanl - Movie Review Example

Critical movie review: Saving Private Ryan number The movie Saving Private Ryan was released in 1998 by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg. This movie is aimed at recreating the events of World War II during the invasion of Normandy. This film accurately depicts the battle scene particularly in the Omaha landings scene. This scene was voted by Empire magazine as the scene with the best portrayal of the battle. The sea sickness experienced by most soldiers as they landed in the shoreline remarkably closely represents the actual historical events that may have transpired during the war.

Also, twelve actual World War II landing crafts were used in the movie. However, the German armored vehicles used in World War II were much harder to depict as very few exist in operating condition.1 The movie counters images of warriors portraying heroism by disclosing the real horror of combat and is in a lot of ways an antiwar story. Although this film depicts war brutality, it preserves the American soldiers’ likeness in World War II as being naturally reluctant to cruelty and bloodshed.

The argument presented by this story would have been well reciprocated by a 1940s audience since an American soldier was seen to be patriotic. Further, a family man who went to the battle field was viewed as serving his obligation to both his country and family. In this view, it is in order to conclude that the film’s depiction of the actual happenings of the historical event was quite accurate.2  However, this film is portrayed not as a 1940s production, but as a late 20th century production owing to Spielberg’s emphasis on heroism by an individual at the expense of the democratic community.

In the 1940s, the realization of democracy rested on a sagacity of reciprocity of individuals and institutions largely governing their lives. Spielberg’s story of moral men represents to a great extent the concern of the late twentieth century with the singular person in the past, present, and future.3 Bibliography Alpers, Benjamin L "This Is the Army: Imagining a Democratic Military in World War II," Journal of American History 85 (June 1998): 129–63. Basinger, Jeanine. "Translating War: The Combat Film Genre and Saving Private Ryan," Perspectives 36 (1998): 1, 43–47.