The film directed by Steven Spielberg, “Saving Private Ryan,” has been awarded five Oscars and is rightly considered one of the best pictures about the Second World War. The film is based on real events and aptly portrays the senseless brutality of war with the help of realistic footage. In it, Spielberg aims to instill the feeling of horror and abhorrence for war in the viewers.
The first footage shows the soldiers inside the amphibian a minute before landing. Some pray, others vomit. The captain gives direct instructions and the back wall of the amphibian reclines. Viewers see soldiers running down the gangplank, some falling, wounded, and killed, others jumping up, throwing grenades, and shooting. The footage shows how the entire first row of soldiers is mowed down by machine gun fire, then the second row, more and more… Soldiers fall into deep water and stain it with blood, drowned by the weight of ammunition. Someone crawls ashore to be finished off there. The first scenes of the film are profoundly realistic and portray the feelings of soldiers at the front, bewildered, terrified, and still doing their best to defeat the enemy. Instead of glorifying war, viewers feel terror and resentment at the lives lost, young people, killed before they took their first steps on the beach and the injustice of war.
The idea of war as a real horror is further developed as the film progresses. The scene of bloody chaos on Omaha Beach in Spielberg’s film lasts twenty-six minutes, but it seems that the time stops as viewers are shattered by the emotions the film generates. As for me, when I saw the film, I was so emotionally depressed I could hardly speak. I believe the film won awards not because of its rather commonplace plot but because Spielberg managed to show all the horrors of war. I genuinely believe that people who saw the film will never want to resolve problems through naked force and will seek to find compromise instead. Perhaps this would be the best tribute to the film created by Spielberg as well as to the people who fought for the nation in the Second World War.