Steven Spielberg is one of the most unique and genius film directors and screenwriters all over the world. His works usually arouse so much admiration and respect, and numerous awards and public’s recognition may serve as one of the best proofs of his professionalism.
Saving Private Ryan is his fascinating work about the events during World War II, about courage, friendship, and respect, about love and devotion, devotion to own duties, faith, and people. A war is the time, when people stop appreciating money, fashion, and proper food. It is the time, when only someone’s life and death turn out to be important.
This is what Spielberg wants to present in his movie, this is what should be taken into consideration and analyzed. Saving Private Ryan is a brilliant movie about the war and people in it; a true story of life, created by Steven Spielberg; a piece of art that awakes the kindest feelings and emotions.
Saving Private Ryan opens with an emotionally-colored scene, when one old veteran visits the cemetery in order give honors all soldiers, who gave their lives for freedom, peace, and other people’s lives. This veteran falls into his knees and start crying: these emotions and these tears demonstrate how dear all those people for him are, how significant their actions were, how proud he is now.
Now, it is high tome to see what has happened to this old man and whose all those graves are. It is 6 June 1944. It is a beginning of the story, when a squad of solders under the command of Capt. John H. Miller (Tom Hanks) fights for their future and for the future of their families. It is the war: so much blood, so many tears, and so many deaths.
People know that this war takes lots of lives, however, each loss is something personal and something terrible. Saving Private Ryan is the story of how John Miller gets an order to save young Ryan, the only alive son of a mother. The team of John Miller has to overcome numerous battles in order to find out this one young man and get him back to his mother.
Each meeting with the enemies takes the life of one of Miller’s soldiers. These people die to save another person, whom they never know and never meet. It is too hard to lose people in the only one name – Private Ryan. Miller hates this boy, but has nothing to do – his aim is to save him and allow his mother see her son once again. When Miller finally finds Ryan, this young man does not want to leave his squad: “These guys deserve to go home as much as I do.
They’ve fought just as hard” (Saving Private Ryan). The end of the movie is tragic indeed: the team, who is sent to save Pr. Ryan, is killed. Capt. John Miller dies, but completes his task – he saves Ryan, a person, who will come to Miller’s grave in order to introduce his family and salute his friends, who saved him one day.
War times always cause tears, grief, and pity. People fight in order to be free, to be heard, and to be understood. Of course, these people achieve their purposes, the wars are won, and the freedom is got. However, the lives of people, both young and old, cannot be returned. This is the most terrible thing about any war.
Steven Spielberg makes a wonderful attempt to represent several war issues and explain what people feel during the war. Soldiers face numerous battles day by day: some of them die, some of them get injuries, and some of them feel that they are not too brave to be soldiers and fight for someone’s lives and future.
With the help of this movie, people get a chance to comprehend that even all those terrible times of war did not deprive soldiers from the abilities to be brave, honest, and humane. There are so many duties, people should complete during the war in order to create a proper system and win. If one person makes something wrong, it is quite possible to fail and lose everything, and even put under a terrible threat the others.
Spielberg does not afraid to focus on pain: war will never be kind, and people should know it in order not to provoke it once again. Suffering, pain, and loss – this is all about war. It is too hard for an ordinary person to accept such cruel reality and not to lose own personality. This is why we should try to do everything possible to live in peace and think about safe future.
Saving Private Ryan is a perfect work by Steven Spielberg that tells about best human qualities, people’s responsibility, friendship, and care. John Miller is one of the brightest examples of great leaders and just a good person, who knows how to improve this life and help other people achieve safe future. This story touches many people; it learns how to be worthy of this world and appreciate every minute of this life.
Works Cited
Saving Private Ryan. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, and Edward Burns. DreamWorks. Paramount Pictures, 1998.