Study Guide to Saving Private Ryan

Director: Stephen Spielberg

Screenplay: Robert Rodat

Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon

Distributor: Paramount/Dreamworks SKG/Amblin Entertainment

Score: John Williams

Release Date: October 1998

Certificate: 15

Key Concepts

Value of life, death, war, rescue, sacrifice, hope, relationships

Summary

During the D-Day invasion American troops struggle to take a section of Omaha Beach and many of them are killed in the process. Back in the USA a little later, a typist notices that one woman is about to receive 3 telegrams on the same day telling her that three of her four sons have been killed in action.

The fourth son, Private James Ryan, had parachuted into Normandy the night before the invasion. The Chief of Staff orders that he be found and brought home and the task is assigned to Captain John Miller and seven other soldiers.

They find him at the cost of two of the squad but he refuses to leave his position defending a key bridge. Miller and his men stay on to help knowing that German artillery will soon attempt to take the bridge in the hope that Ryan will survive to return home.

Cultural significance

Stephen Spielberg has produced a very gritty, sometimes harrowing film which brings home the harsh realities of war. The issues raised are common to any conflict.

Saving Private Ryan has performed extremely well at the box office staying in the top 10 films for some weeks in the USA and in the UK.

Biographical background

This is the seventh of Spielberg’s 18 films to be based during the Second World War (in addition Always was a remake of a 1944 film).

The plot is inspired in part by the true story of Fritz Niland, one of four brothers from New York State who saw action during the war. Two Niland brothers were killed on D-Day, while another went missing in action in Burma and was presumed dead, although he actually survived. Fritz was located in Normandy by an Army chaplain, Reverend Francis Sampson, and taken out of the combat zone.

Other films by Stephen Spielberg

Duel (1971)

Sugarland Express (1974)

Jaws (1975)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

1941 (1979)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1981)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

The Color Purple (1985)

Empire of the Sun (1987)

Always (1989)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Hook (1991)

Jurassic Park (1993)

Schindler’s List (1994)

The Lost World (1997)

Amistad (1998)

Other resources on these ideas

Countdown to Saving Private Ryan: website with lots of material related to the film.

Normandy (Encyclopaedia Britannica): including Imagining D-Day: the history behind Saving Private Ryan

D-Day Web: Photographs, essays and personal accounts of the D-Day invasions plus lots of links.

The Valour and the Honour: Canada at War with quite a lot on the Normandy invasions

A real life Private Ryan

Overview

The film opens with an oldish man and his family visiting the American war cemetery in Normandy. He finds a particular grave and weeps uncontrollably as he remembers what happened.

The scene changes to the Normandy coast on 6 June 1944 where landing craft are approaching Dog Green Section of Omaha Beach. Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) is shaking with fear as he waits to arrive. As they leave the landing craft many are killed before they get into the water but many more are killed in the water and on the beach by mortars and machine guns. The only protection they have is the tank traps: men cower behind them in terror but they need to move up the beach in order to make way for the next wave.

Some make it as far as the sea wall where medics make ineffective attempts to help the wounded—they stop the bleeding of one man but he’s immediately shot in the head. Eventually they manage to secure the German positions but so many are dead that the sea is red with blood. Some surrendering Germans are shot and many Gis are overcome with emotion at what has taken place. One of the dead has “Ryan, S2″ marked on his pack.

Back in the USA a typing pool is writing messages of condolence to the families of men killed in the war. One typist notices that three telegrams are going to one person on the same day: three Ryans. She consults an officer who refers it to the Colonel. He ascertains that there is a fourth brother, Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), who had parachuted into Normandy with the 101st Airborne Division the night before the invasion. Nobody knows his wherabouts. The Chief of Staff, General George Marshall, is eventually informed. He orders a rescue mission despite protests from his aides that Ryan was probably already dead and that the mission would be doomed from the outset. Marshall removes from a book (a Bible?) a copy of a moving letter which he reads. It had been sent by Abraham Lincoln to a mother who had lost all her sons in the American Civil War. Lincoln’s recognition of the extent of the woman’s loss changes the minds of the aides.

Back on Omaha Beach, Miller reports on his company’s condition: 35 are dead and twice that number are wounded. He is given a fresh assignment: to take seven men with him and bring back Ryan. Miller takes six of his plus a very anxious translator, Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies). They set off to where they believe Ryan’s company is likely to be but there is dissension within the squad. They don’t see the sense in risking the lives of eight men in order to save one.

When they reach the village there is some fighting going on and they join a group of GIs sheltering behind a wall. Miller and his men, together with some of the GIs they’ve just met make their way towards the centre of the town. During all of this there is speculation about Miller’s background since he has refused to say anything about himself. There is a pool of $300 for the first man to find out what he did prior to the war.

They come across a terrified family marooned in the first floor of their house with the wall completely missing. The family beg the Americans to take their children to safety but Miller refuses. One of his men, Pte Caparzo, lifts the daughter down but Miller snatches her from him. A moment later and Caparzo is shot by a sniper. The others dive for cover and can’t attend to his wounds. Their own sniper, Pte Jackson (Barry Pepper), shoots the German but too late to save their friend.

A little further on they stop for a breather in a small courtyard but one man knocks a fallen beam against a wall which promptly collapses revealing several German soldiers inside. There is a brief stand off as they point guns at each other and shout but some other Americans have arrived and shoot the Germans first. Miller talks to the Captain of this new company and discovers that they have Private Ryan with them. He is brought to Miller who breaks the bad news. Ryan is distraught but they discover that he is the wrong Ryan. There is a man from the proper Ryan’s company there and he tells Miller that they were scattered widely during the landing and he believes that many of them are some distance away.

Miller and his men stay in a church overnight. Miller chats with his sergeant (Tom Sizemore); his hands are shaking again as they have done intermittently since leaving Portsmouth so Sizemore tells him he needs a new job. Miller reflects that every time he loses a man on a mission he tells himself that he probably saved 10 times more lives by enabling the mission to succeed but this time ‘the mission is a man”. They wonder whether Pte Ryan is worth the trouble.

The next day they come across a crashed glider and many wounded men who had gathered there. The pilot tells his story of how they could not maintain altitude due to the extra weights of metal plates welded to the floor in order to protect a general flying with them resulting in the loss of 22 lives. More men arrive from the surrounding area—the parachute drops before D-Day had been very off-target and had resulted in confusion and many casualties. Miller’s men start looking through the collected dog-tags of the dead and Miller calls for Ryan as others arrive. After a while someone is brought to Miller who had been with Ryan and he tells him that Ryan had been sent by a Colonel to help defend a bridge.

They set off again and come across three dead Americans near a German radar station protected by a machine gun emplacement. Miller wants to take it but the men don’t think they should jeopardise the mission or their lives. Miller insists, however, as their main objective is to win the war. They succeed but their medic, Wade (Giovanni Ribisi) has been badly wounded. The others cannot stop the blood loss and he dies.

A couple of the men start to beat up the sole surviving German and want to shoot him. Miller stops them because he wants the man to bury the American dead first. When Corporal Upham protests he is made to help. The German man is terrified that he will be shot but Miller blindfolds him and sends him away. The others are furious—especially Pte Reiben (Edward Burns) who starts to leave. Sgt. Horvath threatens to shoot him but Miller defuses the situation by suddenly revealing his background as a teacher. He tells the others that he sees their mission as being something that will help him get home quicker. He allows Reiben to leave but he stays.

Later on they dive for cover when a German half-track passes them. Suddenly the vehicle is hit by a bazooka. Miller and his men shoot the Germans escaping the vehicle and then meet the three Airborne soldiers who had destroyed it. One of them turns out to be Ryan. Miller’s squad accompany Ryan back to the bridge where he is told about his brothers. He refuses to go back with them and insists on defending the bridge. Miller’s men are angry as they have already lost two of their number trying to find him. Ryan can’t understand it: “It doesn’t make sense. Why do I deserve to go? Why not any of these guys? All these guys fought as hard as me.” Miller asks, “Is that what we’re to tell your mother?” but Ryan replies, “Tell he I’m with the only brothers I’ve got left.”

Miller decides to stay and help hold the bridge against expected German artillery in the hope that Ryan and they will survive and make it home. They have few weapons available and little ammunition but Miller devises a strategy and they make preparations. Ryan is to keep out of the action as much as possible. When they have done so they wait until eventually they hear the rumble of approaching tanks. The ambush doesn’t turn out as they expected: they are heavily outnumbered and have a much harder time against the Germans than they hoped. Upham is helpless with terror in the middle of the fighting and cannot bring himself to go to the rescue of a colleague who is fighting hand-to-hand with a German.

At length the few remaining Americans are beaten back across the bridge and a tank drives onto it. Miller tries to detonate the explosives but is shot and seriously wounded by the German soldier he had allowed to leave from the radar station. As the tank advances, Miller futilely shoots at it and is amazed when it explodes but realises that an American P51 Tankbuster had scored a direct hit. Reinforcements arrive and the bridge is held but Miller dies. The only members of his unit to survive are Reiben and Upham. Upham climbs out of the shell crater where he has been hiding and takes prisoner the five Germans who had been firing from just in front of him. One of these is the German from the radar station. He puts his hands up and speaks to Upham but Upham had seen him wound Miller and so shoots him.

General Marshall sends a letter to Mrs Ryan quoting the letter from Abraham Lincoln but also telling her that her last son is on his way home.

The scene switches back to the cemetery again. Ryan is looking at Miller’s grave. His family come to comfort him and he begs his wife to tell him that he’s led a good life and that he’s a good man—he wants to be reassured that was worth the loss of the others.

Ideas for discussion

• How does this film compare with other war films you may have seen? What similarities and contrasts are there?
• What emotions did the film produce in you? Were you surprised by any of them?
• What do you think Spielberg was trying to achieve through this film?
• To what extent do you think the way that war is portrayed so graphically in this film is justified?
• What are the major issues that the film raises?
• Do you think the mission to save Private Ryan was justified? On what basis can those kinds of questions be answered?
• What relevance to contemporary culture does this film have? Why is it worth Damaris Study Groups considering it?
• How could you present a Christian perspective on the issues presented in the film when it comes up in conversation? Are there any links with the Biblical story here?