Watching a Man-made Hell

Steven Spielberg did not only recreate hell on earth – war – in his 1998 World War II opus, Saving Private Ryan, he also brought me on a bloodcurdling and unforgettable visit to its blood-soaked fields. The acclaimed director anchored his oeuvre on a moral dilemma: if you were a general, would you risk losing eight men to save a lowly private who has lost all of his brothers in combat and assuage his mother’s grief – a mission with little military significance but with plenty of propaganda value?
Saving Private Ryan’s plot revolved around a squad of Rangers sent behind German lines to rescue Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), a paratrooper. Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks in another magnificent performance) and his men followed their order to get Ryan back to friendly lines even if they doubted the wisdom of their superiors. Their favorite question, “Don’t we have mothers too?” would have made the general who gave the fateful command to rescind his order.
To say that Steven Spielberg effectively captured the horrors of war in Saving Private Ryan may be an understatement. He may be criticized for bringing excessive carnage to the screen, but what I witnessed was just a sanitized version of war – graphic for the desired shock effect but not vivid enough to convince man to renounce war forever. Like the master storyteller that he is, the bloodbath on the beaches of Normandy was just a preview of the climactic battle looming ahead – not between mammoth armies, but between ordinary soldiers appraising the value of a single life.
While the other war films that I have watched portrayed soldiers as the ultimate macho (i.e., Sylvester Stallone in Rambo), Saving Private Ryan veered on a different path even if it had the requisite gore. Its strongest point for me was its choice for a representative of humanity suffering from the brutality of war: a mother grieving over her dead sons. The scene where Mrs. Ryan simply collapsed to the floor at the sight of a black car bearing the grim news of her sons’ deaths was the most poignant moment in the movie; there was no hysterics, just silent, profound grief.
I also spotted flashes of humanity in Miller’s men. The scene-stealing sniper, Private Jackson (Barry Pepper), recited biblical lines before making a kill. Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) epitomized the martinet and loyal noncommissioned officer. Private Reiben (Edward Burns) vigorously criticized their mission and flirted with insubordination, but he was steadfast in battle and tended to his dying captain. Corporal Upham (Jeremy Davies) crumbled from his first taste of combat. The mystifying bond between brothers-in-arms was evident in Private Ryan’s refusal to abandon his fellow paratroopers and flee to safety because to him, “they were his only brothers left”.
Saving Private Ryan’s contribution to anti-war efforts may just be a drop in the ocean. The millions of war casualties, more than fifty million dead in the Second World War alone, may not be enough to make man turn swords into ploughshares. Man is far too complex to be frightened into suing for peace by simply presenting staggering body counts. He has gone to war for most of history and there is no reason why he would not rush into battle again for God or country or for whatever flimsy reason that he could invent.

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