Saving Private Ryan

[Cameron H. 23786]

9 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

OK, replace any mention I made of 'manipulative' with 'pointlessly cheesy'

Don't let him manipulate you like that. It's overrated  

[grudlian. 4725]

2 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

I think about this. In general, I feel like calling a film "manipulative" as a criticism is not that helpful, unless it's backed up by some deeper analysis (at which point you may as well just forego the pithy term and just present the actual analysis). To me it's along the lines of calling a film "overrated," a meaningless descriptor unless backed up by further elaboration on exactly who is overrating it and how.

I think when people complain about "manipulation," it can actually mean one of a few things:

1. The manipulation is too noticeable and the film did not conform to my personal preferences of how obvious it should be. Some people don't respond to the big-hearted Spielberg style but love a Scorsese movie where there are loud Italian gangsters screaming at each other. Is the latter less obvious? It depends on your taste.

2. The manipulation is working in the wrong direction, against the purposes of story or theme. (I find this the most relevant kind of criticism and generally try to steer a film discussion down this road.) This can also be a CAUSE of the filmmaker's manipulation becoming too obvious to most viewers.

3. A little bit of "toxic masculinity," in that the critic is proceeding under the assumption that open emotion is bad in all forms. Stuff your feelings down like a real man! (Also: see the Spielberg/Scorsese example above.)

My advice is for people to just scrub the word "manipulative" out of their criticism of dramatic storytelling and just talk about one of the above! And also maybe take time to examine your own perceptions and how they impact your reception of the work.

In this case, the manipulation is that it's there to serve emotion but it makes no logical sense. To use Paul's example, look at old man Ryan's scenes.

The family goes to Arlington cemetery with him but they are 20 feet behind him the entire time? Why? The real answer is it looks good to have him framed that way on screen. But logically, the family wouldn't move in a singular clump except for Ryan several feet away. At least not for any length of time.

Why does it seem like Ryan has never told this story to his wife? I get that a lot of people come back from war never telling their story. I had two grandfathers and a grandmother who never said a single word to me about WWII and one grandfather had a small shrine in his living room to his platoon. So, I get it but it seems unusual that a man who lost three brothers, had a mission to specifically save him never mentioned it? It doesn't ring true to me. But he just so happens to have this breakdown here? He brought his whole family to Arlington cemetery and never told anyone? I think it works in the moment but doesn't hold up to any analysis. 

Or straight up going from old man Ryan's eyes to Tom Hanks? We all think that's Tom Hanks in the beginning. It's basic transition and Spielberg knows that and knows what he's implying. We can say that is a twist or some other defense but it really is just lying to the audience. Why? To make their deaths shocking and, in my mind, more "emotional."

The movie does this a lot by trying to evoke emotion that it hasn't really earned. I could say "in this scene it does X and in that scene it does Y to trick the audience into feeling something that feels false" but it's easier to say "manipulative". I get all movies do this to an extent. A swell of strings can heighten emotion and that is technically manipulation. There's a difference between "enhancing" and "manipulating" in my mind. This movie is manipulating by lying to us or doing things that are emotional but not logical.

[Cameron H. 23786]

9 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Why does it seem like Ryan has never told this story to his wife? I get that a lot of people come back from war never telling their story. I had two grandfathers and a grandmother who never said a single word to me about WWII and one grandfather had a small shrine in his living room to his platoon. So, I get it but it seems unusual that a man who lost three brothers, had a mission to specifically save him never mentioned it? It doesn't ring true to me. But he just so happens to have this breakdown here? He brought his whole family to Arlington cemetery and never told anyone? I think it works in the moment but doesn't hold up to any analysis. 

Yeah, I found it bizarre where his wife is like, "Hmmm...Capt Miller. Neat." Weren't you wondering why he dragged you all the way to France or why he's leading you to a specific grave?

Regarding the eyes thing, I bet if you were to ask him, Spielberg would give you some answer about how the eyes are the same because they've seen war or some BS. But it definitely appears like Ryan is flashing back to someone else's memories. It's...kind of lame.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

1 minute ago, Cameron H. said:

Don't let him manipulate you like that. It's overrated  

Haha yea. I think I made clear why I think it's badly manipulative, so I was half-joking.  Maybe the phrase needs more elaborating though, for sure, but 'cheese' also encompasses the problem with it.  I like narrowing down definitions though, because as mentioned by you guys earlier, most films are in some ways. So where is the difference? What's the line? I think the key is in the 'manipulative' part. 'Emotional' is fine. But 'emotionally manipulative'?  I think that's valid criticism.

Badly manipulative stories add emotion unnaturally -- either ringing untrue like grudlian's example, or just totally unnecessarily (like every other example in the movie).

The fact is, this isn't a Hallmark TV movie about the people falling in love at Christmas time. It should not need to do this to be effective. It does not need to manufacture all these little moments for us in this way. It's condescending!

[FictionIsntReal 79]

After I saw this movie, I decided it was my favorite of all time. I wouldn't say that now, but there wasn't any specific movie that dethroned it. I still like it a whole lot better than some other movies on this list like The Graduate & Last Picture Show, but I can also see an argument that the 100 best American movies doesn't need 5 from Spielberg or quite that many war movies (although I'd note that the share of ALL stories persisted through time, going back long before the advent of film, is probably at least as weighted with war as the AFI's list).

Spielberg absolutely thinks God was against the Nazi forces. Both Raiders of the Lost Ark & Last Crusade make that explicit!

I also disagree that the opening is irrelevant to the rest of the film. Ryan is not our protagonist, Tom Hanks' character is, and his squad are the supporting characters. The opening puts them through a trial by fire in which many die, in an operation famous enough that the audience knows its importance. To then put that fire-forged squad into a strategically irrelevant mission to remove some guy so he won't have to face the danger we just saw makes for a contrast. Throughout the rest of the film those guys are going to be thinking about what they've been through together and that Ryan was spared (and what he will be spared from then on).

[bleary 333]

9 hours ago, grudlian. said:

He brought his whole family to Arlington cemetery and never told anyone?

 

9 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

Weren't you wondering why he dragged you all the way to France or why he's leading you to a specific grave?

Cameron mentioned it, but it's worth underlining: Old Man Ryan didn't just drag his family to Arlington Cemetary (a relatively normal spot for tourists visiting DC), but to the American Cemetary in Normandy.  So the whole family flew to Paris, took a 2+ hour train to Bayeux, and then took a 30-minute cab ride to the cemetary, and no one in his family pressed him on why or who in particular he was interested in finding.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

12 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Haha yea. I think I made clear why I think it's badly manipulative, so I was half-joking.  Maybe the phrase needs more elaborating though, for sure, but 'cheese' also encompasses the problem with it.  I like narrowing down definitions though, because as mentioned by you guys earlier, most films are in some ways. So where is the difference? What's the line? I think the key is in the 'manipulative' part. 'Emotional' is fine. But 'emotionally manipulative'?  I think that's valid criticism.

Badly manipulative stories add emotion unnaturally -- either ringing untrue like grudlian's example, or just totally unnecessarily (like every other example in the movie).

The fact is, this isn't a Hallmark TV movie about the people falling in love at Christmas time. It should not need to do this to be effective. It does not need to manufacture all these little moments for us in this way. It's condescending!

I did go on a bit of a rant there, so I should say that my comments are not aimed at this board -- in general, people here tend to do a good job explaining themselves. It's more about general trends I see in online film discussion (Facebook, Letterboxd, etc.), where a word like "manipulative" (or "overrated") is treated as an end unto itself.

[Cameron H. 23786]

3 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

I did go on a bit of a rant there, so I should say that my comments are not aimed at this board -- in general, people here tend to do a good job explaining themselves. It's more about general trends I see in online film discussion (Facebook, Letterboxd, etc.), where a word like "manipulative" (or "overrated") is treated as an end unto itself.

We got you  

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

11 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

I did go on a bit of a rant there, so I should say that my comments are not aimed at this board -- in general, people here tend to do a good job explaining themselves. It's more about general trends I see in online film discussion (Facebook, Letterboxd, etc.), where a word like "manipulative" (or "overrated") is treated as an end unto itself.

One that also never shows up here is 'Oscar-worthy'. That's just such a circular meaningless phrase, but it seems to be a go-to for most people. Maybe because just about every movie we discuss is famous for being great. Anyway, either way, yea we're better than Facebook.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

24 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

One that also never shows up here is 'Oscar-worthy'. That's just such a circular meaningless phrase, but it seems to be a go-to for most people. Maybe because just about every movie we discuss is famous for being great. Anyway, either way, yea we're better than Facebook.

Hah, yeah that's another one.

The Facebook group has actually improved lately as the mods have started cracking down on multiple topics for every episode and started redirecting people to one official thread to discuss the current movie. By Facebook standards, it's practically the Algonquin Round Table. But it's a large group and there are still going to be some yahoos.

[grudlian. 4725]

1 hour ago, AlmostAGhost said:

One that also never shows up here is 'Oscar-worthy'. That's just such a circular meaningless phrase, but it seems to be a go-to for most people. Maybe because just about every movie we discuss is famous for being great. Anyway, either way, yea we're better than Facebook.

"Oscar worthy" means the best movie (or whatever the category) of the year or realistically in the conversation for best of the year. People obviously disagree on what that means or what comes that includes. Sometimes it's a really tough year with a lot of great potential nominees; sometimes it isn't.

I really hate hate hate "can you believe X hasn't won an Oscar????" Were they the best any year? Give me the year they should have wom and what their competition was. Consistently great doesn't mean you're the best and second best doesn't win Oscars (setting aside that the Oscars make poor decisions occasionally).

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

2 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

I really hate hate hate "can you believe X hasn't won an Oscar????" Were they the best any year? Give me the year they should have wom and what their competition was. Consistently great doesn't mean you're the best and second best doesn't win Oscars (setting aside that the Oscars make poor decisions occasionally).

I was also annoyed that people kept saying that Spike Lee got his "first Oscar" for BlacKkKlansman, even though he had already received an honorary Oscar (which is kind of intended to rectify situations like the above). First "competitive Oscar" is the right phrase.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

2 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

"Oscar worthy" means the best movie (or whatever the category) of the year or realistically in the conversation for best of the year.

The way I usually hear it is just someone using it to say an actor did a good job. Not necessarily the best, just maybe a bit better than good. Maybe if someone is saying 'this is a historically notable performance' than it's fine.  But rarely I think they mean that. I don't know, I find it a weird shorthand.

[grudlian. 4725]

30 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

The way I usually hear it is just someone using it to say an actor did a good job. Not necessarily the best, just maybe a bit better than good. Maybe if someone is saying 'this is a historically notable performance' than it's fine.  But rarely I think they mean that. I don't know, I find it a weird shorthand.

Yeah, that's how I normally hear it. I should have said "to me, Oscar worthy means..."

[Cameron H. 23786]

I just finished the episode, and I have to say, I strongly disagree with Amy’s take that Spielberg was trying to suggest that “God was on the side of the Americans.” I get that you have a lot of people praying and surviving. I also get you have Barry Pepper reciting scripture and making almost every shot. But it’s worth pointing out, in the end, Barry Pepper, our MOST religious character, still dies. If God was “on his side,” shouldn’t he be miraculously spared?

I think what Spielberg was showing was how people brought their faith with them to war, but regardless of that, if there is a God, he didn’t appear to be intervening for either side. It goes into the age old question of, “If there is a benevolent God, why do bad things happen?” As religion applies to the military, the belief that there is a divine purpose not only provides an ethical security blanket (“I’m not a cold-blooded killer; I’m an instrument of God’s will.”), but also helps people to make sense of the insanity and carnage of war. If you take that away, if God actually isn’t on our side, or even worse, doesn’t exist, it forces a person to confront some uncomfortable truths.

So, in those final moments, as that tank takes aim at Barry Pepper, all that existential weight comes crashing down on him. You can see it in his face. He’s probably thinking, “But God, Why? I was a good Christian. Why have you abandoned me? Do you not exist at all? Was it really all just dumb luck?”

For me, that’s the bigger twist than the Old Man Ryan reveal. Spielberg does set it up like God is on the Allies’ side, but in the end, he pulls the rug out from under us and suggests that maybe that’s just what we want to think because it makes us feel better.

[grudlian. 4725]

4 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

I just finished the episode, and I have to say, I strongly disagree with Amy’s take that Spielberg was trying to suggest that “God was on the side of the Americans.” I get that you have a lot of people praying and surviving. I also get you have Barry Pepper reciting scripture and making almost every shot. But it’s worth pointing out, in the end, Barry Pepper, our MOST religious character, still dies. If God was “on his side,” shouldn’t he be miraculously spared?

I think what Spielberg was showing was how people brought their faith with them to war, but regardless of that, if there is a God, he didn’t appear to be intervening for either side. It goes into the age old question of, “If there is a benevolent God, why do bad things happen?” As religion applies to the military, the belief that there is a divine purpose not only provides an ethical security blanket (“I’m not a cold-blooded killer; I’m an instrument of God’s will.”), but also helps people to make sense of the insanity and carnage of war. If you take that away, if God actually isn’t on our side, or even worse, doesn’t exist, it forces a person to confront some uncomfortable truths.

So, in those final moments, as that tank takes aim at Barry Pepper, all that existential weight comes crashing down on him. You can see it in his face. He’s probably thinking, “But God, Why? I was a good Christian. Why have you abandoned me? Do you not exist at all? Was it really all just dumb luck?”

For me, that’s the bigger twist than the Old Man Ryan reveal. Spielberg does set it up like God is on the Allies’ side, but in the end, he pulls the rug out from under us and suggests that maybe that’s just what we want to think because it makes us feel better.

"If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war"

[Cameron H. 23786]

27 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

If God's on our side, he'll stop the next war"

The Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And then we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now, too
Have God on their side

 

 

[Cameron H. 23786]

The hosts seemed surprised that three of Best Picture nominees for 1999 were World War II fims (Saving Private Ryan, Life is Beautiful, and The Thin Red Line), but honestly, I don’t think it’s all that strange. The fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II was in 1995, and I’m sure that it was very much on people’s minds that year. When you consider just how long it takes to make a movie, from idea stage to finished product, the timeline makes sense, and I think that explains WWII’s higher than normal representation that year.

These kind of rhyming movies happen every so often when an event occurs that inspires different people to tell similar stories. According to an episode of the Cracked Podcast from a few years ago, that’s the reason 1998 saw the release of both Deep Impact and Armageddon. Both were inspired by the same story of a near-miss the Earth had with an asteroid that had occurred a few years earlier.

[grudlian. 4725]

3 hours ago, Cameron H. said:

The hosts seemed surprised that three of Best Picture nominees for 1999 were World War II fims (Saving Private Ryan, Life is Beautiful, and The Thin Red Line), but honestly, I don’t think it’s all that strange. The fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II was in 1995, and I’m sure that it was very much on people’s minds that year. When you consider just how long it takes to make a movie, from idea stage to finished product, the timeline makes sense, and I think that explains WWII’s higher than normal representation that year.

These kind of rhyming movies happen every so often when an event occurs that inspires different people to tell similar stories. According to an episode of the Cracked Podcast from a few years ago, that’s the reason 1998 saw the release of both Deep Impact and Armageddon. Both were inspired by the same story of a near-miss the Earth had with an asteroid that had occurred a few years earlier.

Two years ago, we had Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. It's not three movies but it's two WWII movies covering (in part) Dunkirk.

[Cameron H. 23786]

43 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Two years ago, we had Dunkirk and Darkest Hour. It's not three movies but it's two WWII movies covering (in part) Dunkirk.

The movie Churchill was released that year, as well - two years after the fiftieth anniversary of Winston Churchill’s death. So both he and Dunkirk were probably very much on people’s minds at the time.

[affabull103 1]

I'm a huge fan of Private Ryan, so I was a bit surprised to hear so many criticisms of what I thought was an almost universally revered movie. Yes, I know the bookends are a problem for a lot of people. And some think that it's an overly simplified presentation of warfare. And maybe having seen it for the first time at age seventeen, i was more impressed by the spectacle, and the solemn "adultness" of it all, than i would have been in my more discerning years. But it still enthralls me every time I watch it. The cinematography dazzles, and the performances are extremely solid, especially Hanks and Davies. That John Williams score does a lot to heighten the emotions, even if the characters aren't fully fleshed out. However I would argue that the anonymity of the soldiers is an essential thematic thread that is carried throughout (Cpt. Miller's enigmatic origins, anyone?). 

And also, I was a little irked by Amy's criticism that it doesn't pass the Bechdel test. Given the time, place and subject matter of the film, I feel it's an unfair, and (forgive me) an almost  inane, critique. Social consciousness is extremely important for films, but i'm of the opinion that when creating art, one should not feel the need to reshape one's work in order to check all the appropriate boxes. Art should provoke and challenge, not placate and cajole. 

[ol' eddy wrecks 212]

On 3/7/2019 at 9:19 PM, ol' eddy wrecks said:

A story my uncle told me, of the "always a little suspect that this was just a story passed around." There were seven brothers, comprising all the children of a couple, all stationed on the same ship in WW2.  It sank.  The family lost all of it's children that day.  So the army decided that they weren't going to station all siblings altogether on the same boat, or location or what-have-you, so that something like that wouldn't happen again.  My uncle was stationed in Korea, and if I'm doing my math, it would have been in the 50s.  For some reason idk if he actually served in the war or not.  I feel like, he didn't, given the way he talked about it (which wasn't much).  But I give that context for being around in the era shortly after WW2 and there was at least a story, if not an actual policy (which seems a lot more sensible than the plot of this movie, which I didn't know that was the reason for the rescue until the podcast.)  I wonder if that was the basis for this movie (because I have a really hard time believing that war that spawned a book like Catch-22 and had the last time capital punishment* was invoked on a U.S. troop for desertion would have a policy of risking that many people to save one life).  Maybe I could use "the google" to verify the basis of this movie or my uncle's story.  But, heh, I'm lazy.

*: This would have probably been a more interesting WW2 movie - one that you usually don't get to see. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik#In_popular_culture 

So, fwiw, I looked it up.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/this-sea-battle-claimed-the-lives-of-5-brothers-in-world-war-ii

There were 4 brothers.  When it looked like 3 of them had died (it looks like one was shot down and presumed dead, but actually survived), the last one was sent home and basically served as an MP for the rest of the war. No stupid suicide mission. From the description of what I'm hearing from this movie, that final battle seems to be more based on the story of one of the brothers who died.

My uncle's story checked out (5 brothers, not 7 though.  Though I couldn't really remember the number he gave me).

I am still curious what a good Eddie Slovik movie would have been.  I guess I have to just imagine Paths of Glory, but set in WW2.

[grudlian. 4725]

This is discussed in the next episode for A Night At The Opera, but Amy mentions the conventional wisdom of "the wrong movie won" might be wrong because of Saving Private Ryan's faults.

Does anyone think the right movie won? Of the nominated movies, I'd still put Saving Private Ryan as the best. Is there some other 1998 movie that didn't get nominated and should have won?

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

Rushmore, The Big Lebowski, The Truman Show were all 1998

 

[grudlian. 4725]

3 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Rushmore, The Big Lebowski, The Truman Show were all 1998

 

I don't think any of those had a remote chance of ever getting nominated for Best Picture but they are certainly worthy of consideration.