Saving Private Ryan Ring member site
|
First off, I promise you that this installment will be the last of what I have to say, and that it will be shorter than the last one.
And so where was I? I was going to see the film for a second time. Something I had been meaning to do for a while. So off I went. Ii was late March 1999, about a week after the Oscars. The only theatre in town that was playing it was at a place called Movies 12. A collection of second rate screens housed in the city's second rate mall. But I was determined to see it again. And so I did.
The theatre it was playing in was one of the smallest of the complexes. I get there and there are about a dozen people in the place. By the time the film starts, I count 24, and about 3/4 of those look to be over 60 years old.
And I could not help but think of something that I failed to mention in the previous installment because I did not know if I should. About six weeks prior, my grandfather died. And seeing this film and seeing this crown was destined to remind me of it. What was so significant was that my grandfather was there on Normandy two days after D-Day and there for the Battle of the Buldge laying telephone lines for communication. I wondered if anybody in the theatre was there around that time.
But soon the beginning of the film tears me from that, and I watch. The one thing that I notice immediately because the screen is dark, is that the light form the projection room is showing on the screen so about a quarter of the screen in slightly illuminated. A tad distracting.
But here are the scenes again. The two flags, the cemetery. And this time it does not affect me at all. Am I immune all of the sudden? Or is it a one-time deal with these emotions? Whatever it is, I did not feel into it the same way I was before. But then came the invasion.
And this time I prepared myself. I looked at things I did not see the first time around, and I prepared myself for that moment the doors open. And I was not shocked again.
It was quite odd. I was expecting myself to be taken aback again and caught up in it again, but I was not. I just sort of watched. I noticed some things that I did not before and I got a better memory for the film, but other than that, I was not taken away again. As the movie progressed, I looked for all the things that the people on the forum talked about. I noticed that Ted Danson had more screen time than I thought. I got to recognize the characters better; it was hard for me to remember them all. And by the end of the film, I was phased a little bit, but nothing close to what I felt the first time. What was occupying my thoughts now was one of great concern and one that made me write this.
When I go to a film, I try to sit far back enough so that the screen is big, but not too big, and I try not to sit so far back as to have people distracting me. I am sorry, but I cannot zone people out like that. So when I saw SPR for the first time and people made reactions to the film and what was on the screen, I did not see that much because I was caught up in the film and most of the people were behind me where I could not see. But this second time, not only was I not as caught up in the film, but I had a good view of what I feared the most.
Sitting across from me were two twenty-something guys with baseball caps and semi-long hair and really bad looking facial hair. And what got me was they laughed when the guy with the helmet was shot, and they laughed when the guy in the village was shot down as he was running. There were other times when they did this, but I forget them. What is important is that I do not think that this is an isolated incident.
For me, I know about this stuff, and so I am familiar with it and I know the significance of it. That is why I spent the first 2000 words saying so. But most people don't care. It is as simple as that. And SPR is a movie that tries to make people care and see the significance of what took place. And in numerous occasions, I believe it did that. The amount of violence somehow never became 'gore', something I am glad most people have acknowledged, and the amount of death are the parts I think it did a good job of. But upon the second viewing, I saw the flaws in the film.
So what is it and why am I so upset about it? "It" is the fact that a lot of people that this movie tries to send the message to do not get it. I can see people cheering a victory here and there, but laughing at death is something I do not think that Spielberg intended.
So what went wrong? I believe most of it lies in comic relief. Some may say that the comic relief was necessary for the audience to breathe and relax, but I do not think so. I do not think that it does anything to help the message that this movie is trying to send. If people laugh at the guy getting shot when he takes off his helmet, and this happens on many occasions across many viewings, then no matter how true and significant it is, it should have not been in the movie.
The whole FUBAR scenario. In the end it is good to know what the acronym stands for, but it built up too much.
At one point after the D-Day invasion, all the men are sitting around shooting the breeze, and one says to another, almost mumbling, "I thought you liked it up the ass." And the repeats it louder for all to hear. I must say that the hicks near me liked that, and that is exactly the point I am trying to make.
When the little girl is with the soldiers and the sniper is keeping them behind a car, Tom Sizemore's character is trying to quiet her, but instead of trying to calm her the way one would when there is somebody trying to kill you nearby, he seems to whine. It is a little moment, but it takes away from the tension that the scene is supposed to have.
And the worst one is when they meet the other Private Ryan halfway through the film. It serves no purpose to the film but to confuse the audience for a second, and then take them out of the seriousness of the situation the next.
Now I may sound like I am being very picky here. But it is a collection of dozens of little things (not all I have mentioned) that are in the film that take away from the mood, feeling, and message the film is trying to make. It justifies the squeamish into distancing themselves from the film and excusing themselves for denying what the point of the film is.
So in the end, I can now see what is wrong with the film. I can live with the bookend scenes, and the film itself is a phenomenal achievement. Yet there is a reason why the film may not work for some. In Shindler's List there are no light moments for the audience to breathe. One is totally absorbed in the world. But all I am saying is that I can see some of the criticism of the film. It made me think deeper than I believe any other film has done before. I just wonder if it did that for other people.
|
Saving Private Ryan Ring member site
|