Scenes I Love: Saving Private Ryan

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Arleigh

Today marks the 71st Anniversary of the Normandy Landings on D-Day. As the day winds down I thought it best to share one of my favorite scenes from a film that tried to capture the chaos and death of the fateful day on June 6, 1944. The film in question is Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. This is the film which won him his second Best Director Oscar (I still think the film should’ve won Best Picture over Shakespeare In Love) and the film which helped redefine not just how war films were shot from 1998 on, but also de-glorify World War II on film.

This scene showed the opening moments of the D-Day Landings on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. It’s a scene that’s over 22-minutes in length and shows the utter chaos and destruction heaped on American troops as they attempted to land on the beach to take their objectives. While there have been war film before Saving Private Ryan that depicted war as the hell it truly is they were mostly about the Vietnam War. Rarely did we ever get a World War II-based war film which showed war in realistic fashion. Spielberg broke that taboo by making the battle scenes in his film — especially this extended opening sequence — done as realistic as possible without actually having people killed for real on-screen.

When this film first came out in the summer of 1998 no one knew what to make of it. This opening sequence became the talk of everyone who went to see the film. To say that they were shocked by what they saw was an understatement. Even now with over a decade since the film was released and people having seen this scene over and over again it still retain it’s impact. It’s not even the grand scale of the production required to film this action sequence which made this scene so memorable. It were the little things. Like a mortally wounded American GI crying out to his mother while trying to keep his blown out insides from spilling out. Then there’s the scene of another young soldier praying furiously with his rosary beads as men around him die by the score.

This scene also showed what most World War II films of the past failed to do. It showed both sides behaving barbarically. In the past, only the Germans were shown in a bad light. In Saving Private Ryan, we see that American soldiers were also prone at shooting surrendering troops and/or not mercy-killing enemy soldiers being burned alive (actions that have been well-documented by historians). This scene also showed just how courageous the young men of this generation which Tom Brokaw has called “The Greatest Generation”. Men who went off to war not for material gains, but for an idea that they had to stop evil (Nazi and Hitler) from taking all of Europe and, maybe, the world itself.

There’s a reason why Saving Private Ryan is in my list for greatest films of all-time and why this scene remains one of my all-time favorites.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #100: Pearl Harbor (dir by Michael Bay)

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“And then all this happened…”

Nurse Evelyn Johnson (Kate Beckinsale) in Pearl Harbor (2001)

The “this” that Evelyn Johnson is referring to is the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. You know, the date will live in infamy. The attack that caused the United States to enter World War II and, as a result, eventually led to collapse of the Axis Powers. The attack that left over 2,000 men died and 1,178 wounded. That attack.

In the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, that attack is just one of the many complications in the romance between Danny (Ben Affleck), his best friend Rafe (Josh Hartnett), and Evelyn (Kate Beckinsale). The other complications include Danny briefly being listed as dead, Danny being dyslexic before anyone knew what dyslexia was (and yet, later, he’s still seen reading and writing letters with absolutely no trouble, almost as if the filmmakers forgot they had made such a big deal about him not being able to do so), and the fact that Rafe really, really likes Evelyn. Of course, the main complication to their romance is that this is a Michael Bay film and he won’t stop moving the camera long enough for anyone to have a genuine emotion.

I imagine that Pearl Harbor was an attempt to duplicate the success of Titanic, by setting an extremely predictable love story against the backdrop of a real-life historical tragedy. Say what you will about Titanic (and there are certain lines in that film that, when I rehear them today, make me cringe), Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet had genuine chemistry. None of that chemistry is present in Pearl Harbor. You don’t believe, for a second, that Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett are lifelong friends. You don’t believe that Kate Beckinsale is torn between the two of them. Instead, you just feel like you’re watching three actors who are struggling to give a performance when they’re being directed by a director who is more interested in blowing people up than in getting to know them.

Continuing the Titanic comparison, Pearl Harbor‘s script absolutely sucks. Along with that line about “all this” happening, there’s also a scene where Franklin D. Roosevelt (Jon Voight) reacts to his cabinet’s skepticism by rising to his feet and announcing that if he, a man famously crippled by polio and confined to a wheelchair, can stand up, then America can win a war.

I’ve actually been to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. I have gone to the USS Arizona Memorial. I have stood and stared down at the remains of the ship resting below the surface of the ocean. It’s an awe-inspiring and humbling site, one that leaves you very aware that over a thousand men lost their lives when the Arizona sank.

I have also seen the wall which lists the name of everyone who was killed during the attack on Pearl Harbor and until you’ve actually been there and you’ve seen it with your own eyes, you really can’t understand just how overwhelming it all is. The picture below was taken by my sister, Erin.

If you want to pay tribute to those who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor, going to the Arizona Memorial is a good start. But avoid Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor at all costs.

Scenes I Love: Saving Private Ryan

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Arleigh

With Veteran’s Day coming to a close I would just like to share a scene that encompasses the sort of people that make up the men and women of our military. While this scene is from Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan I think the sentiment shared by Capt. Miller to his squad works just as well today as we find more and more of our country’s civilians being called in to do their military duty as part of the nation’s Reserve Force.

Yes, the military now is an all-volunteer one, but it doesn’t count those men and women who make up the reservists force. These soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors have done their tour of active duty and decided to join the reserve force on a part-time basis. They do this knowing that when the time comes they might be called to answer the call from the country’s military to take up their uniform once again and deploy to a war zone as they have done so for the past decade in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These are doctors, police men and women, lawyers, teachers, construction workers and men and women from every walk of life.

I know that it’s not popular to venerate and admire these people in today’s day and age, because to do so means people like myself and others glorify war and against peace. People have become cynical to the point that they deride these people for getting themselves in the predicament of leaving behind their families and jobs to fight for a war they might not believe in. These people don’t understand the sacrifice and will to do their duty for their country even if its leaders might fail them in the end.

It’s not just soldiers of the US I speak to about celebrating but every man and woman brave and dedicated enough to do their job either as a volunteer or as part of their nation’s conscription call. It’s these very same people who understand the real cost of war and the first to wish for peace, but until the time comes when they’re not needed anymore they will always answer the call to do their duty.

Scenes I Love: The Shootout from Michael Mann’s “Heat”.

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Leonard Wilson

The shootout in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995) remains one of the best ever filmed, in my opinion. Mann himself even tried topping it in Miami Vice (which is good in it’s own right), but this scene (which occurs some minutes in) is so loved, Rockstar Games actually developed a mission in Grand Theft Auto 4 to mimic it.

A group of bank robbers, led by Neal McCauley (Robert DeNiro) finally take down their score, only to find that the police squad out to get them has been tipped off. The video starts as the robbery begins. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino), along with his team arrive just as the crew is coming out of the bank with the money. The rest is mayhem, with the gunfire sounds echoing all around. Elliot Goldenthal’s score for the piece sets the tone for the robbery, a piece called Force Marker (along with Brian Eno).

What I wouldn’t give to catch this in a theatre somewhere. Enjoy.