That movie was INTENSE. I think at the end of it I will admit I was kind of shaking a little bit. Although that might be in part because I watched it before eating breakfast and you can get shaky if you haven't eaten recently. [edit: by the end of writing this post I'm not really shaking and I still haven't eaten anything so I guess we can ascribe the shaking to the intensity of the movie] In any case, whoa. It was quite something. It was... good, I suppose.. Not as in a feel-good movie though. I was clutching my metaphorical pearls towards the end of it (which literally was a blanket as I watched it in bed)
The beginning of the movie comprises a scene where soldiers are landing on a beach in France (presumably Normandy or something) during World War II. This part seems to last a long time which probably was on purpose to convey the fact that it also probably felt like an eternity to the soldiers who were there. There was also shaky camerawork here which was effective at conveying the certain sense of chaos that pervaded that occasion. The same shaky camerawork occurs in other action packed parts of the movie as well. There was a lot of carnage in this movie, definitely. Lots of people getting blown up and pieces of people getting blown off and blood spurting, etc. I wonder what goes into filming a war movie like this one to portray extreme violence and bloodshed without actually injuring or killing anyone. It must have been quite an undertaking. I was put off a bit definitely by all the carnage that filled this film and it made me realize that I like my death and destruction on an up close and personal level, rather than indiscriminate carnage - ie, Requiem for a Dream focuses on a few central characters about the topic of drug addiction.
Since the movie took place during WWII in France, there was a part where the captain, played by Tom Hanks (who looked rather young in this movie, but I guess that makes sense because it was made in the 90s.) was looking for a soldier who could translate between French, German and English for the titular mission of saving Private Ryan. It made me worry somewhat that some day I will be in a war and have to do that, although given the growing diversity of the US (which Trump would like to put a stop to) by the time I am theoretically in a war perhaps there will be native speakers available. At the moment, the only language I can be useful in is Spanish so if we ever have a war with Mexico or Spain or another Latin American country, then I'll worry about having to be a military translator. At the moment, the majority of wars have occurred in the Middle East and I don't know any Middle Eastern langauges like Arabic or Farsi or Urdu, so at present I would not be of use in any current military operations that are going on. But the theoretical possibility remains and it was not something that I had thought about until watching this movie, Which brings us to the subject of the soldier who happens to know French and German (with a slight Bavarian accent, according to him) and gets taken along with the captain on the search for the eponymous (I like that word) Private Ryan. His name was Upham and he was sort of naive and clumsy but to me it was endearing and the character was totally a Ben Whishaw type of character. I definitely could see Ben Whishaw as being in that role. Colin Morgan would work too; they both have the British and delicate woodland creature-esque appearance (as in, pale-ish skin tone, light eyes, slender figures, delicate facial appearance) that fits that role quite well. I wished for that character particularly not to get killed because he was endearing and reminded me of a role that Ben Whishaw might play. I wonder what actor that was - I'll have to look it up. I feel like his character, fragile as he was. definitely ended up with some kind of PTSD (which they probably did not know how to treat very well back then and even today the military is not really dealing with that in the most effective way so back then it must have been even worse) and was thrust into the hell of that after the war in addition to having to endure the horror(s - "The horror! The horror!") of war (assuming he didn't get killed later in the war), the poor dear.
This movie had some elements that reminded me of Full Metal Jacket. And some that reminded me of Apocalypse Now. I feel like maybe Full Metal Jacket has grown on me - at the very least it definitely has stuck with me. These three movies have different premises but they're all war movies. If I had to rank them, Apocalypse Now would be last and Saving Private Ryan would sort of edge out Full Metal Jacket. The element that reminded me of Apocalypse Now is the searching element - in Apocalypse Now they are going down a river in Vietnam in search of the man who later says "The horror! The horror!" and in Saving Private Ryan, the title pretty much says it all. The various scenes where soldiers in the group searching for Private Ryan got killed reminded me of scenes in Full Metal Jacket when soldiers got killed. Also there was the omnipresent rattling noises that war movies have - it's all the equipment that the soldiers are carrying around rattling as they move. I can't be the only person to have noticed that. If I had to be in a war, I think I would wish to be a sniper. I think the precision aspect of it is what appeals to me. There was a sniper in this movie who sort of reminded me (appearance-wise) of the German football player (or rather, Fußballspieler) Bastian Schweinsteiger who played for Bayern München. This movie also made me wish that I knew/were able to continue learning more German, even though WWII was against the Nazis and they were German, Today, the vast majority of Germans are not Nazis so as a country they have moved on from that. I wonder what it would be like to live in socialist (compared to the US) Europe, possibly in Germany or even Sweden. [that was a tangent]
From the first minutes of this movie (which was a frame story! Like The Catcher in the Rye and that's the only other example that comes to mind right now) which were rife with carnage, the message seemed to be that war is bad. (Requiem for a Dream - drugs are bad. Just think about how that movie ended up) Taken as a whole, there possibly is some other message present in Saving Private Ryan, perhaps something about brotherhood in the military but I don't know. I haven't given a deeper analysis of it much more thought. Matt Damon (as Private Ryan) had a facial cut in this movie, just one which surprised me a little bit because it being during a war I would have thought his face might have gotten a little more roughed up. In any case, the facial cut was about one inch long, not particularly severe, horizontal and slightly off center on his forehead. Not the most typical location for facial cuts, as evidenced in my last post. (I won't lie - I have been toying with the idea of self inflicting some strategically placed facial cuts on myself just to see how they would look. I feel like that would be easier and much more realistic than trying to make it look like I have facial cuts with makeup. The only thing holding me back is that it would probably be a little painful at least and also I would not like to have permanent facial scars from when I did an experiment with self inflicting facial cuts for aesthetic reasons. Although, in that one episode (1.12 "Seizure" if I'm correct) of Law and Order, Goren sliced open his hand with the pocket knife that he carries to prove a point about a suspect. Presumably they did not actually have Vincent cut open his hand (in the scene, the palm of his hand that he cuts is facing away from the camera as he slices it) but the concept still stands. And since I love detail, they were good about continuity with that because later in the episode he has a band-aid on his palm where he sliced it open. (who ever imagined that someone would feel compelled to write that much about one little minor thing that happens in an episode of Law and Order? The answer is, I would. I would feel compelled to write that.)
This movie made me wonder (this kind of goes along with the plot of Born on the 4th of July) if people who willingly enlisted in the military and then saw combat thought that their experience in the military was a positive one or a negative one. Or rather, were they (mentally) scarred by the horror(s) of war? Did it change their view on war in general and being in the military? I don't know anyone who has done this so I can't ask but it would be interesting to know. Because Saving Private Ryan was quite effective at depicting the horrors of war (Full Metal Jacket did this pretty well too, Apocalypse Now less so even though that kind of was supposed to be the point of it, hence the famous lines that I actually happened to write down on my English folder in addition to some other choice literary quotes and such). In Born on the 4th of July, Tom Cruise's character is quite eager to enlist and fight in Vietnam but what he witnesses/what happens there causes him to become an anti war activist. (he gets his back blown open and is left paralyzed) I guess it could depend on the particular nature of the experience, but I wonder about it. Certainly it's possible that some people in combat see less violence than others. How do they deal with it? (I'm sure there's stuff online about that kind of thing but I'm just thinking out loud here) Also, I think that being a police captain is a much more cushy job than being a military captain in WWII. The fictional Law and Order police captains (the ones I'm thinking about are Cragen [SVU] and Deakins [CI] who were good leaders and got along with the detectives under their command, unlike a later captain who was in CI) didn't get shot at on the regular. Even the detectives didn't, which is kind of interesting to think about. I think that it says that I like violence (that sounds kinda weird but bear with me) but only to a certain degree - the potential of violence (which is sometimes realized but not to a fatal extent, at least not to the main characters [them being the detectives in Law and Order]) but not severe indiscriminate carnage like in the movie, like I said earlier. I also wonder if the movie was based on a true story - I'll have to look that up too. It kind of reminded me of the book All Quiet on the Western Front, which was a good book that I read in the 10th grade for English. It was a powerful anti-war statement. The central theme of that book was that the characters featured in it were just dragged into the war (and were senselessly killed) and it was out of their control; they were fighting not because of any personal strong sense of patriotism, but because they had to. This idea does not necessarily transpose into the modern day American military because the military now is completely comprised of volunteers, but it was still a powerful message. I wonder if we'll ever have a draft again, in which case the message in AQOTWF could apply more aptly. If we do, all men between the ages of 18 and 25 must sign up or otherwise they may be fined (I don't remember the amount) or I think maybe even imprisoned. There are flyers that say this in the local post office and probably in your local post office too. Go see for yourself! If we do for whatever reason have a draft again, I would be sad if probably the only reader of this blog because I impose it on him got drafted and possibly killed in a war. If that happened, I would become an anti war protester like the hippies were for the Vietnam War. Thinking about the various war related things I've consumed, the conclusion that can be drawn from all of them is that war is bad, folks. In addition to the possibility of having a draft again, I wonder if world peace is really possible (certainly it would be ideal, but is it ever going to happen?). Which in turn is making me think of hippie anti-war music from the 60s like John Lennon's song Imagine and other songs like Blowing in the Wind and such. Ooh. Which in turn is making me think of more modern anti war music, like the song Soldier's Poem by Muse. It's a nice little song and not what you might expect (music wise) from Muse. And perhaps to some extent American Idiot can be put into this category as well, and Violet Hill by Coldplay. Ah. And the German 80s song 99 (neunundneunzig) Luftballons - which I know the words to in German which is a fact that I'm proud of that I can enjoy foreign music which some people (like my mother) cannot enjoy because they complain that they don't know what it means because it's in German (or some other language) and therefore don't like it.
Somewhat ironically this movie has kind of whetted my appetite to watch a series that James D'Arcy was in back in 2003. In that series, he played a British soldier (a pilot, maybe? I don't really remember) who was captured during WWII and was in a German POW camp and then escaped. I think there were 6 episodes or so, and I never watched the last two because it was a very suspenseful show and I just couldn't take it. But now I kind of want to watch it again all the way through. It was good, from what I remember, and also (shallowness alert) James D'Arcy looked good in it. Ah. He looked good. Very much so. James D'Arcy, everyone. My favorite actor. Still looks good after all these years. /shallowness
If I were to recast this movie with other (primarily British/European) actors, I would cast Daniel Craig in Tom Hanks' role and Ben Whishaw as the translator (or Colin Morgan, either one would work). For Private Ryan... James D'Arcy perhaps. I wanted to put him in there somewhere. Interestingly enough, around the same time that Saving Private Ryan was made. these three actors were in a war movie of their own, along with Cillian Murphy (pronounced with a hard c, like catastrophe, not like cereal). It was called The Trench and I watched it a couple years ago because it had these actors in it (sound familiar??). I barely remember anything at all that happened in it. It was set during WWI and mostly took place in the eponymous trench - they were all soldiers and Daniel Craig was superior to the other soldiers. The only thing I remember about the plot is there was one scene where Daniel Craig's character is sitting down and contemplating a jar of jam, which presumably his wife sent him. That's the only thing I remember of the plot. And also the end where they all emerge from the trench and charge towards the other trench and presumably all get killed.
A look at heart rate data from fitbit tells me that my heart rate went up (no surprises there) during the last 20 minutes or so of the film to 70 bpm and above, up to 82 at the highest. My usual resting heart rate is under 65, so there is hard evidence that this movie had an effect on me. [I started watching the movie around quarter past 7 in the morning and finished just a little before 10 am]
So, in conclusion, this is another war movie under my belt and I'm not sure if there are any others in the genre that I'd like to watch, Perhaps one that's set in a more recent war, but even then, I don't really think war movies are my thing. Again, I like my death and destruction up close and personal. Also, I was reading about forensic linguistics yesterday and I realized that with this post which I've spent over an hour writing, I'm giving the forensic linguists a lot of material to work with should they ever need to ascertain authorship of a writing to yours truly.
Also, regarding war movies and how I said I probably wasn't going to watch any more after seeing Apocalypse Now, but that I'd give this one a chance because it's said to be very good, I don't regret having watched it. It certainly was better than Apocalypse Now.
No comments:
Post a Comment