A Taste of What is to Come

This is the first post for our spectacular blog and I thought it would be appropriate to look at a movie that everyone is familiar with, Saving Private Ryan. This WW2 masterpiece has become one of the greatest war movies ever made, but I ask you why that is the case? What made this movie so much better than any that had come before it? People first point to its realistic representation of the war and how meticulous each detail of the movie is. The sound effects and some of the props used came from actual World War 2 battles. However, my interest in this movie spawns from the horror and trauma it shows the audience. This war is one of the bloodiest in the USA’s history but people tend to over look that because of the patriotic notions that revolve around this war. Yet this movie makes an effort to show the audience how traumatizing this war was and how the soldiers were forced to witness bloodshed far worse than any man should endure. In the first twenty minutes there is a brutal scene in which countless men are gunned down and there are multiple images of dying men excreting gallons of blood. In one shot the audience can see a man holding his intestines in his hand, an image that most patriotic movies would not show to enforce the victory in WW2. This movie has gone down in history because it showed the world the brutality of war but at the same time the pride of fighting for one’s country. Saving Private Ryan showed people the honor of war and the sacrifice asked of soldiers and their readiness to give their entire being to a cause they might never live to see achieved.