Nostalgic Longings, Memories of the ‘‘Good War,’’ and Cinematic Representations in Saving Private Ryan Marouf Hasian, Jr. —This essay focuses attention on some of the polysemic and polyvalent dimensions of Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The author argues that this film needs to be viewed as an intertextual fragment, where audiences, rhetors, and critics co-produce their interpreta- tions of the rhetorical meaning of D-Day and the ‘‘Good War.’’ The essay advances the argument that critical memory studies help us understand how various representations and absences in the film allow for a number of different nostalgic and oppositional readings of the film. Because of the ambiguous nature of this cinematic representation, both supporters and detractors could claim that this was a realistic film that supported their own views on warfare. E ACH day, at least a thousand of the more than six million American veterans of World War II pass away. 1 Now in their seventies and eighties, many of these surviving witnesses watch in horror as new generations voyeuristically critique the ‘‘Good War’’ that was once considered to be one of the defining moments in U.S. history. 2 Most of the generals and poli- ticians who directed the many cam- paigns in Europe and the Pacific have long since passed away, and the build- ing of new memorials assuages only some of the pain of realizing that the once stable memories of the past ap- pear to be crumbling into an oblivion of postmodern fragmentation. As White astutely observed in 1997, ‘‘America’s nostalgic war memories are beginning to fray around the edges’’ (p. 709). Beckham (1999), who visited Nor- mandy in the mid-1990s, similarly re- marked that: World War II has faded into legend, suc- ceeded by Korea and Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War and two wars in the Balkans. We’ve been anesthetized. Even the memory of the Cold War and the threat of a nuclear war doesn’t chill us the way it should. What is overshadows what was. That’s just the way things are.... At Normandy and in cemeteries all over the world, millions of headstones bear the names of young people called to war.... Our country is full of heroes, boys [sic] who became men in battle, old men now, Marouf Hasian, Jr. is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Asso- ciation in Chicago, November 1999. Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2001, pp. 338–358 Copyright 2001, National Communication Association @xyserv1/disk3/CLS_jrnl/GRP_cstu/JOB_cstu18-3/DIV_148a06 tery
Transcript
Nostalgic Longings,Memories of the ‘‘Good War,’’and Cinematic Representations
in Saving Private Ryan
Marouf Hasian, Jr.
�—This essay focuses attention on some of the polysemic and polyvalent dimensions ofSpielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The author argues that this film needs to be viewed asan intertextual fragment, where audiences, rhetors, and critics co-produce their interpreta-tions of the rhetorical meaning of D-Day and the ‘‘Good War.’’ The essay advances theargument that critical memory studies help us understand how various representations andabsences in the film allow for a number of different nostalgic and oppositional readings ofthe film. Because of the ambiguous nature of this cinematic representation, both supportersand detractors could claim that this was a realistic film that supported their own views onwarfare.
EACH day, at least a thousand of themore than six million American
veterans of World War II pass away.1Now in their seventies and eighties,many of these surviving witnesseswatch in horror as new generationsvoyeuristically critique the ‘‘GoodWar’’ that was once considered to beone of the defining moments in U.S.history.2 Most of the generals and poli-ticians who directed the many cam-paigns in Europe and the Pacific havelong since passed away, and the build-ing of new memorials assuages onlysome of the pain of realizing that the
once stable memories of the past ap-pear to be crumbling into an oblivionof postmodern fragmentation. As Whiteastutely observed in 1997, ‘‘America’snostalgic war memories are beginningto fray around the edges’’ (p. 709).Beckham (1999), who visited Nor-mandy in the mid-1990s, similarly re-marked that:
World War II has faded into legend, suc-ceeded by Korea and Vietnam and thePersian Gulf War and two wars in theBalkans. We’ve been anesthetized. Eventhe memory of the Cold War and thethreat of a nuclear war doesn’t chill us theway it should. What is overshadows whatwas. That’s just the way things are. . . . AtNormandy and in cemeteries all over theworld, millions of headstones bear thenames of young people called to war. . . .Our country is full of heroes, boys [sic]who became men in battle, old men now,
Marouf Hasian, Jr. is Associate Professor in theDepartment of Communication, University ofUtah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. An earlierversion of this essay was presented at the annualmeeting of the National Communication Asso-ciation in Chicago, November 1999.
Critical Studies in Media CommunicationVol. 18, No. 3, September 2001, pp. 338–358
Copyright 2001, National Communication Association
who withstood and gave up more than wewill ever now. (p. 33)3
Beckham is of course not alone in herhopes that we honor those who havemade sacrifices in the past.
Given this cultural milieu, it shouldcome as no surprise that Spielberg’sPrivate Ryan (1998) has received mas-sive public and critical acclaim.4 Onecritic proclaimed that the film was a‘‘millennial epic,’’ a war ‘‘movie to endall war movies’’ ( Johnson, 1998, p. 47).Cohen (1999) observed how many Vet-erans of World War II who saw thefilm ‘‘streamed out in stunned, wet-eyed silence’’ (p. 35). This cinematicrepresentation had such resonance thatAmerica Online created web sites andchat rooms so that ‘‘millions’’ of mem-bers could come ‘‘online to meet andtalk, to exchange information and makefriends, to laugh and yell and debateand cajole’’ (Case, 1999, p. 10). Whensome patriotic viewers lamented theabsence of any monologues that dis-cussed the origins of the conflict,Krauthammer (1998) came to Spiel-berg’s defense: ‘‘World War II speaksfor itself. It needs no spin. Only amoral idiot can doubt its justice. And itwas clearly not this director’s intent todevalue the cause’’ (p. A-25).
Yet an increasing number of com-mentators have begun to argue thatreverence for our World War II veter-ans should not require that we avoidcritiquing the motivations and interestsinvolved in the waging of all wars.Don’t different communities have con-flicting views of what it means to bepatriotic, dutiful, and honorable?Months before the announcement ofthe winners of the Academy awards inApril of 1998, one skeptical reviewerprophesied that audiences would wit-ness performances of ‘‘filial piety,’’where the ‘‘baby boomer’’ sons and
daughters would kneel before ‘‘theirWWII fathers in a final, fin-de siecle actof generational genuflection’’ (Doherty,1998, p. 68).5
The evocative power of this cin-ematic representation has helped tocreate a complex tapestry of negoti-ated texts, a vivid example of whatNora (1989) has called ‘‘les lieux dememoire,’’ or sites of memory. Suchplaces provide communication schol-ars with unique challenges and oppor-tunities because the critic has to em-ploy a method of analysis that allowsher or him to look at the polysemic(Ceccarelli, 1998; Condit, 1989; Fiske,1986) meanings of contested fragments.At the same time, the critic tries to beattentive to the performative dimen-sions of artifacts, now that ‘‘text con-struction’’ is the ‘‘primary task of audi-ences, readers, and critics’’ (McGee,1990, p. 274). This is especially impor-tant in memory studies where audi-ences are constantly coping with thetraumas of times remembered and for-gotten.
In this essay, I decode the meaningand valences associated with Spiel-berg’s Private Ryan by looking at a fewof the representations in the film andtheir ‘‘intertextual animation’’ (Solo-mon, 1993) with other texts providedby critics and citizens. In recent years,a growing number of scholars havebeen interested in explicating the rolethat individual and collective ‘‘memo-ries’’ play in the public sphere (Browne,1995; Carlson & Hocking, 1988; Dick-inson, 1997; Ehrenhaus, 1988, 1989;Foss, 1986; Gallagher, 1995; Gillis,1984; Haines, 1986; Katriel, 1994;Nora, 1989, 1992; Schudson, 1992;Schwartz, 1982, 1995; Sturken, 1997;Zelizer, 1992; Zerubavel, 1995). I aug-ment their investigations by looking at
the role that ‘‘nostalgia’’ plays in what Icall ‘‘critical memory studies.’’
In order to carry out this task, thisessay is divided into five major seg-ments. The first section outlines someof the key assumptions that inform‘‘critical memory studies’’ and its rela-tions to nostalgia and remembrance.The second portion is primarily de-scriptive and lays out the basic plot ofthe movie. The third portion then high-lights the nostalgic arguments of manydefenders of the movie, who havetreated it as a realistic portrayal of theAllied invasion of Normandy in 1944.In the fourth part I discuss how somecritics and audiences have interpretedSaving Private Ryan as an anti-war film,where watching the movie becomes aritualistic act of confession. Finally, inthe assessment, I conclude that theseintertextual debates over the historicalaccuracy of the film (and the intentionsof the producers) have much to tell usabout the needs of the present and ourrecollections of the past.
Critical Memory Studies,Nostalgia, and
Remembrances of‘‘The Good War’’
As we begin life in the twenty-firstcentury, there is little question that ourmass mediated age has witnessed arevival of interest in understanding theaffinities that exist between the prob-lems of the present and the traditionsof our past. ‘‘All at once heritage iseverywhere,’’ notes Lowenthal (1998),‘‘in the news, in the movies, in themarketplace—in everything from galax-ies to genes’’ (p. xiii). In recent dec-ades, both elites and ordinary citizenshave not only studied, but performedvarious historical remembrances asthey immerse themselves in activities
like the collection of calendars andscrapbooks, participation in youthmovements and festivals, and visita-tions of memorial libraries, monu-ments, and museums. Schwartz (1998)recently observed that:
As residual patterns of belief often reflectdeliberate efforts to renew ties to a past thatemergent patterns challenge, it is no sur-prise to witness thousands of amateur oralhistorians seeking to recover the ethniccommunities of their parents and grandpar-ents, hundreds of thousands of Americansundertaking genealogical inquiries to iden-tify their forebears, millions of Americansadmiring archetypal warrior-presidents inthe films Independence Day (1996) and AirForce One and a great surge of monumentbuilding beginning in the 1980s—the verydecade in which revisionist history (conced-ing only the sins of the American narrativeto be grand) matured. (pp. 94–95)
Because of the rhetorical nature ofthese sites of memory, visitors are ableto bring together their prior preconcep-tions of the past (experienced directlyor vicariously) and tie them to the sym-bolic meanings that are evoked by thepresence of various rhetorical artifacts.For example, visitors to the Vietnammemorial sometimes come to such sa-cred places in order to ‘‘imbue it’’ with‘‘a diversity of meaning’’ (Ehrenhaus,1989, p. 96). Jameson (1997) has simi-larly remarked that ‘‘so-called nostal-gia films’’ allow for ‘‘allegorical process-ing’’ that mobilizes visions of the past(p. 7).
The polysemic and polyvalent na-ture of such artifacts and audience re-constructions has meant that memorystudies have themselves become a partof the larger cultural wars. Burke (1966)was ahead of his time when he admon-ished us to never forget that ‘‘any giventerminology’’ is both a ‘‘reflection ofreality’’ and a ‘‘deflection of reality’’ (p.45).6 Novick (1999) has recently noted
that we ‘‘choose to center certainmemories because they seem to us toexpress what is central to our collectiveidentity’’ (p. 7), and that such sedimen-tations are ‘‘impatient with ambiguitiesof any kind’’ (p. 4). Our acceptance ofsalient memories as historical facts thusbecomes a negotiated production thatinvolves both rhetors and audiences.
What artifacts we choose to study,the interpretative frameworks that weemploy, and the amount of distancethat we adopt in our investigations areall choices that have consequences.Maier (1993), for example, worries that‘‘the surfeit of memory is a sign not ofhistorical confidence but of a retreatfrom transformative politics’’ (p. 150).Approaching the issue from a very dif-ferent angle, Schwartz (1998) attackedmany of the post-modernists who ap-parently trivialized the importance oftraditional memories, and argued thatour ‘‘commemorative activities’’ aremore than just nostalgic feelings for aninauthentic past (p. 97).
In this essay, I advocate the adop-tion of a perspective that I will call‘‘critical memory studies’’—where thecritic tries to employ a self-reflexivemethod that balances the need for in-quiry with tolerance for alternative per-spectives. Here the scholar tries toavoid the twin problematics that comefrom excessive valorization or denigra-tion of the past by broadening the scopeof the project to include the voices ofvarious critics and audiences who donot share similar ideological predispo-sitions. This is especially important inany analyses of the ‘‘Good War,’’ be-cause the ‘‘disremembrance [sic] ofWorld War II is as disturbingly pro-found as the forgettery [sic] of the GreatDepression . . .’’ (Terkel, 1984, p. 3).Such a move helps us to understandthat the renewed interest in traditions,
heritages, and memories of the past isnot just an academic obsession, but areflection of cultural trajectories andsocietal interests as well.
One key aspect of such criticalmemory studies involves the questionof ‘‘nostalgia’’ and our memories ofparticularly traumatic conflicts. Schol-arly interest in the manifestations andconsequences of nostalgic thinking hasa lengthy, but checkered, past. Thisspecial type of collective memory hasbeen a part of Western discourse sincethe late seventeenth century, when theterm ‘‘nostalgia’’ was used to describean alleged medical ailment of Swissmissionaries who worked in distantlands.7 One variant of the tale arguedthat ‘‘homesickness’’ was a malady thatwas partially cured when people cameup with ways of returning to an ‘‘ideal-ized past,’’ a spatial and temporal spacedifferent from a threatening present(Steinwand, 1997, p. 9). In more mod-ern eras, it has been the ‘‘commercial-ization of nostalgia’’ that has allowedmillions of voyeurs to ‘‘recreate thecultural artifacts and mass experience’’of the past (Graham, 1984, p. 348).
In most studies of nostalgia, thisyearning for imaginative reconstruc-tions is treated as a some form of indi-vidual or social illness, a defect in theindividual or national character. Theolder associations of nostalgia withphysical ailments have been supple-mented with lexicons that highlight themental disturbances that purportedlyaccompany these feelings of homesick-ness. Over the centuries, those whohave openly expressed their feelings oflonging for the past have been charac-terized as ‘‘unmanly,’’ [sic] ‘‘unpatri-otic,’’ and ‘‘defeatist’’ (Dudden, 1961,p. 517). By 1984, Lasch could arguethat ‘‘the victim of nostalgia clings toan idealist past,’’ and lives in a ‘‘reac-
tionary’’ world where sentimentalismreigns (p. 65). Such pathological de-scriptions implied degrees of errone-ous thinking, emotional instability, andan inability to adapt to the trappings ofmodernity. For example, Goldstein(1999), in his analysis of Saving PrivateRyan, argued that the movie was cre-ated in an ‘‘era of nostalgia’’ that forgotthat ‘‘the greatest generation exists onlyin our minds’’ (par. 22).
A critic deploying a critical memoryperspective might respond that suchstances provide us with only a partialunderstanding of the complexities in-volved when individuals and collec-tives reminisce about the past. Nostal-gic feelings—that come from intertextualinteranimations (Solomon, 1993)—in-volve many layers of prefigurations andsedimentations that cannot be dis-missed as simply psychological disor-ders. Iconoclastic dismissals of the past,that invert temporal hierarchies so thatwe privilege the present, have theirown cultural amnesias. As Steinwandinsightfully pointed out in 1997, ‘‘nos-talgia ought not simply to be dismissedas a distortion of ‘the other’, becauseevery reflection on where we are goingand where we have been depends onsuch distortion’’ (p. 10). The security ofan experienced or idealized past pro-vides a great deal of comfort for thosewho are bothered by the trappings ofmodernity. This quest for a ‘‘simpleand stable past’’ acts as a refuge ‘‘fromthe turbulent and chaotic present’’(Lowenthal, 1989, p. 21).
It is my contention that even beforethe film was released, the producers,script writers, and promoters of SavingPrivate Ryan understood the impor-tance of these nostalgic feelings andfed these public hungers for upliftingWorld War II memories. ‘‘Well beforethe film’s debut,’’ remarked Spiller
(1999), ‘‘we could hear the drumbeatof publicity’’ (p. 41). Doherty (1998)echoed these sentiments when he no-ticed:
More than any other entertainment film ofrecent memory, however, Saving PrivateRyan comes wrapped in an esthetic of real-ism that is its red badge of pure motivesand high purpose. Pre-publicity advertis-ing massaged audience reception and dic-tated the terms of victory: the imprimaturof veterans being more avidly solicitedthan the thumbs-up sign from film critics.Recruiting from the local VFW and Ameri-can Legion, TV news shows marched D-Day veterans into multiplex malls and re-corded their tearful post-screen exits. (p.68)
Over time, millions of Americans andother viewers were bombarded withinformation from interviews, film clips,photo opportunities, press releases, andInternet chat rooms.
These attacks and defenses of Spiel-berg’s Private Ryan are of course notjust debates about the historical accu-racy of the film or the motivations ofthe promoters. They are also fragmen-tary elements in the much larger cul-tural wars that on issues of politics,power, and pedagogy. As Romanowski(1993) insightfully averred several yearsago, film ‘‘has long been recognized asa powerful transmitter of culture, be-cause it transmits beliefs, values, andknowledge; serves as a culturalmemory; and offers social criticism.Consequently, the cinema remains acontinual battleground in the culturalconflicts in America’’ (p. 63).
In these cinematic debates over theretrieval of the past, both our historiesand collective memories are constantlybeing reconfigured and re-appropri-ated for generations who have vastlydifferent experiences, values, and ex-pectations. The fluidity of these social
constructions emerges from the ‘‘worldof ordinary language’’ where the‘‘meanings’’ of the past are ‘‘observ-ably negotiated’’ (Clark & McKerrow,1998, p. 33). Our historical remem-brances are therefore never completelysettled or stable, and the past becomesmerely the prologue as new battles onthe ‘‘Good War’’ are waged over thecontent and form of our textbooks,libraries, and museums. As Pickering(1997) observed in her analysis of offi-cial and vernacular D-Day celebrations atNormandy, traditional rhetorics are con-stantly being ‘‘assaulted by the revision-ary movement of history’’ (p. 183).8
These multi-vocal dimensions of thefilm have allowed both hawks anddoves to rave about its historical accu-racy, its apparent realism, its vivid por-trayal of the horrors of war, and itspurported underlying messages.9 Gen-erations who were either too young toremember the conflict, or who werenot even alive in the 1940s, can nowchoose up sides and vicariously engagein surreal debates over the depictionsand meanings of bygone events.10 Theevocative power of movies like SavingPrivate Ryan reminds us that the commer-cial success of cinematic representationsis based on more than simply commodifi-cation of knowledge—these creative mean-ings also depend on a delicate symbiosisbetween rhetors, audiences, and texturedfabrications. The rhetorical dimensions ofmemory studies complicate the ways thatwe think about our histories and remem-brances of warfare.
Historical Emplotmentsand Remembrances
of the Normandy InvasionUnlike many other previous films
about the Normandy invasion that be-gin their chronicles with detailed expla-
nations of the massive Allied planningthat preceded the landing, Spielberg’sSaving Private Ryan highlights the viewsof the common soldiers who waitedanxiously in the landing craft that hitOmaha Beach. The movie begins witha mysterious graveyard scene wherean elderly gentleman and his familyare in search of a particular burialmarker, but upon finding that restingplace, we are immediately transportedback in time to the events that tookplace in the early morning hours ofD-Day, June 6, 1944.
Audiences watching this part of themovie feel as if they too are in thelanding vehicles that make up the mas-sive Normandy flotilla. For the mostpart, these are silent men, ‘‘some arepuking, as much from fear as fromseasickness, others praying, all of themtense and subdued. They are long pastbanter and bravado. When the rampgoes down, we go with them into themaelstrom of water and metal’’(Hertzberg, 1998, p. 31).11 The firsttwenty-five minutes of Saving PrivateRyan focus on the horror and random-ness of violence, as viewers are invitedto stand alongside terrified Rangerswho face a ‘‘tempest of machine-gunfire’’ that ‘‘devours the leading groupof men’’ (Shepard, 1998, p. 23). Aftertaking casualty rates of sometimes 80and 90 percent, the surviving menslowly make their way up the slopes sothat they can finally face the enemy. Atthis point in the movie, the cameraturns back to beach, and we notice onename on the back of a dead soldier’spack—‘‘Ryan, S.’’
Much of the action in the moviesurrounds the activities of a CaptainMiller (Tom Hanks), who finds that inthe aftermath of D-Day that he will besent on a controversial mission behindenemy lines. He and a few of his men
will be asked to save the life of anotherRyan (Francis), a paratrooper with theAmerican 101st Airborne Division.Ryan’s other three brothers have beenkilled in battle, and someone is goingto have to tell the family back home inIowa about the tragedy. In one of themost poignant scenes in the movie, amilitary car slowly winds its waythrough a dusty road that takes theoccupants to the front of a typical mid-Western farmhouse. Intuitively audi-ences realize that we must be at theboyhood home of the Ryans, and whenboth a minister and an officer get out ofthe vehicle, we see Mrs. Ryan collapseon her front porch.
Miles away, an emotional GeneralGeorge C. Marshall (Harve Presnell)has decided that this same Mrs. Ryanneeds to be spared the loss of her lastson.12 When one of the other membersof his staff wonders about the relativeimportance of this single life, Marshallresponds by reading to the audiencethe contents of the famous Bixby letter,a short note purportedly written byAbraham Lincoln that was sent to an-other grieving mother during the CivilWar.13 This letter is of obvious impor-tance to General Marshall because heis shown quoting some of the last sen-tences of the document from memory.The search for the surviving son thusbecomes a moral imperative. Althoughmany of the characters in Saving PrivateRyan are fictional, some of the eventsthat are portrayed in the film are basedon some real life families—the Ni-lands14 and the Sullivans,15 who actu-ally lost several sons during World WarII. Spielberg has also appropriatedsome of these plot lines from StephenAmbrose’s Band of Brothers (Shepard,1998, p. 23).
The scene shifts back again to theshores of Normandy where Captain
Miller and seven other Rangers learnthat they are the ones who have beenselected to find Private Ryan. ‘‘Themovie’s apparent theme,’’ noted Co-hen (1999), is whether ‘‘it is worth risk-ing the lives of eight men to save one’’(p. 36). After having survived the car-nage of the beach landing they are inno mood for this assignment, but or-ders are orders. As they set out acrossenemy territory, they occasionally dis-cuss some of the reasons why the higherechelons have sent them on their jour-ney. Early on in the movie CaptainMiller remarks that ‘‘Ryan better beworth it,’’ but by the end of the film fewof the Rangers have any doubts about theimportance of saving Francis Ryan.16
Miller’s platoon is multi-cultural inits composition, and audiences are al-lowed to see some of the trials andtribulations of a dependable NCO(Tom Sizemore), a Jew (Adam Gold-berg), a devote Southern sharpshooter(Barry Pepper), an Italian (Vin Diesel),and a ‘‘Brooklyn wiseguy’’ (Ed Burns)(Denby, 1998, p. 45).17 After havingsurvived several campaigns together,these are veterans and a tightly knitgroup, and they clearly don’t enjoy thecompany of new recruits. After learn-ing that the platoon will need to crossoccupied territory, Captain Millersearches for an interpreter who canspeak both German and French, andhe eventually gains the services of Cor-poral Upham ( Jeremy Davies), a new-comer to battle who is initially shunnedby the rest of the platoon. Upham is anidealist soldier/writer who knows moreabout a typewriter than he does a rifle,and he soon learns that brotherhood inthe field is very different from the ro-mantic images that are found in thepages of novels.
During the middle parts of themovie, audience members are carried
along as Miller and the rest of his teamdeal with hidden snipers, homelessFrench families, crashed gliders, andGerman prisoners. We quickly realizethat these pragmatic veterans are survi-vors in part because of their resource-fulness and single-mindedness. WhenMiller’s platoon finally finds FrancisRyan, they tell him about the deaths ofhis three brothers, and they hope thatthis will mean a hasty return to theNormandy shores. These hopes arequickly dashed as Ryan explains thathe has to stay with the rest of hisbuddies who are holding a key bridgeat Ramelle. Miller decides that hisgroup will also stay with Private Ryanat the bridge.
In the ensuing battle, most ofMiller’s platoon dies in combat, and hehimself becomes mortally wounded ashe fights off everything from a highcaliber, motorized machine gun to aGerman Tiger tank. Just as it looks likethe enemy will take the bridge, the‘‘day is saved by the sudden arrival ofair force ‘tank busters’ ’’ (Vandervort,1998, p. 895). As Miller is about to die,he tells the surviving Ryan to ‘‘earn it’’and make sure that he lives his life in away that counts.
At the end of the film, we are againtransported back into the future, andaudiences slowly become aware that itis Private Ryan who was the elderlygentleman who made that lonely trekacross the graveyard at the beginningof the movie. We now have enoughinformation so that we can understandthat the graveyard must be in Nor-mandy and that Ryan has come backto Miller’s grave site to pay homage tohis memory. In these closing scenes,Ryan turns to his wife, and says: ‘‘Tellme I’m a good man. Tell me I’ve led agood life’’ (Caldwell, 1998, p. 50).18
Regardless of our political proclivities,
we leave the theater with a sense oftragedy and loss, a recognition thatwars take away from us many Millers.Although the producers of the filmnever delve into the question of justwho started the war or why Normandyhad to be invaded, we get the messagethat even skeptical soldiers shared someunique bonding experiences. As Spiel-berg told one critic, the ‘‘nobility ofthat mission became a symbol. Hisgoing home represents all going home’’(Shepard, 1998, p. 23).
Nostalgic Yearnings, Trauma,and the ‘‘Realism’’
of Saving Private RyanInterest in World War II films has
waxed and waned, and these changesoften reflect the mercurial attitudes ofaudiences who have different genera-tional needs and expectations. In the1950s and 1960s, movies like Battle-ground and 12 O’Clock High tried to giveviewers some inkling of the pressuresand nobility of war, but by ‘‘the late1970s, the Second World War hadceased to be of interest to popular film-makers’’ (Shepard, 1998, p. 23).19 Inthe 1990s, things have drasticallychanged, as audiences across the coun-try have shown an interest in readingworks like Brokaw’s (1998) The GreatestGeneration. One New York Times critic,Canby (1998), remarked that ‘‘[W]ithSaving Private Ryan, war is good again’’(p. C-3). This is perhaps an exaggera-tion, but it nonetheless reflects the re-newed interest that Americans have inlearning about and commemoratingsome of the events of World War II.20
For millions of these viewers, seeingSaving Private Ryan was not and is notjust a source of entertainment, but aquest for understanding and respect.21
investigator with the Virginia attorneyGeneral’s office, Lucy Robinson, toldreporters that after seeing the movie,she would ‘‘never miss another Veter-an’s Day parade’’ (‘‘Interest,’’ 1999, p.B3). In a letter to the editor of the NewOrleans Time-Picayune, White (1999) re-marked that the movie was more than‘‘marketable nostalgia,’’ because it tolda story that used ‘‘to be learned bymost of the schoolchildren of theUnited States by the time they reachedthe 4th grade’’ (p. B-6). White went onto observe that he had recently buriedhis father ‘‘with his paratrooper wingspinned to his lapel’’ (p. B-6). Beckham(1999) explained that ‘‘Saving PrivateRyan’’ ‘‘didn’t teach me anything. But itreminded me of things we seldom thinkabout when you don’t have to shut offthe lights at night and draw the shadesand write in the semi-dark to the boywhose star hangs on your front door’’(p. 33).
Watching Saving Private Ryan alsobecame a cultural event where differ-ent generations sometimes saw themovie together and then discussedsome of the pain and trauma that camewith remembrance. The America On-line message boards allowed more than30,000 members to express theirthoughts on the movie (Case, 1999, p.11), and a book was produced thatcompiled these anonymous reactions(Kornbluth & Sunshine, 1999). Visitorsto these internet sites talked about suchissues as post-traumatic stress, alcohol-ism, memory loss, and the terror ofWestern Union messengers. In onetypical commentary, one participantremarked that ‘‘Saving Private Ryan re-minds us we must NEVER stop re-membering them all and what theywent through for all of us’’ (Kornbluth& Sunshine, 1999, p. 29). Another con-tributor claimed that while watching
the movie he tried ‘‘to put myself inDad’s boots. I really found myself there,and I think now I understand betterwhy he had such a hard time talkingabout Omaha Beach’’ (p. 17).
Many observers have been attractedto the film because Spielberg seems tohave created a narrative that showssome of the chaos of warfare withoutdenigrating the motives of those whoparticipated in the conflict. Yes, we cancomplain about the randomness ofdeath, the disparate power relation-ships in the ranks, or the wrongheadeddecisions made by unknown bureau-crats, but here there is no questioningof the motives of the politicians whogot us into World War II or the hero-ism of those who fought it. One admir-ing critic remarked that:
There is a difference between saying thatone died absurdly in war—grotesquely, ar-bitrarily, as on Omaha Beach—and sayingthat one died for an absurdity. It is thedifference between realism and cynicism,between Saving Private Ryan and anti-warpropaganda. . . . There is not an ounce ofcynicism in the movie. No Oliver Stone,no Joseph Heller, not even John Le Carre.It is all guts, yes. But glory too, subtle anddeeply moving. (Krauthammer, 1998, p.A-25)
Hertzberg (1998) similarly opined that,‘‘it has no agenda other than to capturethe experience of being a combat sol-dier in the last global war. . . . Younever feel Meaning place a hand onyour shoulder’’ (p. 32). For many view-ers, this was a film that didn’t have a lotof ideological baggage.
Yet in spite of these compliments,there were patriotic viewers of SavingPrivate Ryan who argued that the filmwas not commemorative enough andthat it should have been more respect-ful of World War II veterans. Fromwithin this perspective, we have a lot of
Millers, so why do we need to seeGerman prisoners shot in anger, orcowardice under fire? In a typical pas-sage, Suid (1998) complained that‘‘Spielberg does a great disservice tothe very men he is trying to memorial-ize in his film by showing them asundisciplined, cowering soldiers in-stead of the well-trained troops theywere’’ (p. 1186). One reporter for theWashington Post alleged that critics werenot ‘‘calling for some long, lachrymoseoration on the nature of Nazism or theprice of freedom,’’ but some ‘‘singlephrase from these gutsy GIs about thewider panorama and purpose of theirfight’’ (Krauthammer, 1998, p. A25).22
‘‘Saving Private Ryan suggests a va-cancy,’’ noted Rothkopf (1999), be-cause the ‘‘grave reasons behind thewar need not be explored or ques-tioned’’ (pp. 28–29). Furthermore,Spielberg’s ‘‘film shrinks from an expla-nation of any kind, with the ultimateeffect of seeming insensitive to the enor-mity of the fascist [sic] threat and theconvictions of those who died inbattles’’ (p. 29).23
Spielberg has himself admitted someof these absences, and he has re-sponded that avoiding these ideologi-cal debates over the meaning of thewar has allowed him to provide aunique cinematic representation:
This war has not really been explored onfilm except with ulterior motives. Duringthe war itself, it was explored for purposesof bolstering the home front, or encourag-ing enlistment, or selling War Bonds. Whenthe picture was over—after The End—you’dhave the emblem of the little minutemanstanding sentinel and ‘‘Buy your WarBonds at this the theatre.’’ You’d only do alow shot if the soldier is standing, so he cantower magnificently above you. Soldiersdie with lovely last words that sound likethey were written by poets. The gunfire isnever loud enough, the damage is never
honest enough—all because the purpose isto do everything about the war except tellyou what it was like to be in one. (quoted inHertzberg, 1998, p. 32)
Spielberg would eventually emerge tri-umphant from this debate, and he re-ceived numerous awards from a num-ber of military organizations. The chiefof staff of the U.S. Army, General Rei-mer, gave the famous film maker thatorganization’s highest civilian decora-tion. Not to be outdone, the AmericanLegion created a new ‘‘Spirit of Nor-mandy’’ award for Spielberg (Cohen,1999, p. 35). Perhaps there were othermembers of the post-war generationswho would also learn about the impor-tance of commemorating the achieve-ments of the ‘‘Greatest Generation’’(Brokaw, 1998).
Caldwell (1998) may have gone toofar when he quipped that some viewerswere angry that they themselves hadnot had the chance to fight the goodwar, but some forms of nostalgia areclearly in the air. Surviving in a post-modern world often means living withuncertainty, skepticism, and partiality.There are those who yearn for anothertime and place where at least somebedrock principles reigned. As Gitlin(1995) explained:
Our secular twentieth century has knowntwo great universalizing passions: universal-izing in the sense of maintaining that hu-manity as a common nature and a com-mon destiny; passions in the sense of worldviews affirmed with a depth of convictionthat led millions of people to sacrifice theirlives in their names. . . . Today, we witnessan exhaustion of that core believed sharedby Americanism. . . . What proliferates inthe West is the ‘‘post’’ mood. We belong toa time of aftermaths: we are after Ausch-witz, after Hiroshima, after the Gulag.(p. 85)
Set adrift in an ocean of circumlocu-tions, some of us yearn for an idyllicpast where men and women thoughtthey knew some of the key purposes oflife.
Oppositional Readingsand Critiques of War:
Forgetting Private RyanAlthough nostalgia for the values of
the past may represent the dominantmood of both movie goers and criticswho have seen Saving Private Ryan,there are those who simply do notunderstand or disagree with the patri-otic messages in the film. For somemembers of the audiences who cometo the film in the post-Vietnam era,24
Spielberg’s celluloid representationswill always be fictional, a part of amuch larger ‘‘heritage’’ industry thatcelebrates an idyllic past that neverwas. Nostalgia has some ‘‘compensat-ing virtues’’ (Lowenthal, 1988, p. 13),but it also reflects that societies may beexperiencing losses, anxieties, and pain(p. 8). For viewers who believe thatthey have been immunized against thismalady watching Saving Private Ryansimply reaffirms the conviction that nowar is worth the casualties or the sacri-fices that are made. Fiske (1986) hasargued that there are always potentialoppositional readings of texts, and nei-ther the film makers’ intentions nor thepreferred interpretations of the movieexhaust its semantic possibilities. Audi-ences who still remember the traumaof Vietnam believe that they can stillrespect the sacrifices of the individualsoldiers while simultaneously critiqu-ing the motivations that brought uswar.
In the case of Saving Private Ryan, itmay be possible that the movie makershave ‘‘unwittingly’’ opened ‘‘those old
wounds of doubt’’ and deconstructed‘‘democracy’s greatest moment’’ (Blake,1998, p. 17). For example, Siskel, wholiked the film, called it an ‘‘action filledanti-war film’’ (quoted in Caldwell,1998, p. 48). Another critic remarkedthat the movie suggests that althoughthe ‘‘Baby Boomers’’ understood thestakes in World War II, one suspectsthat ‘‘they would never have fought itthemselves’’ (Cohen, 1999, p. 35).
There are perhaps two key scenes inSaving Private Ryan that seemingly in-vite these oppositional readings—thegraveyard scenarios and the inclusionof the character of Corporal Upham.As noted above, the entire film SavingPrivate Ryan is framed by two grave-yard scenes at the beginning and endof the film,25 and for patriots, the focusof attention should be on the oldersoldier who quietly searches for thekey resting place of an old friend oracquaintance.26 He is the one whopasses rows and rows of crosses andStars of David, and we are made torealize the tremendous sacrifices thathave been paid by countless men andwomen.
Yet what happens when we shift ourgaze away from the elderly soldier andtoward those who accompanied him toNormandy? Then we begin to see howthis gentleman is followed ‘‘from a re-spectful distance’’ by members of hisfamily, and one of them snaps ‘‘a disre-spectful photograph’’ as the ‘‘mancrumples before a grave’’ (Doherty,1998, p. 68). The puzzled and courte-ous looks of his entourage remind usthat generational memories are not thesame and that histories are fragile ob-jects when placed in the hands of thosewith different experiences. Those whoknew individuals like Miller would beshocked that anyone could forget, butother memories and other pasts are
competing for attention. Our contem-porary cultural memories are in partformed through photographic images,television, and cinema, and these‘‘screens’’ actively block out ‘‘othermemories that are more difficult to rep-resent’’ (Sturken, 1997, p. 8). Monu-ments and memorials may help bolstersome memories, but they must be sym-bolically tied to the psychic and mate-rial needs of the present.
For many skeptics or critics of war,the most compelling figure in SavingPrivate Ryan may not be either Milleror Ryan, but rather Corporal Upham.In many ways Upham becomes aniconic figure who represents the am-bivalence of the generations who ei-ther could not or would not have recog-nized the moral certainties of the‘‘Good War.’’ Upham’s foibles andmoral quandaries on the screen re-mind audiences that the Vietnam Warwas not the only war that had its ‘‘syn-drome.’’ Upham is one of the few mem-bers of Miller’s squad who survives thefighting at the Ramelle bridge, butviewers know that he has often shirkedhis duties and played the role of thecoward. In one scene in Saving PrivateRyan, he hides in a foxhole when he issupposed to be taking precious ammoto his embattled brothers. Upham isthus an intriguing figure, one that someof us simultaneously loathe and yetunderstand. As Wrathall (1998) ex-plained:
An interpreter seconded to Miller’s squadafter the landing at Omaha, Upham is thecharacter closest to Spielberg himself: heknows about war, and can quote Tenny-son’s ‘‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’’but he has never seen action. . . . Upham isbright, but nervous and clumsy. From thestart he is set up as the innocent—in time-honoured movie tradition—will surely comeunder his own under fire. . . . Later, duringthe final battle in Ramelle, Upham is para-
lysed into fear. Spielberg keeps playing onour expectations that he will snap out of itand do something heroic. But he neverdoes. . . . Only at the very end of the filmdoes Upham finally take action, recaptur-ing the German and shooting him in coldblood. But it’s hardly an act of redemption.(p. 35)
Spielberg’s inclusion of Upham showsus how some characters can becomeciphers, emotive signifiers that can con-vey some of the less noble sentimentsof warfare. Caldwell (1998) notes thatparts of Saving Private Ryan provide uswith examples of cowardice and crimi-nality that ‘‘undercuts’’ the ‘‘patrioticmessage’’ of the movie (p. 49). Spiel-berg startled some of his admirers whenhe publicly admitted that Upham ‘‘wasme in the movie. That’s how I wouldhave been in war’’ (p. 49). Such admis-sions led one columnist (Grenier of theWashington Times) to say that Spielbergseemed to be ‘‘rather proud of his cow-ardice’’ (Caldwell, 1998, p. 49).
In many ways, Upham is a strategi-cally ambiguous character because hehails us to think of some of the class aswell as generational dimensions of theWar. He is not the typical grunt in thewar, one of the faceless millions whohave gladly made sacrifices for eitherhis ‘‘people’’ or the American way oflife. Upham is a cautious, thinking sol-dier, the type of intellectual who clearlylooks out of place—a person who moreclosely resembles the person who wentto Canada or reluctantly fought theVietnam War. Unlike Miller, theteacher turned patriot, this is a personwho did not understand the impor-tance of heroism or sacrifice. When wesee Upham, we don’t just think ofWorld War II, we think of a perspec-tive—a hesitance to believe in any‘‘Good War.’’ Upham’s detached inter-est in the war distances him from the
others in the platoon, and when hetries to convince them that they shouldnot be shooting prisoners, his notionsof transcendent morality seemed to beidiosyncratic and naive. As Lane (1998)averred, Upham is ‘‘devoid of combatexperience, unable to interpret the lin-gua franca of mass slaughter’’ (p. 79).
Spielberg’s focus on the ordinary sol-diers who fought the wars thus pro-vides us with multiple characters andpossible interpretations, and our so-cially constructed worlds influence theways that we identify with, or vilify,some of these figures. Critics are nowreminding us that wars are fought bymany Uphams, ordinary human be-ings who try to survive in worlds caughtbetween chance and necessity. Thereare many different forms of memoriesand yearnings, and not all of themwere patriotic. ‘‘Like their Civil Warforebears, GIs suffered terribly from‘nostalgia’—a passionate wish to gethome—which worried their generals,’’noted Shepard (1998), ‘‘It may also bethat the post-war films played this downand gave the American soldier a senseof collective purpose he did not have atthe time’’ (p. 23).27 Samuelson (1999)echoed these sentiments and arguedthat his review of a 1943 study showsthat combat veterans were not alwaysin a hurry to return to the front lines (p.A-33).
For many members of the genera-tions who did not fight the war, themoral calculus that places a high valueon the saving of a single life may seemout of place, the measuring stick em-ployed by earlier generations. One getsthe feeling that perhaps there are thoseviewers who left the theater wonderingif the sacrifice of Miller—and hundredsof thousands like him—was really‘‘worth it.’’
AssessmentCommunication scholars might be
interested in deploying critical memorystudies that look at the polysemic waysthat audiences interpret evocative rhe-torical artifacts. Many commentatorswho have discussed the film have ei-ther celebrated Saving Private Ryan asan accurate depiction of our motivesduring World War II, or they havevilified Spielberg for producing a nos-talgic movie that hinders our under-standing of the complexities of war.On the surface such polar stances ap-pear to be antithetical, but a deeperreading shows that both relied on foun-dational positions that refuse to acceptthe multi-vocality of this cinematic rep-resentation. This celluloid representa-tion was just one small part of the‘‘intertextual interanimation’’ (Solo-mon, 1993) that was set in motion whenpromotions, books, journal articles, andeven internet chat lines were estab-lished to provide audiences with fo-rums that allowed them to voice theiropinions on a plethora of topics.
In analyzing a film as controversialas Saving Private Ryan, it is important toremember that there is no Archi-medean spot that will allow us to riseabove the vagaries of the mundaneworld. From a critical memory perspec-tive, there can be no one ‘‘real’’ or‘‘accurate’’ history that can be discov-ered by any film or other technologicaldevice. Regardless of our political pro-clivities, we each have notions of whatit means to be ‘‘anti-war,’’ and Spiel-berg is not the only individual who hashad to grapple with the issue of how todeal with the motivations involved inmodern warfare.
We all have nostalgic longings aboutan idyllic past, but we often disagreeon just what those traditions shouldlook like. Rather than thinking of these
feelings as pathological deviations fromsome single essentialist reality, we needto be cognizant of the myriad ways thatvarious communities engage cinematicrepresentations. There were millionsof participants in World War II, andthey each experienced the horrors ofwarfare in their own way. Moreover,the intervening years between V-J Dayand today has witnessed many otherinternational conflicts that shade theselective remembrances that we haveof our past and our future.
Such a stance does not mean that allrepresentations are based on historiesthat are total fabrications or that wecan’t cannot have better or worse con-structs. As Schwartz (1982, 1995, 1999)and Schudson (1992) have both ex-plained, there are shared traditions andmemories that exist outside the textthat provide some perimeters for plau-sibility and veracity. The shared emo-tions that are evoked by similar sym-bols cannot be summarily dismissed asthe sentimental trappings of commodi-fied productions—the textured feelingsof shared patriotism and honor arereally enough. Doherty (1998) musedthat:
Saving Private Ryan radiates grace, gravitas,and good intentions. It flickers less as amotion picture than as a ceremonial flamefor Americans, on the cusp of the millen-nium, to look back at the linchpin event ofthe twentieth century and to mediate uponthe cost paid by the men who won theGood War . . . If Schindler’s List (1993) sangKaddish at the Wailing Wall, Saving PrivateRyan lays a wreath at Arlington MemorialCemetery. (p. 68)
Unlike other films that appear to us tobe merely entertainment, this particu-lar piece of celluloid has resonance,and it allows viewers to blur the linesbetween the past and present. In someways, we might not even care that the
Bixby letter may be a fake, or thatSpielberg made millions—the traumasof the past come alive as we realize thatother generations had their own moralquandaries. As Blake (1998) opined,Spielberg ‘‘resurrects for our contem-plation those noblest sentiments of self-sacrifice in the service of justice, a sideof the story that we in the snug world ofacademic speculation after the bomband Vietnam too easily dismiss’’ (p.17).
From a critical memory perspective,Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is a rhe-torical masterpiece because it providesus with a graphic example of whatCeccarelli (1998) has called ‘‘strategicambiguity’’ (p. 404). Such a stance al-lows ‘‘two or more otherwise conflict-ing groups of readers converging inpraise of a text’’ (p. 404). By avoidingany detailed commentaries on the mo-tivations of the leaders or the ordinarysoldiers who fought the war, Spielbergencourages viewers and critics to enthy-matically fill in these absences in waysthat allow radicals, moderates, and con-servatives to see this film as an ‘‘anti-war’’ film that supports their ideologi-cal predispositions. The polyvalence inthe production complements its poly-semy. Leftists can congratulate the cre-ators of the film for recognizing theexistence of Uphams, the graphic de-piction of the carnage of the war, andthe unanswered questions that hauntthe grave scenes. Moderates can iden-tify with Miller’s humanism, his wil-lingness to acknowledge the need foroccasional reforms in wartime bureau-cracies, and his candid belief that this‘‘PR’’ mission is temporarily keepinghim from coming home. For conserva-tives, the movie shows that the bondsof brotherhood and sisterhood that de-veloped during World War II have notbeen forgotten and that Americans
have worked through their ‘‘VietnamSyndrome.’’ The nation may now beready to once again recognize the eter-nal importance of character, virtue,honor, and sacrifice.
A critical memory approach also re-minds us that salient films are morethan just artifacts that have been pro-duced for commercial purposes. Thosecelluloid representations that tap intoour individual and collective psychestell us as much about our present needsand desires as they do about the eventsthat took place in Normandy in 1944.‘‘The simplifications that make for com-mercial success,’’ noted Samuelson(1999), ‘‘have the good effect of awak-ening historical memory—and the badeffect of creating myths’’ (p. A-33).Granted, but such a stance perhapsunderestimates the amount of emo-tional and cognitive attachment thatvarious audiences have to those myths.
Out of fairness, critical memoryscholars also need to point out that allcinematic representations can only hintat some of the symbolic and materialinfluences that bring about war. Theabsence of any discussion of the social,economic, political, and cultural causesof the war may have helped Spielbergmarket the film and buttress claimsregarding the authenticity of the film,but it has brought charges that themovie intentionally or unintentionallyglorifies warfare and encourages Ameri-can exceptionalism. When Menand(1998) watched the film, he observedhow members of the audience wept atthe scenes involving Mrs. Ryan andthe death of American troops, but fewviewers seemed to be considered withthe deaths of the German soldiers. Theambiguous protection of American‘‘motherhood’’ appeared as a templatewith its own paternal logic, a self-
explanatory frame of argument thatneeded no dissection.
One of the most intriguing issuesthat comes from the interanimation sur-rounding Saving Private Ryan involvesthe question of how these discussionswill impact our future views on warand diplomatic politics. Some viewerscontend that the film either reflects orrefracts patriotic feelings that are accu-rate barometers of public sentiment.Does this cinematic representation pro-vide us with ominous signs? While de-fenders of the film might argue thatsome wars are necessary and that thereis a difference between respect andveneration, audiences may be re-enact-ing some of the same plot lines whileleaving behind the context that gaverise to those prior feelings. In one ofthe most devastating critiques of SavingPrivate Ryan, Weisberg (1999) remarkedthat:
It may be sheerest coincidence that a realwar has arrived right in the midst of anationwide vogue for a bygone war. Butone way or the other, the depiction of theSecond World War in these two films [Sav-ing Private Ryan and the Thin Red Line], aswell as in Tom Brokaw’s best selling oralhistory, The Greatest Generation, is subtlyinfluencing the way I and most otherAmericans think about the crisis in theBalkans. Do these representations of thewar in the 40’s make us more eager to fightin the late 90’s, or more reluctant? They dosober us to the physical reality of war, butthey are nonetheless deeply nostalgic. Theyrecall combat in Europe and the Pacific asthe proving ground of manhood, an ulti-mate test of character, our last nationalbonding experience. (p. 17)
When both private and public socialactors characterize Milosevic as a mod-ern Hitler, the sedimented layers ofhistorical remembrances are reconfig-ured into contemporary textures of feel-
ings that invite us to once again rise tothe challenge.
One of the most fascinating aspectsof this movie involves the way thatfact and fiction become blurred, asthe very representation of the ‘‘GoodWar’’ becomes a catalytic fragment ina much larger tapestry of meaning. Inmid-November of the year 2000,groundbreaking is supposed to beginon a multi-million dollar monumenthonoring World War II veterans. Itshould come as no surprise that assoon as Tom Hanks became a spokes-person for this cause, donations soared.
At least in the near future, it looks as
though the vast majority of viewerswill be content to celebrate the film asan example of American martial prow-ess, an illustration of how the aberrantmemories of Vietnam are outweighedby the normality of the ‘‘Good War.’’Now some movie goers can create theirown identities as worthy beneficiariesof a national heritage that has beenbequeathed by countless Millers andRyans who have new bridges to hold.Defending the movie against intellec-tual critics becomes a performative ex-ercise that ritualistically displays one’spatriotism. In this America, we hadbetter not see any more Uphams.
Notes1. Conley, a spokesperson for the American Battlefield Monuments Commission, estimated that
‘‘about 1,000 of the 6.3 million World War II veterans die each day’’ (O’Donoghue, 1999, p. 23).2. An excellent collection of World War II oral histories can be found in Terkel (1984).3. Some critics have echoed these sentiments. Hertzberg (1998), for example, has commented on
the national ‘‘desensitization program’’ that has been going on for more than forty years thatallows us to represent violence that is ‘‘more ubiquitous and graphic’’ (p. 30).
4. Only rarely have I seen this movie publicly referred to as ‘‘evil.’’ For an atypical counter-example, see Ouran’s (1999) lament that the movie ‘‘condones war crimes (the killing ofprisoners of war)’’ and was therefore ‘‘an evil film’’ (p. 64).
5. Streible remarked that ‘‘Steven Spielberg represents a generation of Hollywood film makerswho grew up too young to have fought. . . . the film represents children burying their parents;it’s a generational, cultural moment’’ (‘‘Interest,’’ 1999, p. B-3).
6. Gronbeck (1998), in his analysis of the relationship between history, argument, and collectivememory, noted that many parts of the past are ‘‘inaccessible,’’ which means that critics shouldbe attentive to the ‘‘partial, usually self-centered and even self-interested’’ components ofdocument preservation (p. 48).
7. The etymological roots of ‘‘nostalgia’’ come from the combination of the Greek words‘‘nostos’’ (to return home), and ‘‘algia’’ (a painful condition) (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 108). For one ofthe best theoretical discussion of the cultural preconditions that are needed for individual andcollective nostalgic thinking, see Chase and Shaw (1989).
8. This of course raises a key question for film makers and critics, that being whether any filmever truly represents any underlying ‘‘reality.’’ Spielberg once told a columnist that while hebelieved that the ‘‘Holocaust’’ was ‘‘ineffable,’’ combat was not (Hertzberg, 1998, p. 31).
9. Spielberg’s vague answers to questions about his motivations have contributed to thisambiguity. For example, when he was asked about whether this was an ‘‘antiwar film,’’ heresponded that ‘‘I think it’s an antiwar film only in that if you want to go to war after seeing thispicture, then it’s not an antiwar film’’ (Hertzberg, 1998, p. 32).
10. Hindes (1998) pointed out that Saving Private Ryan was the ‘‘graphically brutal depiction of awar that ended before 80% of the U.S. population was born’’ (p. 6).
11. Spielberg would later explain that during these terrifying first 25 minutes of the film during theNormandy landing, he was ‘‘asking the audience’’ to have a ‘‘physical presence, so that theycan somewhat have the experience of what those guys actually went through’’ (quoted inHertzberg, 1998, p. 31).
12. On the surface, Saving Private Ryan appears to be a movie that rarely goes into any detail aboutthe reasons that the American troops are fighting in World War II. Yet Spielberg and the otherproducers of the film provide audiences with hints of possible motives—getting home to lovedones, brotherly love, respect for martial ranks. These inducements seem to pale, however,when compared to the importance of American ‘‘motherhood.’’ Menand (1998) has arguedthat ‘‘[I]f soldiers do not fight for motherhood, what do they fight for? . . . Fighting to return theonly remaining boy to his grieving mother is a thousand times more concrete than fighting toliberate a few Frenchmen. . . . What’s France to a mother’’ (p. 7)?
13. The Bixby letter read:
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt tobeguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tenderingto you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, andleave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride thatmust be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the alter of Freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln (quoted in Burlingame, 1999, pp.64–65)
Burlingame (1999) has criticized the inclusion of the Bixby letter in the film because there issome historical evidence that the note may not have been written by Lincoln and that Mrs.Bixby may not have lost five sons. Vandervort (1998) has also described the scenes withMarshall as ‘‘mawkish memorials to the sacrifices of war’’ (p. 895).
14. Spielberg has explicitly noted that the Niland incidents were the ‘‘kernel of truth about whichthis morality play has been fictionalized’’ (quoted in Caldwell, 1998, p. 49). During thesummer of 1944, two of the Niland sons were killed on D-Day, while another was believed tohave been killed in Southeast Asia. The last brother, Fritz, was a member of the 101st AirborneDivision in Normandy. This last son was saved by Father Francis Sampson, who apparentlyfound the paratrooper and got him home (Spiller, 1999).
15. The Sullivans were five brothers who served in the U.S. Navy and were all on the warshipJuneau when it sank in 1942. In Saving Private Ryan, one of the members of Marshall’s staffexplains to the audience that most brothers were split up after the Sullivan affair to prevent thistype of suffering.
16. Captain Miller also admits that he thinks this is a ‘‘public-relations stunt,’’ but as the filmprogresses, audiences get the impression that the mission takes on much more significance forboth Miller and the rest of the platoon.
17. Conspicuously absent are any major black characters in the film. An anonymous writer for theLos Angeles Sentinel argued that this was remarkable given the fact that the 761st Black PantherTank Battalion was ‘‘responsible for liberating the concentration camps at Buchenwald andDachau’’ (‘‘Who Saved,’’ 1999, p. A-8).
18. Other critics have decoded different meanings from these graveyard scenes. Cohen (1999), forexample, thinks that the survivor who comes to the Normandy graveyard may think that‘‘courage and skill bring success,’’ but these never ‘‘seem able to guarantee physical survival orpsychological peace’’ (p. 39).
19. For an excellent overview of many of these movies, see Spiller (1999). Discussions ofSpielberg’s film may help bring about a renaissance of interest in earlier World War II films.Vandervort (1998), for example, noted that ‘‘reactions to Saving Private Ryan by newspapercolumnists, in particular, have reflected a kind of amnesia about combat films—as if no one butSteven Spielberg has ever attempted to portray the experience of combat honestly’’ (p. 896).
20. Spielberg, the director of the film, proclaimed that he ‘‘made this movie as a memorial’’(quoted in Hertzberg, 1998, p. 33).
21. At times, these cinematic representations also remind some of the guilt that accompaniessurvival. One veteran, writing to Newsweek magazine, claimed that:
We were not heroes. We were part of more than 14 million men [and women] who hadsigned up, put on uniforms and dug in to do a job that had to be done. The fact that threeof my high-school friends did not come back and never even lived out their teens, while Iam 74 years old and still stomping around on the planet enjoying life, has given me a deepsense of guilt that has never left me. (Stroud, 1998, p. 16)
22. Cohen (1999) has also complained that ‘‘children and grandchildren, the beneficiaries of theirsacrifices’’ seem to have forgotten ‘‘the men who fought this great war’’ and who ‘‘achievedone of the most monumental victories of all time’’ (p. 39).
23. Suid (1998) similarly interjected that the ‘‘failure to put in even one sentence, somewhere,about why Adolf Hitler had to be defeated becomes even more ironic in light of Schindler’s List(p. 1186).
24. For an analysis of the cultural meanings of many of the Vietnam films, see Dittmar andMichaud (1990). An excellent discussion of the influence of the Vietnam war on someoppositional readings of Saving Private Ryan can be found in Ehrenhaus (1999).
25. Lane (1998) has complained that Spielberg could have done without this ‘‘sappy epilogue,’’where the ‘‘pilgrimage faithfully undertaken by veterans’’ seems like ‘‘arm-twisting’’ to ‘‘amoviegoer’’ (p. 79). I believe that this interpretation of the final scene misses some of thegenerational dimensions of the film.
26. It will not be until the end of the movie that the audience guesses that this must have been theNormandy memorial.
27. Karl Menninger, the American Army’s chief psychiatrist, found that whereas the Russianswere fighting to avenge their loved ones, the British for survival, and the French to get backtheir country, ‘‘the doughboy fights because he has to. He fights for his buddies and becausehis self-respect won’t let him quit!’’ (Sheppard, 1998, p. 23).
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Received October 20, 1999Final revision received January 13, 2000Accepted February 18, 2000
