The propaganda power of “Saving Private Ryan” w/ Tom Secker – Ep 153 - Fortress On A Hill (FOH) Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Don (00:08):
This is Fortress On A Hill, with Henri, Kaygan, Jo
vonni, Shiloh, and Monisha

Henri (00:18):
Well, welcome everyone to Fortress On A Hill, a podcast about
US foreign policy, anti imperialism,skepticism and the American way of war.
I'm Henri.
Thanks for joining us today.
With us is my pal, the legendaryTom Secker from spyculture.
com and the podcast ClandesTime andhe is here to discuss with me the 1998

(00:41):
war film, uh, Saving Private Ryan.
Tom, how are you doing?

Tom Secker (00:46):
I'm good, Henri.
I'm good.
Thanks for having me back on.
Uh, this conversation has been quitea while in the making, so I have a
feeling it's going to turn into a bitof a splurge of different ideas and
opinions that we have about Saving PrivateRyan, but I'm looking forward to it.

Henri (01:00):
Me too.
Me too.
It is, it is one of those filmsthat, um, well, there certainly
is a lot we can say about it.
Critically, that it does havesome very good moments and really
interesting cinematic moments.
They're most mostly moments becausethey don't fit together whatsoever.
But, um, but the, you can see why thefilm is, is captivating for people,

(01:22):
especially with what, uh, what wasdone with the first 25 minutes.
But of course, we're going to talkabout that at, uh, at length today.
So, um, when I was a kid, my grandfather,my, my mom's dad, my pop, um, took
me to see this in the theater.
And I would say that, you know, of thefilms I saw in that era, between in Let's

(01:46):
say Forrest Gump and the Hurt Locker, thatthe two that were most impactful on me was
Blackhawk down and Saving Private Ryan.
I never really discussed it much withmy grandfather as to specifically why
he wanted me to see it, but he was inthe army between Korea and Vietnam.
So he didn't end up serving in either,but I think he wanted to give me an

(02:08):
education about what being in themilitary could be, and so, you know, I
bet it was it was you know, that first 25minutes as a 16 17 year old kid, make you
hold your breath and um, and certainlythat was what Spielberg was going for.
Um, and there is a measure ofauthenticity to that first bit, but.

(02:30):
Then you get into it and thingsbecome much more problematic.
The second little history tidbit on Henriabout Saving Private Ryan is that there
was a point when I was in high schoolwhere my history teacher, um, who was a
Navy veteran showed us a little blip ofthe beginning of Saving Private Ryan.

(02:51):
I wouldn't say it was longer than 10minutes, so we couldn't have even seen
the entire first sequence, but it was,you know, it was appropriate for what
we were studying in history at the time.
And, um, there were complaintsto the school board and they
pulled Saving Private Ryan.
Um, by name, of course, but they pulledjust about any other R rated film that

(03:14):
a teacher might have shown a portion ofin a, in a class, and so I felt deeply
compelled to do something about that,and I wrote a letter to the editor of
the local newspaper where I'm from, theDallas Chronicle, and I just, I expressed
my, Dissatisfaction at the other adults,the school board and, and others who

(03:38):
complained their, uh, their queasinessabout seeing something like that, because
again, especially for American publicschool, seeing those 10 minutes again,
within American, the American side ofthings could be very informative for
somebody, especially wanting to jointhe military or wanting to understand
something about going back there.

(03:58):
So anyways, so I wrotea letter to the editor.
I have hunted, I hunted high and lowtrying to find it so I could read a
portion of it for today and maybe I willat some point in the future if I come
across the one copy I have somewhere,um, but I will say is that it's important
for me to emphasize my own being takenin by the film, and that it kind of

(04:21):
went up on the mental shelf of examplesof being in the military, examples
of being in war, and that, you know,the, the many, many things many, many
aspects of a film like Saving PrivateRyan that are taken out and looked at.
On their own, and then of course howthey're arranged together, like, you know,
the church scene where the soldiers, theyounger soldiers are talking about missing

(04:47):
their mothers and trying to remember themand the firm understanding that they fully
know that tomorrow may be their last day.
And I thought that part, that part ofit, I thought was a beautiful scene.
It is, it is, it's certainly,it certainly really drips
sentimentality in certain ways.
And so, um, but, uh, anyways, um, enoughabout my experience with the film.

(05:10):
Tom, you, uh, you've actuallybeen to the Normandy coast.
Tell us about that.

Tom Secker (05:15):
Uh, this was On a school trip when I was, I don't know, 11, 12 maybe,
um, where we went to Normandy, one of theplaces we visited was one of the beaches,
uh, where the invasion took place.
I'm not going to say which one,but this was a smaller beach.
It certainly isn't theone depicted in the film.
And to be honest, the whole experiencewas rather quaint because it's

(05:40):
not like in Saving Private Ryan.
Obviously, coastline isdifferent in different places.
This was quite flat and There weren't anygreat big bunkers or anything like that.
There were a few trenchesand ditches and things.
And there was the occasional bit ofrusted old tank trap left in the sand.
So you've got a sense.
of something happening here and obviouslythere's a few plaques and memorials

(06:03):
and a little like visitor's informationcenter that we looked around so you've
got a sense of you know this is ahistorically important location but
ultimately it was just a quite nicebeach, which was a slightly odd thing
that because like you studying our historyOr certainly through the school system.

(06:26):
World War II is really important.
And so the Normandy invasionis really important.
And this is something I musthave been told about and seen
referenced on television hundredsof times before I ever went there.
And the real life experience of juststanding there was like, so this is
where a major part of a war took place?
And actually, of course, it didn't.

(06:46):
Not all the beaches were the same.
That's one of the things that youpointed out in your emails to me.
And you're absolutely right, therewasn't a huge amount of action on this
particular beach, but nonetheless,it was, it was a great part of one
of my favorite trips in my life.
It wasn't the best part of that tripto France and to Normandy, but I'd

(07:10):
say it was probably the second best.

Henri (07:11):
Were you able to, uh, did you get to visit any of
the cemeteries that are there?

Tom Secker (07:16):
Uh, we did.
I don't know if we visitedthem so much as passed them.
Um, there's certainly things we saw.
I don't remember actuallygoing round them, if you see
the distinction I'm making.

Henri (07:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cause it, the, the One thingwe haven't touched on yet is
the, the, um, the opening.
It's not, it's not really a montage, itisn't called a montage, but the opening
scene with, uh, who we eventuallyfind out is Private Ryan himself as
an older man, visiting, um, gravesin Normandy with his family, and it

(07:57):
looks like he brought his partnerswith him, children, grandchildren.
This is a very big occasionthat this is happening.
Um, yeah.
That the, in terms of looking at theway we looking at things, that kind of
thousand yard stare that came from the,uh, from, from Ryan and, you know, the

(08:17):
rows and rows and rows of graves and,and, and just, they're trying to plug
in this veneer of, I, I know they'regoing for respect, but it, it seems just
to me more of a, of a sentimentality.
That doesn't have a lotof backbone behind it.
We want you to get weepy whenyou see the graves, not when you

(08:39):
understand how the graves got there.
They really put this whole scene onthe beach on that plateau in that way.
And that's not to say that whathappened on that beach wasn't horrific.
It was.
And the movie does distilla lot of that very clearly.
It focuses way too much, ofcourse, on the individual.
People in it, and that brings us asindividual moviegoers into it more than

(09:03):
we see in bigger collective actions.

Tom Secker (09:06):
That opening scene bothers me a bit, because like you say, what
are we supposed to feel in that moment?
Because we haven't really beenintroduced to this person.
And it, Turns out to not be theperson we think it is anyway, which
is kind of just pointlessly confusing.
And as you say, the emotional tone ofthat is just a broad sentimentality.

(09:29):
There's no real definition to it.
Somewhat sad?
Sure.
That's about it.
And why hang the opening ofyour movie on a scene with so
vaguely defined emotional stakes?
And then cut straight toflashback, what appears to be a
flashback, but turns out it isn't.

(09:51):
Why?
Um, which then launchesyou into the action.
It would have made more sense tome to start that with Tom Hanks in
the boat, in the landing craft, orat least a big broad sweeping shot.
Yeah.
Lots of landing craft approachingthe beach and then whatever.

(10:12):
Why do we need that scene in, inthe graveyard, in the cemetery?
Why is it there?
Beyond.
Kind of giving a hook to comeback to at the end of the film.

Henri (10:23):
Right, right.
And if it was, if it did go as yousuggested and immediately begin on
the beach, if they were to have leftin that final scene, it would be much
more meaningful that we weren't, one,like you mentioned, we weren't tricked
into thinking it was somebody that itwasn't, and two, we are seeing Ryan's
story coming full circle for the firsttime, not some person we don't know

(10:47):
who the fuck is at the beginning.
It would actually have had agreater meaning in that way.
I don't, I would havecut out both of them.
Uh, in, in, in either case, but atleast, at least I could see that,
I could, I could see that argumentbeing made about the final one
if the first one wasn't there.

Tom Secker (11:04):
It certainly would have had more of an impact in terms of you
actually caring about this person.
Rather than it becoming, oh,he's the guy in the cemetery.
It's more a moment of realizationrather than a moment of sympathy
with this character, which ispresumably what they were going for.
It is very emotionally confused thatthose two scenes bookending the film.

(11:27):
As to quite why they includedthem or what they were going for.
Whole film's confusing inthat respect to be honest.

Henri (11:33):
It really is.
It really is.
And the um, the original script was uh,was much more, just was a greater script.
It was just much more honestand open and authentic.
It didn't have thoseopen and closing scenes.
Tom Hanks's character is muchmore in line with what you would
expect from a wartime army officer.

Tom Secker (11:53):
I never know when I'm watching this film what it is that I'm supposed
to be feeling, because aside from lotsof little problems, which we'll get
to as we go through different parts ofthe movie, um, I, I, it doesn't feel
like I'm actually with any of thesecharacters at any moment, it feels
very much like I'm watching a film.

(12:16):
I always feel a distance to what'shappening on screen, even, to be
honest, in that opening section.
And I get the idea that, froma filmmaking point of view,
that's supposed to draw you in.
And then you're sucked into themovie, and then it slows down,
and we get the actual story.
And we're supposed to be carried through.
By the effect of that openingsequence, but it never had that

(12:37):
effect on me for some reason.
And so as a result, the remainderof the film is quite boring.
I admire the opening section, certainly,as a piece of, as a piece of cinema,
as a piece of Making film, but itdoesn't have the emotional impact
on me that I think is intended.
And I'm not sure quite what isintended beyond that technique of

(13:00):
using the action to suck you in.
But there again, if that's the wholepoint of the opening of the film, why
start with the scene in the cemetery?
And why pull the wholeswitcheroo with the characters?
It just seems like Almost an exercisein keeping the audience guessing at
the exact moment that you want them tostart absorbing this world that you're

(13:20):
creating, to start feeling part of it.
And maybe that's why the movie has justnever really worked for me, whereas
it has for so many other people.
I mean, lots of people thinkthat this is a great movie.
And fine, lots of people get drawninto it, and I understand why you did.
I just never had that reaction fromthe first time I saw the movie all the
way through to the time and re-watchedit recently in order to prep for this.

Henri (13:43):
I, I know I de I definitely had a, a much more romantic notion
of being in the military of combat,of the, uh, consequences in the
casualties and things like that.
You know, and I, I know that,that it made, made a lot
of that, those kind of, uh.

(14:05):
Propaganda films really fit in wellfor me and I think that well for
the American public because mostof our learning is through media.
We're not learning, we're not learningextensive non American, uh, history that
is actually connecting the dots for uson a bigger, bigger scheme than what the
American government wants us to know.

(14:27):
They want us to, to, to vote and to,to support things by sentiment, not by.
Um, critical analysis, not by beingwilling to understand what the
actual foreign policy looks like.
They want us to go in full in on the,and especially with Saving Private Ryan,
on each of the individual soldiers.

(14:48):
And that's, and that's one of theways Spielberg keeps us going through
it, is that there's this drip, drip,drip of dead guys from the squad, and
people are just drawn along with it.
But again, the, the sense ofcollectivism about the fight.
is, totally gives way to all theindividuality, and that's what,
you know, that's what Spielbergwas definitely going for.

Tom Secker (15:12):
But you see what I mean?
It's, to my mind, the bestpropaganda is emotionally specific.
It doesn't have to be honest, of course,but it has to be aimed at something
quite specific that it's trying totrigger in you, or maybe lay down so
it can then be picked up on later.

Henri (15:30):
No, I totally, I totally get the, the, the point you're making that it does
it, it, you know, and I look at it nowthat way, um, you're much, much years
later after having taken in a lot morewar films and really looked at the, at the
context, um, but you're absolutely right,is that that opening scene, it's so Uh,
one dimensional and kind of blase, yousee that thousand yards there and Ryan,

(15:55):
and maybe the audience has an idea ofwhat that's about and maybe they don't.
There's nothing specific, right?
It's not driving towardsanything specifically.
And then of course there's hisfamily there and they're all kind
of, you know, just following grandpa.
You know, I don't, youdon't see any of them.
They don't seem upset or sad to kindof lend us in that direction, or maybe

(16:16):
some of them are frustrated or angryover different dynamics of it, but at
the very least, it would give us cluesto go forward, and there are none.
That opening thing, it gives us, it givesus nothing other than saying, you know,
going to the American notion of, well,not just American, but you know, the, the,
the notion of this, this guy is unsettled.

(16:39):
This guy is, you know, this guyis a, here's our war veteran.
Here's our, you know, guy, and you cansee in his face, there's something wrong.
Do you know what it really is?
No.
Could it be nothing?
Could he be having bad gas or something?

Tom Secker (16:53):
Um, did he forget to take his pills this morning?

Henri (16:56):
Exactly, exactly.
No, there is, there's no, there'snothing to grab on in that moment.
And so, I do totally get, you'relooking at that in kind of confusion,
why are they, what the fuck is thissupposed to be sending me towards?
And then you get to the end, andyou're like, okay, I guess I know what
they were going for, but still, itfeels It feels a bit like cinematic

(17:18):
gaslighting when you really look at it.

Tom Secker (17:21):
Yeah, because it's a warm open that then drops into a cold open.
Right, right.
The film starts twice, essentially.

Henri (17:29):
And lots of critics, lots of critics in the stuff that I've
read online had that same complaint.
It was like, you know, that if you weretaken between the beach and, um, The
Ryan's, uh, Ryan's Rescue at the veryend and cut out the beginning and end.
It would have been like a perfect filmto them, but they did notice that,

(17:50):
you know, what is, why is there thisschmaltzy thing attached to this film?
Do we not have enough to seewhat the characters are doing?
Without having this weird intro and outro.

Tom Secker (18:03):
It also reminds me, and I know I bring up this film quite a lot
in our conversations, but I'm goingto do it again anyway, of Fields of
Fire, the Vietnam film that was nevermade, the one written by Jim Webb.
Because the opening of that filmis the father, the Vietnam veteran,
who is clearly somewhat disabledand certainly still suffering.

(18:26):
His experience is taking his sonto Vietnam to visit the location of
a battle, which we then come backto see later in the film for real.
So it establishes, as I say, theemotional stakes, who these people
are, what their relationship is, wherethey're going and why we should care.
Um, does not take a long time to do that.

(18:48):
It then does go a bit supernaturaland he starts to see ghosts and things
and that precipitates the flashback.
And then as in this film, we thenget the story kind of moving forward
from there chronologically, but it'sessentially the same open, right?
The same way of structuringthe opening to a movie.
And it's so much more effective.
And of course that film done inby the DOD, I mean, it's largely

(19:12):
their fault that it was never made.
Whereas this one ultimately gotarmy support of varying kinds.
I mean, they didn't provide a lotof hardware because they didn't
actually have any World WarII hardware left to loan them.
So I'm not quite sure wherethey got all this from, but
fair play to them for doing it.
Um, and yeah, yes, like I say, whenI was reflecting on why that opening

(19:34):
of the movie bothers me so much thistime, I was thinking it's because
it's the same opening as Fields ofFire, just really badly written.
You know, they were going forthe same kind of thing, but they
just either didn't know how toexecute it or didn't care, maybe?
There's not a lot of carein that opening either.
It doesn't feel like, uh, youknow, Spielberg is capable of

(19:54):
generating great cinematic moments.
Always has been.
And yet that scenefeels so vague and lazy.
And then, yeah, like I say,I think of just a cold open
where we jump straight either.
We see a big.
We get the big picture of theinvasion, we'll just start with
a few guys in a boat, yeah?

(20:15):
Maybe pull out from there.
I don't know, there's so many differentways you could do this that would be more
effective than that, um, but we shouldmove on and actually talk about this
great big, is it 24, 25 minute battlesequence that is the thing everyone talks
about with Saving Private Ryan, I guess.
Yes,

Henri (20:33):
yes, so it's important for people to know that we have to, we definitely
have to take a trip through some importanthistory to understand this, uh, some of
this stuff, and also that it is kind ofa curious thing that a filmmaker would
choose such a specific place Among sucha huge battle, um, and concentrate on it.

(20:59):
And again, you know, got a great manyof the details right, especially as to,
you know, veterans that, that saw itwhen it first came out and talked about,
you know, that the, the authenticitywas definitely up there, but it's
a curious thing to, to Thank you.
Try to recreate such a specific placebecause the history can stand there,

(21:20):
you know, opposed to you the whole time.
Um, whereas if we're watching a movie likePlatoon, that we understand that, that
script, that, that, um, that Oliver Stoneamalgamized different parts of it and put
different things together to make it morecompelling, not to make it inauthentic.
Today we're not gonna talk about trainingor deployment of hundreds of thousands

(21:42):
of Americans, British, French, and so on.
Participated.
Participated in the evasion, uh,both in the English channel like
Tom Hanks and his pals in the movie.
Um, huge airborne drops frominto Normandy behind enemy lines.
Massive bombardment of the coastline.
Um, we're not talking aboutthe full picture of coastal
defenses by the Germans.

(22:04):
We're not discussing PSYOP's campaignsby the Allies to try to shift
German assets in different places.
Um, you know, we're not talking about thefact that You know, truly that four of
five deaths in Europe at that time in, inWorld War II were cumulative, cumulatively
on the Eastern front as the U.
S.
only lost about 600, 000 troops,Russia lost 27 million folks

(22:30):
between military and civilian.
What we are discussing today and whatyou need to center your mind on as
you're listening to us is that this isone very small section of Omaha Beach.
And they took it and they made this25 minutes, so everything that I
just mentioned, we have to understandthat we're not getting the full

(22:51):
picture of any of those things.
Of course, we're not getting the fullpicture in the 25 minutes, but it is
much more honest than a demonstrationof the rest, but it goes back to us
focusing on the individuals, on theindividual wounds, on the individual
arms lost and people blown up.
Drowned in the, in the surf.
And, and of course allthose things happen.

(23:12):
A horrific, horrific place to be anykind of a human being, much less a troop
of some kind on one of those beaches.
Um, one other aspect though, just so Idon't forget to mention it later, is that
much like a film like Black Hawk Down,that this film focused on American forces.
I don't remember seeing any number ofBrits, French, Canadians, um, All of the

(23:38):
varying types of people that actuallytook part in this, and you know, different
countries ended up taking full ondifferent beaches, um, but then we move
on to the actual scene, and history saysthat at this particular sliver of sand,
that this was the worst casualty wise.

(23:59):
It's important to emphasize here thatOmaha beach was the most casualty heavy
area of the initial beach landings.
What you see in the film, whileinaccurate in many ways, does give the
viewer a better grasp on how awful thatmorning was for the invading troops.
Why did Spielberg choose this beach?
Was he attempting to give viewersa sense of how hopeless or
difficult the place really was?

(24:20):
Or was it chosen to make a huge actionsequence that allowed for only binary
assessments of what was happening?
Of course, both pointsaren’t mutually exclusive.
It can be both extreme hopelessnessand a huge action piece that focused on
individuals reacting to heavy violencewithout equally showing the other side.
During the Normandy beach landings, thatmore people died in this small sliver of

(24:44):
ground that included Charlie Company, 2ndRangers, that was actually captained by a
guy named Captain Ralph Goranson, um, andthen immediately to their left, I believe,
is Alpha Company, 116th RegimentalCombat Team, 29th Infantry Division.
And I say that because when thescene opens, when they're opening

(25:05):
the boats for the first time andTom Hanks and Tom Sizemore run out
there, there are already men fromthat alpha company dead on the beach.
Their company was almostcompletely wiped out.
In that section, the Rangers didbetter, only a little better, and I
don't know to put it on Rangers or justthey had good leaders and were able to
make the most of the horrifying place.

(25:27):
Also possibly just dumb luck.
.Absolutely.
No, there's, there's so many differentfactors that can come into it.
Um, one thing that Saving PrivateRyan didn't include in the front
thing was that there were a coupleof incidences of friendly fire.
That was mainly when, uh, Navalbombardments, they were able to signal
back to British naval ships and getthem to provide them artillery support

(25:53):
and sometimes there were misfirings,they hit places where there were actual
Allied troops instead of German troops.
And they also, the troops on thebeaches, used white phosphorus grenades.
To clear out the bunkers andpillboxes that the Germans were in.
I hope I don't need to emphasize toanybody listening to this podcast, but

(26:15):
I'm going to anyway, how horrifyingwhite phosphorus burns are, and how
even after you've been able to get thefire out, which is a chemical fire, one
that can't be put out by water, um, butit's just a horrifying thing, but of
course that one, I could see Spielbergeasily saying we're not going to show
that, and certainly we're not going toshow that happening to any Americans

(26:36):
if somebody missed threw a grenade, andeven though they do show stuff like that,
um, throughout the film, that it was,they didn't include any of those kind
of things, so we're American centric,doesn't include Friendly Fire, doesn't
allow us to know about that other companythat is being entirely shredded to bits.

Tom Secker (26:54):
All you've just said makes me think This sequence is
known for being, or at least in ourgeneration anyway, for being like
the definitive depiction of combat inall its horrible, brutal glory, etc.
And yet, everything you're sayingsays it's actually quite sanitized

(27:16):
and quite carefully sanitized to givethe impression of exactly what they're
going for, which is what Spielberg said.
And he said this ludicrous thing, it's aquote I came across when I was Reading, I
think it was actually Larry Seward's entryon Saving Private Brian, which is alright.
One of the better entries in hisnot especially impressive book.

(27:38):
Um, yeah, anyway, Spielberg said, youknow, there have been, I think he said
84 American films that depict combatin war, and this will be the 85th, and
it'll be the first one to tell the truth.
I'm thinking, firstly, you'veripped off this opening from
The Longest Day, so that's justbullshit straight out of the can.
And secondly, how arrogant to say that,and then to avoid Some of the real chaotic

(28:03):
nastiness of what really happened, someof the real, the real horror show, and
instead it's basically just machineguns, lots and lots and lots of machine
guns, um, and obviously being hitwith an industrial machine gun, having
your gut shredded by it, is not a goodthing, but we don't actually see people

(28:28):
dying in the way a lot of people died.
It's often quite quick, for one thing.
Yeah?
You don't see, apart from the guywho actually has his guts hanging
out and he's screaming and there's,you know, there's a bit of that,
but it's kept to a relative minimum.
We do just see a lot of people gettinghit by bullets and now they're dead.
Like the idiot who comes along and takeshis helmet off and then is immediately

(28:51):
shot and it's like, that's such awar movie cliché, that's so, I mean,
what were they going for with that?
Were they trying to make it funny?
It's almost slapstick, given what'sgoing on around them, given all these
other people who've died, and aredying, and are, you know, lying on
the beach, missing a leg, and so on.

(29:11):
So yeah, what you're saying is actually,rather than being the truth about combat,
as Spielberg was promoting it, possiblyself promoting, It's actually quite
clean given what truly happened there.

Henri (29:25):
There was a lot of deaths on the day of the invasion that happened simply
because the troops were dropped offfrom their Higgins boat or whatever kind
of craft was taking them to the beach.
Um, that so many of them drowned.
You know, they never made it to the beach.
And we see that a little bit.
We see a few guys struggling in the water.

(29:48):
There's, you know, a couple floatingin the water, although it's close
enough, you don't know whether itcould have been gunfire or just
the water or a combination thereof.
And the stories, the little snippetsthat I've read through, uh, doing
research for this has almost every guy.
Who gets mentioned saying that they werehelping somebody else who was wounded,

(30:10):
you know, guy broke his leg trying to comeout of the water guy gets trapped under
a rock and so, so much of the soldierstime on the beach when they're supposed
to be moving forward is just dealing withthe casualties and not even specifically
being dealt with by the medics.
Um, no, sure.

Tom Secker (30:28):
Just being grabbed and dragged around and someone's
trying to patch you up.
All of that.

Henri (30:33):
So the beach action, it did include a little bit of that and it did
include some of that hopelessness thatthere was that one dude that Captain
Miller drugged for a little bit andthen I think is immediately after he
stopped dragging him, he got shot.
On the ground.
And, and that's, you know, like thething with the, with the helmet, you
know, those things do happen in, incombat, but they are also cliches.

(30:55):
They, they are, they fit into their,they think that they're instilling
something with wisdom and they're justencouraging lazy writing, you know.

Tom Secker (31:03):
Well, that's the thing.
It's like everything that actuallyhappens in that opening sequence,
give or take, did actually happen.
It's all the stuff that alsohappened that is missing from that
opening sequence that undermines it.
And I'm reminded of the sequence inWonder Woman where she goes over the
top, where she's marching through noman's land and, you know, deflecting

(31:26):
all the bullets with a shield and againit's a machine gun because it's Germans.
And that is perhaps the most iconic actionsequence in that film about World War One.
And it is a complete lie about thetrue nature of trench warfare and
what going over the top was like.
Going over the top, i.
e.
everyone just piles over the top ofthe trenches and charges towards the
opposition's trench, and most of thosepeople just get cut down, most of

(31:49):
those people die, exactly like here.
And, okay, this is a far morerealistic film than Wonder Woman,
and this is still a far morerealistic sequence than that one was.
But it has the same troubling dimensionto it, that it's taking the mass, I
don't want to say suicidal, because it'snot suicidal, but it's near as damn it

(32:11):
being sent on a suicide mission, fora lot of those people, taking that and
turning it into something simple andheroic that can be overcome quickly.
Because that's the other problemwith it, is that after 25 minutes,
they're basically one, it seems,and it just sort of stops.
And you don't get a sense of, oh, thisis just this little part of the beach,

(32:35):
there's still a hundred fights going onup and down the coastline, and there's
still lots of people dying and lots ofstuff going on, it just sort of almost
goes quiet, and then they get themission to go off and save Jack Ryan, and
That I also find deeply troubling,because as you say, this was a very
varied invasion in terms of the scaleof what was happening on different

(32:59):
beaches and which forces were involvedand so on, and of course how many people
died and how many people survived.
And it made it seem like the invasionof Normandy was just Tom Hanks
having to blow up a bunker or two.

Henri (33:12):
Pretty much, yeah.

Tom Secker (33:14):
So again, this is something that is really morally problematic
about it, because people take it asbeing a gruesome, gritty depiction
of combat that's actually been kindof squashed into a tiny little.
ball of what they want you tosee, that doesn't actually tell

(33:36):
you what this thing was like.
It doesn't, it's, it'svery impressionistic.
I think that's ultimatelythe problem with it.
But, okay, the sound design isfantastic, the camera work is fantastic,
it's beautifully edited together.
But ultimately, does it really giveyou an impression of suffering and
death and the futility of this?

(33:59):
Or does it just make you move on sofast that none of that really resonates?
When, surely, that should be the point?
And that seems to be the point that a lotof people have taken from it, even though
that's not what the film has given them.
So, I'm left wondering how theyended up with that reaction.
I'm very confused by people'sreactions to this movie being so
very different to mine, obviously.

(34:21):
Um, and normally I can understand that,but with this one, the more I break
down that sequence in my mind, the lessI understand why people think it's so
Iconic for one thing, but also profound.
It's actually saying anythingabout either the Normandy
invasions or combat in general.
Is it, I mean, are you comingfrom a different place here?

(34:43):
Can you see some kind of moralor statement or something that
they're actually trying to saythere that I'm just missing?
No.

Henri (34:50):
No.
No.
There just isn't.
There just isn't.

Tom Secker (34:55):
Do you remember what the Pentagon said about forrest Gump?
They said it had a nihilisticview of the Vietnam War.
I'm starting to wonder, doesSaving Private Ryan have kind of
a nihilistic view of World War II?

Henri (35:08):
That's a good, that's a really good point, man.

Tom Secker (35:10):
Even though it's interpreted in such a different way to that,
that's not how most people see thefilm and most people remember it.
That's how I'm reacting to it right now.

Henri (35:20):
Well, one thing I This film would fit into Before my army time it would
fit into a category of films that mostpeople only ever saw once And that was
as far as they thought that they couldstomach it and so in you know, in their

(35:40):
remembered reflections of what they gotfrom the movie, I think that it People
are, are filling in more blanks thanSpielberg gave them blanks to fill in.
The biggest FU to me, and I don't knowwhy screenwriters allowed this to happen
to their work, but that the originalscript for Saving Private Ryan was a

(36:01):
much better, much more honest An opendepiction of what war was, um, during
that time, um, a couple of good examplesthat, um, even after the Rangers get off
the beach, um, before they are sent togo after Ryan, that in order for them to

(36:21):
brief Captain Miller on the mission, theyhave to literally remove him from combat.
He and his soldiers are fighting rightthere, and his soldiers keep fighting
while he's briefed, he then goes back,takes the ones that he determines are
going to come, and then they end upleaving, and then for them, there are

(36:43):
no shortage of horrifying events thatOn their way to try to find Ryan and try
to, try to bring him back to whereverthey were supposed to bring him back to.
Um, and so it's, it's, uh, and then,and then the final thing, and I think
this, this definitely goes to whatyou're talking about in terms of the,

(37:05):
the minimization of really, Horrifyingwartime kind of violence, um, is
the final battle that I think is, issterilized in very much the same way.
Um, but when you compare it to theoriginal script, that sequence of
the movie is much, much longer.

(37:25):
You see them take Hours and hours andhours preparing the battle space, moving
rubble around, setting up machine guns,deciding what angles of fire are the best.
In the portion we saw inthe movie, mmm, 10 minutes?
Maybe?
Something, you know, avery, very short thing.

(37:47):
Um, and then of course there's theending and the, the, earn this and
all that other bullshit and such.
Um, but it, it It just lookingat how much it was downgraded
from the original script.
And of course, that's the, youknow, this Spielberg, this Spielberg
special, um, to go ahead and do whathe wants and make and make changes.
And however he feels, becausehe's, he's the God with the Oscars.

(38:11):
Um, But it's really important that the,the, that we point out the, um, the
sterility of the movie, of the entiremovie, there's sterility in the, in
the violence, and certainly in the moresentimental moments, there's also this
sterile sentimentalism, you know, likewhen Ryan's mom gets the telegrams and

(38:33):
we haven't really talked much about theoriginal story But we'll we'll get to
that in a little bit But when in thefilm you see Ryan's mom get the telegrams
She gets of course gets all three ofthem at once and you never see her face.
She's at this at the sink washing dishesShe looks out her window She sees in the
distance the chaplain's car coming to herhome And of course once she realizes that

(38:55):
of who it is, she sits down on the porchSo I'm sure she's beside herself if we
could see her face Does she have a face?
We don't know.
We didn't get to see it.
Um, and, and the other thing, and thisone, this one hit me much, much harder.
Maybe it was because I was asoldier or that it just goes
back to older, older parts of methat I'm not noticing right now.

(39:17):
But, um, when Ryan, when PrivateRyan is initially told that his three
brothers are dead, he falls on thefucking ground and loses his mind.
I mean, he is beside himself atthe thought that all three of them.
We don't see any of that in MattDamon's performance of Private Ryan.

(39:38):
We see a much more manly, holdit in, you know, kind of thing.
Um, and it's clear, you know, he loveshis brothers, that little story about
the bra and the barn and all that shit.
And to be fair, I could understand thatat a moment like that, that, you know,
you're so confused trying and he's tryingto remember his brother's faces and he's
not sure at that moment how to do that.

(40:00):
But again, it's, it's, that's not.
The reaction, Matt Damon's performanceis not the reaction of someone who
just lost their three siblings.
And that whole thing justflattens out over the whole film.
Like they're giving us a secondarylesson in American male masculinity in

(40:21):
addition to all the bullshit in the film.
That this is how it's how we'resupposed to be, instead of understanding
that people lose it, people who losetheir children in war lose it, and
that should be acceptable, fair, ina film, in a war film, it should be,
yeah, it's uncomfortable as fuck towatch somebody cry and mourn and lose
their mind, and it's supposed to be.

(40:43):
That's one of the aspects of warthat we do leave out so much, you
know, you have your mom with a singletear as opposed to a mom that can't
get out of bed for a month becausetheir son is dead, or something.

Tom Secker (40:54):
Well, like you say, we don't actually see the face,
we just see them face in hands,silhouette from behind, weeping.
Yeah, and then it will quickly fade intosomething else to not linger on that.
Um, so just as they don't lingeron the physical suffering.
In that first sequence, in the combat,they don't linger on the emotional

(41:15):
suffering, which is supposed to bethe thing that drives the entire plot.
That's the whole reason why weshould care about this, right?
We want this kid to survivebecause he's the only son left.
We want this woman to gether only surviving son back.
And yet, again, they never introduceher, really, we don't get to know her,

(41:36):
we don't get to know why her son mattersto her so much, I mean, we're just
sort of left to presume all of that.
And like you say, when they eventuallyactually get to Jack Ryan, I keep
calling him Jack Ryan but I'm goingto keep doing that anyway, um, I know
that's not his name in the film butwhen we eventually get to him, his
emotional reaction is Neither one ofshock and shutting down, nor one of

(42:00):
exploding and falling to the ground,like you say in the original script.
So, quite what are we supposedto make of the emotional through
line to the entire movie?
And how is that supposed to link up withthe bookends that we've already discussed?
Given that Spielberg was evidentlytrying to make that kind of film,

(42:21):
I think he screwed up, basically.
Um, I think he missed what theemotional beats in this movie were
supposed to be for that story towork, and cheated the audience.
Out of both, a realistic, truly realisticdepiction of the combat at Normandy,

(42:41):
particularly that bit of the beach.
And, kind of cheated them out of therest of the film too, because it's,
as I said, he ripped off the startfrom The Longest Day, the rest of the
film, and he's quite open about this.
He ripped off from a film called A Walkin the Sun, which is about a small group
of American GIs in Italy, I think, who arelooking for a bridge they have to blow up.

(43:02):
So it's just them.
Like in most of, uh, Saving JackRyan, um, just traipsing across
the countryside, talking aboutstuff, and then things happen.
Um, why try and make bothof those films at once?
Make one or the other.
Or, as you say with the originalscript, if you are going to
do it, have it like that.

(43:23):
Have it that they're kindof pulled out of combat.
So you get the sense that the fight isstill going on on the beach, and then
as they move away, they engage in moreof a fight, they discover, you know,
there's just sort of random chaos, bitsof war going on all around them, and
they're trying to move through this.
That's presumably what they weregoing for, even with the toned

(43:45):
down and sanitized version, butit's not what we ended up with.
What you end up with is somethingthat's sensorily overwhelming,
but then goes quiet, and thengets a bit dull for quite a while.
Because, as I say, how are we supposedto care about all of these people when we
haven't been introduced to them, and wedon't really know who they are, or Why all

(44:08):
of this matters the person that we reallyare supposed to care about is the mother
back home Who we hope will one day getto see her son again but we spend no time
with her because the only women in thisfilm are either typists or a mother who
we'd never see her Face because this isa very very sexist movie in that respect.

(44:29):
Yeah, it's like a Michael Baymovie The women are there to
cry And it'd be an emotionalanchor point and that's about it.

Henri (44:37):
It really, it really, uh, it really lends itself to, uh, American and British
military notions about women in combat.
About, you know, because we couldtell, we could, you know, they
could include those kind of things.
They could include, you know,nurses that happen to come ashore.
With, uh, the medical teams sometimelater on, and for some reason

(44:57):
there's fresh fighting going onnearby and they could go over it.
I read about this.
I read about all kindsof things like that.
No, there weren't, uh, there weren'twomen specifically on the beach, but
there were women everywhere else in that.
There were women loading bombs.
There were women, you know, as partof the, um, like I said, a big part
of the medical, medical crew there.
And they could have included thosethings, and they chose not to.

(45:19):
It's just, you know, that there, thereare, there are so many great stories like
that in, in American and British historyabout women going, you know, and I don't
want to, I don't want to go over to the,to the combat worship side of it, but just
in terms of the survival of a human beingagainst amazing odds and being helpful at

(45:39):
a time when society said Women shouldn'tbe in combat, around combat, near combat.
They might get scared.
They might get this, whatever bullshitthey happen to throw out at that point.
They can be every bit as goodas men in being warmongers.
There is no reason to not do that.
And it's, it's their own lack ofimagination of including that.

(46:00):
And especially like you mentioned aboutSpielberg and his many, the many cliches
and things that he borrowed from places.
Um, it begins to make you wonder if heever writes anything truly original.
But, uh, that would be a longsubject for a different day.

Tom Secker (46:14):
It would also involve watching all of his films again and concluding the
answer to that question is probably not.
Especially after Ready Player One, whichis just a mashup of all his pre existing
films and some other stuff that he likes.
Um,

Henri (46:28):
have a

Tom Secker (46:29):
strange

Henri (46:30):
guy, Spielberg.
He really is.
He's a, yeah.
He did.
Um, I, I think the best thing that he'sever made in my mind, and of course he
was only executive producer of it, but myfavorite Spielberg thing is Animaniacs.
That, uh, that, that, that iswhere I put it because that's some
good stuff and he didn't write it.
He just was the, he was just thedude on the executive producer

(46:51):
thing, you know, so, but good show.
Good show.

Tom Secker (46:55):
Animaniacs was great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I can see that.
No, I can see that.
I just wasn't expecting you to mention it.

Henri (47:02):
So, I want to, I want to key up on one thing that happened, and this
goes right to, I think, to the heart ofwhat you're discussing here, Tom, about,
about what characters find importance andhow do we make our attachment to that.
Ryan's comment, right after meetingCaptain Miller and hearing the
whole spiel and wanting to takehim home, and Ryan retorts to the
Captain, he says, You can tell.

(47:23):
Her, my mom, when you found me, I waswith the only brothers I have left.
Now, from a real simplistic soldierkind of standpoint, I could understand
him saying like that, but hisbrothers were literally just killed.
He's a member of the 101st Airborne,which means at that point where he was.

(47:46):
If we're to take all of that atface value, he had already seen a
whole host of death and destruction.
Why is it that he would place suchstock in his comrades lives, knowing
that his own brothers were just killed?
This same way, why would he say anythinglofty about the value of life when life
at that point that he was living, so,so fucking cheap, um, is it a, is it a,

(48:13):
uh, you know, kind of a, a front, youknow, we're putting one foot in front of
the other and that is our retort to say.
Again, it's the theme here totallylost in the sauce in terms of
where that's supposed to go.
You know, him falling on his knees andcrying, hearing about his brothers, people
can relate to, people can grab onto.
But if you're going to, if it'salways going to fit into that male

(48:36):
centric, masculine presentation, JohnWayne with the helmet and the cigar.
Um, then we're not going to getany closer to the real reality of
the emotions in times like these.
Um, and, and that's the other thing aboutthe conclusion of the film that I think
was a sincere fuck up on Spielberg'spart is that When Ryan ultimately

(48:59):
gets rescued, when the Mustangs flyoverhead and bomb the bridge and push
back the Germans and everything, thereis nothing to say that Ryan couldn't
have died 10 minutes after that, or 10hours after that, or 10 days after that.
Um, remembering that all of thoseguys that came to rescue him
died, and he was left by himself.

(49:21):
Now, of course, if there's If there'sallied air power overhead, that may mean
that ground forces are not far away, butthat doesn't guarantee it in any instance.
So, I feel like that by movingimmediately from that point back to
our sterile, uh, cemetery, and GrandpaRyan trying to deal with his thousand

(49:43):
yard stare and everything, um, thatthere's something missing there.
There's something that, you know, andit, how, how did he fucking get home?
Even a short, very short little montagesequence of riding in the back of the
truck back to the beaches, getting ona boat, going back across the channel,

(50:04):
and then eventually Making it all the wayback home, um, at least that could have
given us a connection and understandingthat his war, his portion of the war, was
truly done right there, but it didn't,it didn't give us anything close to a
period on what was actually happeningthere, and that whole area, everything
about the Normandy beaches, about theAllies movement inland towards, um, bigger

(50:30):
German forces was all very tentative.
There was, there was nothing tosay that the Germans wouldn't be
come back in a much greater force.
But, the film firmly tellsus, we're stopping right here.
Here's where the fucking story ends.
What other story there is?
Well, you know, whatever people arethinking some people would be like,
okay Well, I'm glad the movie's over.

(50:52):
I don't have to gothrough that shit anymore.
And some other people who would have been,you know, more World War II Knowledgeable,
you know would have in their mind.
Okay, I guess he's going home now Theydon't have to explain that but that's
not the nature of war And so it's I thinkthat that's a really big another missed
beat Along with a lot of the other stuffthat we've been, we've been talking about.

Tom Secker (51:14):
Yeah, because like you say, the reason why we're supposed to
care about the people we're followingthrough this journey, rather than seeing
a wider scale movie that, as you say,could keep moving back to the beach,
and show that this is still going on,as these guys are gradually making
their way across the countryside andtrying to find Ryan, that there is
still a war going on all around them,and there is people dying constantly.

(51:37):
But they didn't make that film.
They made, uh, A Walk in theSun, a small group of guys.
But if you want to have a small groupof guys, your opening half hour to the
movie probably shouldn't be everyone butyour small group of guys getting shot.
It should probably be a conversation,maybe, between your small group
of guys, establishing who the hellthey are, so we can care about them.

(52:00):
And then they try and do that.
That all seems to sort ofhappen in the second act.
Instead of the first.
So again, the movie is sortof restarted once more.
Um, third beginningnow, just keeping score.
Um, and that's when we startto get to know these guys.
For one thing, it seemed like theyjust slapped everyone who was hot in

(52:23):
the late 90s into a World War II armyuniform and stuck them on the screen.
And I don't think thecharacterization was done that well.
They don't really stand out to me.
I don't remember anyone inthis film apart from Matt Damon
and Tom Hanks, particularly.
Maybe that's just me.
Maybe other people feel differently.

(52:44):
But even if that is what they were goingfor, and even if they accomplished that
part of it, and some people may feelthat they did, it gets very confused by
all of these different things saying, ohno, but the individual doesn't matter.
Your relationship to individual soldiersfighting in this war is irrelevant.
And yet the ending of the film isall just one individual survives.

(53:05):
And as you say, he says this lineabout my family brothers, my blood
brothers are gone, but these aremy new family, my new brothers.
And then they all die.
So, how is that line supposed tohave much emotional resonance,
when, okay, his first family's deadand now his second family's dead?

(53:26):
Why does it even matter whetherhe survives at that point?
Let alone the question of howdoes he survive, as you say.
He's still in the middle of a war, andthe notion that, oh, that's the end of
Didn't he just, like, parachute in theday before, or that morning, or You
know, it didn't seem like that was hiswhole mission, was to parachute in, get
blown off course, and then get rescued.

(53:48):
Um, I assume he had some other businessthat he would have to attend to before
they just let him go out of France.
Yeah, the whole, I mean, the whole premiseof the film is screwed, because the notion
that they would send off people in themidst of all of this to go and find one
guy, and I know you've got some notesjust to go through on, like, real life

(54:12):
stories that may have inspired this,or certainly I think did inspire this.
This, just to say, this isone of the things that the U.
S.
Army had a problem with themselves.
As they said, the premise ofthe movie is kind of screwed.
Not just because you open with Ryan,but then we're following Tom Hanks.
So we assume Tom Hanks is the old guy atthe end of the film, but then he dies.
But Ryan was never on the beach,so the whole flashback thing

(54:33):
doesn't actually follow through.
They were criticizing this.
That's the U.
S.
Army who said they hada problem with this.
Now they also said the premise of sendingoff a bunch of guys to track down one
soldier in the midst of a war, which isencompassing many hundreds of thousands
of people, many many tens of thousandsof whom are basically just dying every

(54:53):
moment, doesn't make any sense either,and we wouldn't have actually done this.
And there is also the wholeproblem of, how does the news
get to the mother so quickly?
I think there's actually one of thescript notes that says, well, they
didn't have email or faxes in the 1940s.
So that was just physically impossible.

(55:14):
Let alone the notion thatthey're all arriving at once,
which is extremely unlikely.
Um, you know, even they were pickingholes in this very stupid script.
Um, but yeah, it's particularlythat through line of Does
the individual matter?
Because the film's sort of saying it does,but undermines that at almost every turn.

(55:34):
And do the bonds of battle matter?
It's saying yes, butundermines it at every turn.
So, what actually matters?
What are we left withexcept Guardian Cemetery?

Henri (55:48):
That's pretty much it, and I think that kind of circular logic
and the schmaltz of the beach andeverything, it really fits well in
other, among other American films about,you know, American centric thinking
about our military and what it does.
Um.

(56:09):
But it, you know, it's, it's very much,you know, as, as you're saying, you know,
this individual matters, they die, thatindividual matters, they die, um, and,
and, and nothing else better is, comesfrom that, and, and I'm really glad that
the army and that soldiers pointed thatkind of thing out, and it, about, you

(56:31):
know, sending, sending a bunch of guysto kill and die for one, one person,
and Spielberg, He said the same thing.
He said he wanted to demonstratethe, um, the futility of what
it was they were trying to do.
Not just the actual mission, but theidea of sending that many, you know,
sending that many people ostensiblyto die for this one dude to come home.

(56:55):
Um, but the thing is, is our mythology,American mythology, in that way, does
Attach itself really well to that, youknow, to one of the, I don't remember
if it was the code of conduct or which,which army thing you're supposed to
resuscitate about this, but whereit mentions leave no man behind.
And, you know, the, the whole, you know,if, if, if we were to take Blackhawk

(57:18):
down as being a second chapter of, ofSaving Private Ryan, you would see,
you know, this repeated choice formilitary leaders to say, I'm going to
send a whole bunch of people to stop avery few people, or I'm going to spend
a whole bunch of people to rescue avery few people instead of cutting, you
know, cutting their losses and saying,I'm sorry, we can't, it makes no sense.

(57:42):
There is no sense to it.
Um, but again, like you're pointingout here is that Spielberg did
it so much throughout the filmthat there is never anything
concrete to grab onto in that way.
Um.
But, um, let's, um, let's move on a little

Tom Secker (57:59):
bit.
If anything, actually the most,the most powerful emotional beat
that I felt in the film is in the,um, the wrong Private Ryan scene.
Mm hmm.
That was, that was

Henri (58:10):
a good one.
That was a

Tom Secker (58:10):
powerful one, yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's how itshould actually be when they
find the real Ryan, yeah?
And it's the wrong one.
It's a scene that doesn't need tobe in the film, and is in fact a
bit of a waste of everyone's time.
They probably could have left that outand just moved the fuck on with the story.
But then they're actually missingthe only emotional beat that
landed in the entire film for me.
So, I get that no matter what theydid, I would have criticized it.

(58:34):
But you see what I mean?
He managed to create, in that moment,greater emotional depth, with a character
that has no bearing on the plot.
He's just got the same name and someonemakes an administrative mistake.
BF WATCH TV 2021 Then he did in theentire rest of the movie with the
characters that we're supposed tocare about, such as the mother, such
as Tom Hanks, such as Matt Damon.

(58:55):
How did he manage to create a greateremotional anchor with an entirely
tertiary irrelevant character that, asI say, could just be written out and
no one would miss him, than he did withthe actual story he was trying to tell?
I think maybe he got lostin the notion of futility.
If he was trying to say that this wasfutile, I mean, firstly, that begs the

(59:16):
question, why make the film, Stephen?
Um, if your story is ultimately futile,maybe don't make it, but also, if
you're trying to depict futility,you need to see the struggle of the
people who are trying to do somethingfutile, which means ultimately you
do need to relate to their struggle.

(59:38):
Great.
Otherwise, you just end up with a kindof cold, emotionally flat film that
doesn't really go anywhere and startsby saying the Normandy landings were
over in about 20 minutes and finishesby saying we won World War II by
saving or and or blowing up one bridge.
And it's quite a small bridge as well.

(59:59):
It's not like we're talking aboutthe bridge over the river Kwai here.
It's that was another thing thatpuzzles me about that ending.
It's so small scale.
They're trying to make this the bigclimax of the film, but it's just like
one little bridge that, you know, youcould probably rebuild that in about
two days if you really wanted to.
Probably faster if you get some ArmyCorps of Engineers in there or something.

(01:00:21):
Um, and yet Tom Hanksmakes this his last stand?
Why?
Why does he care?
Why should we care?
Sorry, you wanted to moveon to something else.
Please, please do, because I'mjust ranting about how little
I care about this meeting.

Henri (01:00:39):
Um, so we need to talk a little bit about the real, um, basis.
For the story of, of Saving PrivateRyan, and of course it is, it is only one
aspect that is among many other aspectsfrom many other films and ideas that,
um, get input in here, but the real storyis quite different, but I think it's a,
it's an important one to put alongside.

(01:01:00):
Um, so a partial basis for this storyis the tale of the Nyland brothers,
but the, before we come to them, weneed to first talk about the Sullivan
brothers, the Sullivan brothers werefive biological siblings who enlisted.
In the Navy after Pearl Harbor andwere assigned together on the USS
Juneau, which was part of the U.
S.
Pacific Fleet.

(01:01:21):
George, Francis, Joseph,Madison, and Albert Sullivan.
The Navy agreed to the request thatall five would serve on the same ship.
It wasn't a common practice by the U.
S.
military to place siblings together,but it wasn't discouraged either.
Some officials saw it as a wayto keep family morale high.
In fact, at least 30 sets of brotherswere serving on the Juneau when it sank.

(01:01:43):
Um, it was sunk by Japanese torpedoesin 1942 with no known survivors.
And so the fallout from the deathsof the so brothers led to significant
changes in policies at the, uh, thewar department about siblings or close
relatives being stationed together.
Um, now this was prior, prior, you know,this was the war department before it was

(01:02:06):
changed to the DEF Department of Defense.
Mind you, at this point in World War II,the Sullivans were, of course, only one
very small portion of sibling groups whohad died together, so the War Department
created its own sole survivor policy.
It was this policy that affectedthe Nyland brothers, um, Edward,
Fritz, Preston, and Robert Nyland.

(01:02:28):
And then their postings amongAmerican forces were a direct
result of this new policy.
One was assigned to the U.
S.
Army Air Corps in the Pacific, whilethe other three were assigned to various
infantry units in the European theater.
In fact, three of them were stationedin England at the same time in
preparation for the Normandy landings.

(01:02:48):
Um, although because they were indifferent units and preparing for
different missions, they didn't actuallyhave much contact with each other while
they were in England still gettingready for the invasion in May of 1944
Edward Nyland was shot down over Burmaand was declared missing believed to
be dead next on June 6th 1944 the firstday of the Normandy landings the three

(01:03:14):
brothers Each participated in the landingsalbeit in very different places Robert
was killed in action on the 6th On, Iwant to say, on one of the beaches, and
then on the 7th, the same fate befellPreston, and the last brother, uh,
Frederick, or Fritz, as he was called,was missing, having jumped in with the

(01:03:35):
101st the night prior to the invasion.
Now, I'm gonna, next part, I'm gonnaquote a little bit here from Band of
Brothers by Stephen Ambrose, and he isWhat was for the long time, one of the
main historians around some of this stuff,a very prominent one, but also a very U.
S.
centric one.
Quote, the previous day, Nylund had goneto the 82nd to see his brother, Bob,

(01:03:59):
the one who had told, told Malarkey inLondon that if you wanted to be a hero,
a hero, the Germans would see to itfast, which had led Malarkey to conclude
that Bob Nylund had lost his nerve.
Fritz Nylund had just learned thathis brother had been killed on D Day.
Bob's platoon had been surrounded andhe manned a machine gun, hitting the
Germans with harassing fire until theplatoon broke through the encirclement.

(01:04:21):
He had used up several boxesof ammo before getting killed.
Fritz next hitched a ride to the4th Infantry Division, and this
is all, of course, post landing.
Um, And, uh, 4th InfantryDivision positioned to see another
brother who was a platoon leader.
He, too, had been killed on D Day on Utah.
By the time Fritz returned to EasyCompany, uh, which he was part

(01:04:45):
of Easy Company, uh, what is it?
2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment.
Um, by the time he returned to thecompany, Father Francis Sampson
was looking for him to tell himthat a third brother, a pilot in
the China, Burma, India theater,had been killed the same week.
Fritz was the sole surviving son andthe army wanted to remove him from

(01:05:06):
the combat zone on the same day.
Father Sampson escorted Fritz toUtah Beach where a plane flew him
home, flew him to London on hisfirst leg of return to the states
and he actually served statesideas an MP until the end of the war.
And so obviously Saving Private Ryandiverges from this super fucking strongly,

(01:05:27):
um, keeping only the deaths of the threebrothers in close succession and the
quote unquote rescue of by the army.
Although the rescue If we'reto call it one and all, it
was very different in reality.
Um, the survival of Edward after hisrelease from the POW camp wasn't included
in any way in the final film or thejourney Fritz took to find his brothers

(01:05:49):
after the initial D Day landings.
Um, and of course, no soldierswere sent individually or as
a unit to bring back Fritz.
Inspiration for Saving Private Ryan.
I don't know about you, Tom, but I wouldhave found a movie that told the story of
this brother Fritz going to find out abouthis brothers by himself, mind you, would
have made a much better film and a muchmore authentic film than anything that

(01:06:12):
Saving Private Ryan can spit back at us.
Um, you know, and it, it,and this is how it happened.
The hero of the matter, if there'sto be a hero, was a chaplain.
Someone who, you know, he wasn'tpart of the fighting or anything,
but recognized what was happeningand took it upon himself.
I think he actually turned thepacket of paperwork into his command

(01:06:34):
on behalf of Fritz in order toget him to be able to go home.
I mean, would, I can't imagine thatanybody on the Normandy side of
things would consider wasting Timeon something like that when they're
having to deal with actual battleship.
I

Tom Secker (01:06:50):
totally agree.
That sounds like a much better film.
Not just because it's a real story,but because it's a better story.
It's, I
mean, okay, that's quite, that wouldactually be quite difficult to write.
Nonetheless, it's evident that theypicked up on stories like this one,
possibly that family in particular,as the basis for Saving Private Brian.

(01:07:15):
And yet, they missed the opportunity.
To make Ryan the centralcharacter, I guess, is partly
where they went wrong with that.
Just from a storytelling pointof view, again, they needed
to establish Ryan earlier on.
And if they were telling that storyabout that family, presumably, Fritz

(01:07:39):
would be in the opening reel of the film.
He'd be established quite early on.
They'd even establish therelationships between the brothers.
They could maybe establish thechaplain quite early on in the film.
Yeah, you could tell a so much betterstory, while still having the war
going on around them, while stillhaving it depict action and combat

(01:08:01):
and, if you want, the futility ofit, certainly the chaos and the noise
and the cinematic side, but stilltell that particular kind of a story.
where it's more tightly focused.
I mean that's another problem with SavingPrivate Ryan is there's kind of too many
men in this troupe that they send off.
If they just sent off a couple ofguys and it's about their relationship

(01:08:23):
or at least that part of the filmis about those two guys and some
kind of back and forth but it isn't.
It's about Tom Hanks and some people.
So you see what I mean if you pack toomany people into that group you don't
give any of them enough time to breatheso you don't ever get to really know them.
Whereas in the story thatyou're describing with Fritz,
You could establish all of thosepeople well enough, the ones that die,

(01:08:49):
their deaths matter, and the ones thatsurvive, their mission, their sense
of purpose, their journey matters.
Instead of this kind of meandering, notquite sure what this film is about, not
quite sure who is this guy that they'relooking for, maybe he's dead, anyway.

(01:09:10):
Maybe that would have made fora better film as they eventually
get there and Jack Ryan's dead.
I mean, you want to talk about astory of futility, tell that story.

Henri (01:09:18):
Right.
Yeah, we've talked about thatone before, yeah, definitely.
So,

no, you're right, you're right.
Real life is always better.
And that is actually quite an amazingstory from Normandy from World War II.
There's, yeah, that's kindof an amazing thing to do,
particularly in the midst of a war.
Right.
Particularly when there's a million otherthings pressing on you at every moment.

(01:09:45):
Um, for people to find that sense of,I guess, caring, to find it within
themselves to actually give a shit enough,to just help someone out like that.
When you don't have to, you know, yeah,that chaplain, I don't know who they
could get to play him, but yeah, yeah,that would have made a really nice

Henri (01:10:06):
movie.
Yeah, I think so too.
I think it would be a very interestingperspective, especially among American
war films, which if a chaplain's there,it's because somebody's dying or dead.
That's that's the only reason thatthe chaplains fight alongside and they
have a much greater role in that inthat way Um, they're there to make

death sacred.
Basically.

Henri (01:10:29):
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely Um,

it's more about in the story you're telling it's more
about making life sacred, right?
Which is not a point that ever gets madein Jack Ryan Even though the whole film is
supposed to be about the survival of oneman and why that should matter Spielberg
got very confused when writing this.
He really did.
The

Henri (01:10:48):
writing of this movie Maybe his co creator was off that week, who knows?
Um, so there's a second historical partof this that I want to mention real quick.
And it has to do with the useof what's called the Bixby
letter in Saving Private Ryan.
And this letter was written by eitherby President Lincoln or Lincoln's

(01:11:10):
personal secretary to a mother whowas believed to have lost five sons.
In the Civil War and the local,local politicians and the governor
in Massachusetts, they put in therequest for Lincoln to, to write this
letter and it's beautiful, but it'salso honest, um, you know, he talks

(01:11:32):
about how we, how we can fruitless anywords of mine might be to comfort you
in a moment like this, um, but it's.
I feel like that it doesn't feel rightfor, um, the movie because, because
again, we're getting into, we, we've, wefinally found a limit to our futility,

(01:11:53):
Tom, and it's called Saving Private Ryan,you know, um, and I think that that, in
addition to the whole earn this thing,they almost feel like fourth wall breaks.
It almost feels like Deadpool shouldbe showing up and cussing at us in
these moments because that's kind of.
How the moment seems to feel.

(01:12:15):
And I have a lot of questions about thatwhole scene with the Chief of Staff,
you know, General George Marshall, whowas Chief of Staff of the Army during
World War II, and of course is a veryfamous and beloved general here in the U.
S., um, that, uh, would George Marshallhave time at, what is it, two days
after D Day, after the landings, toI Have enough information to actually

(01:12:40):
know that this has happened and thenactually be able to order an individual
group, a single squad of soldiersto go and do something about it.
Um, and, and there's a, there'sa bit of back and forth.
There's the other officers there.
Dale Dye is in that scene and hementions about all the airborne
misdrops and how you may be sending yourguys to on a, on a wild goose chase.

(01:13:03):
Some of the only, um, outside pushback inthe movie, of course, the soldiers going.
Talk about it a little bit,but very seldom are we hearing
anybody higher up, even CaptainMiller, saying anything about it.
Um, but the, the, the idea of losingfive sons, or in the case of Mrs.
Ryan, having lost threesons and one son come home.

(01:13:26):
For the military and the kind of combatoperations and, and conflicts that
American personnel end up these days,that It, it, we just can't fathom, and
they don't even try anymore, filmmakersdon't even try to help us fathom the scale
of what some of these things are, and Ithink that they say to themselves, okay,

(01:13:48):
we're going to focus on an individual,and he'll have the values that we're
trying to get across, whatever stupidarmy bullshit is going on, you know.
Um, but it, I don't know about you,but the idea of using it, granted
it, I can't, it feels like they'retrying to give us so much fake

(01:14:10):
grief that it becomes just farcical.
It's doesn't feel real anymore.
It doesn't feel like something that we canattach on to, you know, we hear five guys.
This mom lost five sons andit's like the emotion of it.
You almost want to take a deep breath.
That's what they're counting on.
It's not about understanding that the,you know, the real futility of it.

(01:14:33):
Why didn't, you know, they couldhave talked about it in the movie.
Uh, George Marshall could havetalked about how many different
pairs or brothers died in this movie.
They could lay that on really thick.
Hey, I've got a stack of filesover here that says all these
families no longer have sons.
Yeah, let's try to get this one back.
And like you said, anything likethat is absent from this shit.

(01:14:55):
It doesn't, it doesn't give it to us.
So they say, okay, well, we'll justwrap it all around one asshole.
We'll just say he's gonnabe the one asshole and we'll
see if people care about him.
And obviously the film really doesn'tteach us to, it teaches us to, to
tokenize him, to see his service assomething to place on a pedestal.

(01:15:16):
And of course, as we all know,when we place things on pedestals,
we begin to forget parts of them.
They often become more mythologicalthan factual or historical.
And that's what America wantspeople to do with soldiers.
They want us to look that way.
You know, soldiers are andespecially wounded and dead
soldiers, are forms of currency.
That politicians can use to bring themto the State of the Union, all kinds

(01:15:37):
of different things that they canbe performatively, um, appealing to
those people that really care about.
Or at least say that they really careabout veterans of the military or etc.

Sure, sure.
Well, the thing about that letter, Imean, that's just, why bother with that?
Unless the whole attempt is to createa kind of sense of this is, I guess, an
inevitable part of the American mythology?
Something like that?
What exactly are theyeven trying to evoke?

(01:16:14):
That this happened during the Civil War?
Yeah, the Civil War wasa fucking horror show.
Yes, it was.
Yeah, a lot of people died.
And you could say that was fairly futile.
Um, or a lot of it was anyway.
But why does that matter in this moment?
Again, it's like the sort of draggingin all of these little things from

(01:16:36):
outside, from the bigger picture, withoutactually ever giving us that bigger
picture or saying Why we care about this.
It's just like, Oh, wewant to revoke something.
Want to give an impression of something.
Oh, this is, this is Americana.
This is the American experience.
Well, for some people it is.
Yeah.
So what?

(01:16:56):
I mean, what, what, what next?
What's the end of that sentence?
Um, and as you say, why not havethe general, if he's apparently
this well informed, this quickly,about all the people who are
dying and who they're related to,surely he would be on top of this.
Surely he'd be aware that this isactually happening left, right and centre.

(01:17:16):
And as you say, they could use that as,you know, that's just the moment he says,
no, we're going to, we can't do anythingabout this massive stack of files that are
all about, you know, three dead brothers,four dead brothers, five dead brothers,
but we're going to make this one matter.
And you could even have a great 1980sstyle moment where someone says, why?
And he goes, because we can.
Even that, cheesy, but would havebeen better than what they did, having

(01:17:41):
a guy who just sort of decides it.
I'm in a position to decide this,so I'm going to, because I believe
it's quite the thing, to become such.
There's never any sense ofthis being a moral mission.
No.
Because it's so confused and implausible.
As you say, you used the phraseearlier about it being cinematic
gaslighting, and it is like that.

(01:18:02):
It's sort of, oh, thisguy's life really matters.
But does it?
No.
So we're going to send these guys offto find him, because, you know, the
bonds between People who've servedtogether and fought together means that
they'll get it, but they don't get it.
And actually the captain of that,or leader of that troop, thinks the
whole thing's kind of stupid, anddoesn't understand why he's being sent

(01:18:23):
off on this mission at this moment.
Every time they offer you somethingthat you could latch on to,
they then take it away again.
To the extent that it almost feelsdeliberate, it almost does feel like
someone is deliberately manipulatingand just teasing you with this
so that they can then go, nope,and slap you in the face again.
And again, from a filmmaker who'susually so good at identifying what

(01:18:45):
are the emotional anchors, what arethe emotional beats, what is this story
actually about on a basic human level.
And with this film, he seems to have gotdistracted trying to do something else,
or he's done it in this really weird waydeliberately, thinking, as long as I.
Give enough impressions ofemotional beats, people will fill

(01:19:06):
in the blanks for themselves.
Because people are so prepped goinginto this by all of the documentaries
on the History Channel about WorldWar II, by all the stuff in the
classrooms, by all of the, I don't know,parades and razzmatazz and everything.
They're already conditioned, preconditioned, to see in this film what I
want them to see and have the reaction Iwant them to have, almost regardless of

(01:19:29):
what I actually put up on screen for them.
Um, even if I base this whole thingaround a central character who you
think is going to survive but actuallydies, And another guy who does survive,
but we never get to meet him untilabout two hours into the movie anyway,
so why the hell should anyone care?
You see what I mean?
It's this constant rug pull of anythingthat could be considered deep, or

(01:19:52):
profound, or even a clear statement.
What the hell does this film even sayabout itself, about its own story?
The main character in it tellsus the whole story is stupid
and the premise is fucked.
Is that not stupid?
Is that not Spielberg kind ofconfessing that this isn't a very good

Henri (01:20:14):
film?
He's

got Tom Hanks of all people up there telling us
this film is fucking stupid.
I'm starring in it and it makes no sense.

Henri (01:20:23):
There's uh, there's also, there's something about the title that I think
lends itself to pointing to a lot, alot of what we're talking about here
that the talking about saving anything,because, in addition to the, the rescue
kind of saving as in what they'retrying to do here, that, um, Saving, I

(01:20:45):
think, could apply to two other areas.
One, a Christian, uh, invocation, youknow, in terms of that, that we're
doing, we could be doing God's work ifwe're trying to save Private Ryan, you
know, that that's the best thing to do.
That's what God would want us to do.
I think that there's, there's,there's some of that in there.
Um, but there's also about mom.

(01:21:06):
There's also about Mrs.
Ryan, does the title and the notion ofquote unquote saving Ryan to save his
mother further harm, um, cause even,cause we do talk about that a very
little bit, but not very much, I feellike all of that, it really rings false.
It's attempting to kind of mythicallylift up a gold star mother and I, I,

(01:21:31):
I don't agree with that saying, buteverybody knows what I'm talking about
when I, I mentioned it, um, in a way thatordinary people, non military affiliated
people, maybe people who aren't WorldWar II history buffs, that they can't
appreciate that we, like, you Rightnow, the United States is contemplating
big moves towards Iran because ofthe two, um, or excuse me, three Army

(01:21:57):
Reserve soldiers that were killed.
In, uh, in Jordan recently, um,three dead people and they're ready
to go kill a few thousand more.
That is that, you know, that when wewere, if we're to really look back
at world war two, and this of coursecomes across to in Vietnam and other

(01:22:18):
big, bigger things that most peoplenever really attached themselves
to how horrifying it really was.
I remember reading a story about a guyworking on an airfield, I think, I don't
know if it was in France, but in World WarII, where a plane comes in and crashes,

(01:22:38):
and that because of the design of theplane, the guys that are underneath,
like the bombardier, the navigator, orwhatever, they get crushed to death and
set on fire, and the guys standing onthe side Of the airfield listening to it,
listening to these people burned alive.
And again, these are their pals.
The aircraft crash did not come asa result of enemy, enemy, anything.

(01:23:02):
It's just there and there'sno sense to be made of it.
There isn't.
It's just a horrific thing, but we only,you know, like we're talking about the
sterilized, you know, opening sceneand, and, you know, not including some
of this stuff is that it had to be.
So terrifying.
But there was a, there was a firm, firmceiling in that, like we were mentioning

(01:23:25):
earlier that, um, it won't go past that.
And that makes it easier forpeople to mythologize it.
It's like when them cutting out cursingout of military movies is somehow people,
you know, uh, Conservative Christianfolks will watch those kinds of things
and because there's no cussing, itdoesn't bother them as much because
they've been primed to care far moreabout cursing than they have about mass

(01:23:48):
violence or the real reality of anything.
So I felt like it's holding up this, thismom and we do feel for her and I think
that we should, um, but are we sendingher to a place where no one understands
what the fuck is going on with her?
That we have to treat her like anangel floating in the atmosphere and

(01:24:10):
not a real literal person who losther sons and still has to try to go on

living.
And this is a point you've made inour emails when we were back and forth
being trying to figure this one out,is that an awful lot of the emotions
in this film give way to spirituality.
Yes.
So rather than keep them grounded, as yousay, in human beings, which help people
empathize, because, you know, human beingscan empathize with one another, especially

(01:24:38):
when they see something of themselvesin the other person that they're,
yeah, um, this stuff isn't complicated.
But

Henri (01:24:49):
also in the

way that the overall narrative Which is not so much as a
saving of Private Ryan or a rescuingof Private Ryan, but seemingly
an attempt to save World War IIfrom its own futility, perhaps?
Um, it's underpinned by thisChristian or Judeo Christian
religiosity or spirituality.

(01:25:12):
I've got in my notes here, 21 minutesin, so After we've had about 20
minutes of the big battle sequence,everyone starts finding God.
The sniper starts mutteringhis Jesus stuff to himself.
And there's some other, if notnecessarily religious, certainly
religious feeling moments.

(01:25:33):
They're like religiousexperiences going on.
And then they all startcommitting war crimes.
They start executing prisoners of war.
They start executing people whoare unarmed and surrendered.
There's the bit where Uh, they're allburning in the bunker, and he says,
don't shoot, just let them burn.
When the main thing would be tojust shoot them and kill them.
Put them out of theirsuffering at that point.

(01:25:55):
So, it seems that, if anything,the throughline of this film is
a kind of religious vengeance?
Maybe?
Uh, or certainly, that's howthat opening sequence plays out.
And it comes back at the end, youknow, you have a sniper up in the
tower who gets shot by the tank, um,and he's doing the same thing again.

(01:26:16):
He's sort of muttering, not necessarilybiblical verses to himself, but something
of that nature as he's shooting people.
Um, that's odd in a film likethis, particularly when the enemy
are mostly white Christians.

(01:26:37):
But of course we never really get to meetany of the Nazis or talk to them very
much so none of the Germans are reallyeven considered human beings in this

Henri (01:26:44):
film.
There's, there's also the hugeinclusion of peoples that they
had captured and were forced intobeing part of the German forces.
But, you know, we're Polish, Romania, allkinds of different places and that was a
good portion of their replacements thatwere working in Normandy at the time.
And of course, like you said, all wesee are white, German, uh, bad guys.

(01:27:05):
We don't see anybody that could showus some, some other aspect of that.
It's just exactly whatwe would expect to see.
And

so ultimately, is this movie Not an emotional tale of human
beings at all, but fundamentally aspiritual myth about a futile war,
but because it was spiritual, thatsomehow elevates it above being.
I mean, it's like futile in ahuman sense, it's futile in an

(01:27:33):
everyday, grounded, this is the realworld and people are dying sense.
And that doesn't actually come acrossthat strongly to me, but I get.
You know, some of the things thatthey included in the film, what they
were going for with that, I guess.
But what elevates it, or whatthey're trying to elevate it with,
is that spirituality or religiosity.

(01:27:53):
And bear in mind, this is Spielberg, whodid make Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is
essentially a Jewish revenge fantasy aboutkilling Nazis using the power of God.
So, we're not reaching here.
This is something that is inSpielberg's filmmaking repertoire
somewhere along the lines.
Um, I know he produced that one andGeorge Lucas directed, but whatever.

(01:28:17):
Um, it's still his work.
Was it

Henri (01:28:19):
the other way around?
Yeah, yeah.
Regardless, I think it wasLucas that directed that

one, yeah.
The two of them made that film together.
Um, and that is what thatfilm is ultimately about.
And this is the only otherfilm that he made about Nazis.
Uh, aside from the three, Imean the three, but two Indiana
Jones films that cover Nazis.
Um, so, the notion that thiswould be some kind of religious

(01:28:47):
quest, is that what they were on?
Because it doesn't make any sensefrom a strategic or logistical
or straight up military resourcespoint of view or any of that.
So why are they doing it?
Why do they even go along with it?
It's not like anyone's gonna There'sno one there to tell them off if
they start just ignoring this stupidorder that they've been given.

(01:29:09):
You know what I mean?
There's too much going on foranyone to really care whether
or not they end up finding Ryan.
No one's in the scheme of this is evengoing to notice probably, um, if they
just decide to like fuck off to Belgium.
And let it be someone else's problem.
No one's going to stop them.
So, but they keep going, and theykeep going to an end where our quasi

(01:29:33):
Christ like leader, the man who'sshifting the week through the valley
of darkness, ends up being sacrificed.
Mm hmm.
Yeah?
Yep.
You see where I'm goingwith this interpretation?
I do, totally, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that might beultimately what this film is.
Because this was the other questionthat we kept batting back and forth

(01:29:54):
is what even is Saving Private Ryan,even setting aside what Spielberg
was trying to do, sort of whatfilm did we actually end up with?
Yeah, you take over, becauseI'm rambling about Jesus again.
I don't want to piss off Christians.
If I keep talking, I will.

Henri (01:30:13):
Well, like, we know it can't possibly be considered a historical movie.
If it's a war movie, it's a warmovie in a very specific sense,
and not in anything traditionalabout the nature of Uh, war films.
Um, I do, I think it's, I, it, I thinkthe, you know, the, the spiritual aspect

(01:30:34):
that you're mentioning, that I think thatthose, those may have been the real beats
that they were trying to go after that.
And, and of course you had,it was twofold in that way.
One, there are lots of people that wouldwanting to see something that had been
said to have additional authenticity.
Like they had taken a syringeof authenticity steroid and.

(01:30:55):
Suck it right into Tom Hanks ass orsomething, but we have a lot of those.
America is filled with history buffs,especially World War II history
buffs, and so you could definitelysee it in that way that in terms
of a, it could maybe be a war porn.
Or, you know, just a pornographicdepiction of very specific sliced

(01:31:17):
events that Spielberg put together.
Um, and then the other half is whatexactly I think exactly what you're
pointing out here is that the, thereligious aspect of it, the, um, you
know, we're wanting to save Ryan,save his mother to, you know, to.
Meet our understanding of God beingsupportive of this endeavor that God was,

(01:31:40):
God was on the side of the allies that,you know, God understands that things
make mistakes and you drop bombs on wrongpeople, and God forgives those things.
And, um, yeah, I think, I thinkthat you have to hit the nail on
the head with, with that part of it.
And it, and it does, it leaves ordinaryfilm goers, especially discerning film
goers to, to sit and ask you, is it?

(01:32:02):
Did it fulfill anything in that wayother than just a propagandistic notion
of how the higher ups, how the folksat entertainment liaison offices ever
want things to be seen in that way?
It has to fit into a certain thingor it's going to upset a certain
type of veteran or certain typeof film buff or history buff.

(01:32:24):
Um, Because don't, you know, the peoplewill say that I've read all the books
on a single subject and I'm like, wellYou've read all the books that everyone's
written, or you've only, have you onlywritten, read books that came from
the same point of view that you werealready emphasizing, um, and You just

read the other books that those books were based

Henri (01:32:45):
on Exactly, exactly, and that's the, like, the easiest way of mentioning
Stephen Ambrose is that, yes, there'sa lot of good stuff in his work, but
there's also a lot of other stuff He wasone that, uh, I think he actually lied
about being a pen pal with Eisenhowerbefore Eisenhower passed away And wrote
a whole thing on that, but it's, it's avery American centric, even for everything

(01:33:05):
that it's honest about, for its ownauthenticity, it's a very American centric
view, so, and, and that's the thingis, I can see churches having Saving
Private Ryan nights here in the US, Ican see that very easily, that would be
a, you know, we wouldn't, we certainlywouldn't let the young kids come watch
it, but, um, but yeah, it would fit, uh,perfectly Uh, in that kind of, in that

(01:33:31):
kind of scenario and fall into the samekind of, you know, typical Protestant
evangelical line of thinking about Godand war and who we send to war and who's
special and who's is, who isn't and thenultimately what we end up not saying.

Okay, so four quick things.
One, this whole Lincoln letter thingis making me think of the hateful
eight and Eisenhower fake pen pal and
I can only assume that's whatTarantino was playing on.
Two, Jack Ryan is the chosen one.
Three, the only other big emotional beatthat lands in the movie is the scene in

(01:34:08):
the church that you mentioned earlier.
And four, the opening of the film isn'tthe invasion of Normandy, it's the Jews
crossing the sea to get out of Egypt.

Henri (01:34:19):
Sounds right to me.

Um, bearing in mind that Spielberg is Jewish and there is
quite a lot of biblical symbolismknocking around in his films in
one place, in one form or another.
So yeah, the more I think about this,the more this is a film about some kind
of Judeo Christian spirituality thatjust happens to be set in World War II.
I didn't think of that thing about,you know, the parting of the seas

(01:34:44):
and the walking up onto the sand.
I didn't think about that until just now.
While you were talking, and now I'mnot quite sure what to make of it.

Henri (01:34:53):
It just so easily fits into that niche of where
people would accept it again.
Like the, you know, the, there's onlylimited cursing in it, which is something
I know I mentioned this earlier, but.
People, Christians are, it's a huge,huge thing in the United States about
using cursing, so if you keep all of theviolence, whatever kind of violence that
happens to be in your film, but you removeor minimize the cursing, you're going to

(01:35:17):
have created something that a lot morepeople would be openly willing to do.
Watch, especially if it's likea, you know, a TBS or TNT version
that's, you know, made to be17 hours long with commercials.
Um, yeah, it's

much more acceptable to the concerned housewives of America,
or whatever they call themselves.
Yeah, yeah.

Henri (01:35:37):
But they do, it ends up being, but it ends up being just, just you're
complaining about window dressing.
You know, you're complaining aboutit is, it's like the, you know, the
broken windows policing that theythey've done in New York city, that
we care about these tiny littlethings that the big things matter.
And, and again, going back toSpielberg again, like you said,
is that maybe that was the idea hegot in his mind is it's like, I got

(01:36:00):
all these other things together.
I just got to hit these specificbeats with these specific places,
fill in the rest, and we gotourselves a really great war movie.
And of course, for ordinarypeople, because it is.
A very different war film, if wewant to call it that, that they
don't know what they're looking at.
And of course, I know for me, likethe first time I saw it is the first

(01:36:20):
25 minutes leave you raw mentally,just, just trying to take that in.
So I don't know that I paid asmuch attention to the movie until
the very end for that reason.
But again, we, as we talked about thatprobably was done on purpose to prime
people for the, for the hits, thebeats that Spielberg was going after.

Because it's curious to lack so many of the emotional
set up and pay off that should bein the film, and yet The moments.
Okay, so what the hell in theBible is the wrong Jack Ryan?
I'm now playing, you know, gotchawith myself in terms of Bible studies,
and I'm not actually that okay with

Henri (01:37:04):
the Bible.
I've got no idea.

Maybe listeners can make some suggestions as to if that is also supposed
to be some kind of religious metaphoror spiritual reference or something.
What that scene is aboutand why that scene.
You got any ideas?

Henri (01:37:19):
No?
Not off the top of my head at the moment.
Um, there's a fellow

Email us, anyone, if you've got Because I am now actually
quite interested in this film.
Having spent the last, what, nearlytwo hours slagging it off and saying
how boring and futile and pointlessthis movie is, I'm now actually quite
interested in it as a religious metaphor.

Henri (01:37:38):
Hey, no, sometimes it's just, it's just, what is it that you're looking at?
You know, and, and, and, you know, by,and, uh You know, and I, and I want to
say, you know, I, I haven't, it's notsomething that I've spent a lot of time
thinking about but certainly there haveto be a lot of those other religious
feats and other prominent military warfilms, you know, Black Hawk Down, Forrest

(01:37:59):
Gump, there's a whole, a lot of, a lot ofJesus and religious stuff in there and,

um.
Yeah, but that's usually quite explicit.

Henri (01:38:06):
True, yeah, it's not, it's not underlying, it's not just themed
with that other, other context.

And those films have emotional throughlines that make more sense to me.

Henri (01:38:18):
True, very true.
They are, they do much,much better that way.
I rewatched Forrest Gump recentlywith, my son had never seen it.
And I, you know, I forget howwell made of a film it is.
It's really well madein a lot of its aspects.
It's still a propagandistic pieceof shit in a lot of other ways.
But, you know, it's finely crafted.

(01:38:39):
The film knows what it is.
Robert Zemeckis knew what he wasdoing and followed it through and it
made so much sense that like saving,saving Jack Ryan, he got me to do it.
I was going to, um, just whileI'm thinking about it, uh, Bill.
Bill, if you're watching, if you'relistening to this episode, Bill's a long
time follower of the podcast, and he'salso a chaplain, um, and he does sometimes

(01:39:03):
opine on little things like that.
So, Bill, if you're listening,you got a chance to email us.
Please do let us know what you think.
Um, like Tom said, uh, mentioned earlierfor everybody else, you know, Going
through these films and understandingthem thematically is a lot of layers
and, like Tom mentioned, we emailedback and forth for a long time about
a whole bunch of different aspectsof this film and where it goes,

(01:39:25):
where it leads, where it all goes.
So, but yes, please folks, take, takethe time, send us a line, tell us
what you thought of the episode and ifyou have any thoughts on the, on the
religious themes of it, um, and, uh.

And the symbolism in particular, I'm now trying to decode
this symbolically in my own head, but Imay You're going to force me to actually
watch this film again, aren't you?

Henri (01:39:51):
That was my plan from the start.

Evil scheme to make me actually enjoy Saving Jack Ryan.
After having spent probably 20years not despising this film, just
almost feeling nothing towards it.
Right, right.
I'm now actually finding it reallyquite interesting and provocative.
Even though I'm also staring at one of mynotes here that just says music constant
to try to justify ludicrous premise.

(01:40:15):
It's The crafting in this film seems tobe taking place somewhere other than,
like, in the film, it's not that wellmade, but somehow there's something in
it that I've missed up until this point.
And so now, yeah, yeah, anyone whocan help me delve more into this

(01:40:35):
and, like I say, understand someof the symbolism and some of the
biblical allusions and all of that.
Feel free to get in touch, I meanthere's a contact form on my site,
you can email Henri and he'llforward stuff to me, whatever.
But I am actually now,now genuinely curious.
I started out, as I say, not despisingthis film, but feeling essentially

(01:40:56):
apathetic towards it, and not reallywanting to have this conversation,
which is why it's taken us, I don'tknow how long to actually get to this
point of having this conversation.
Um, and now suddenlyyou've turned me around.
I don't know how to react to this.
This isn't how I was expectingthis conversation to conclude.
It was with me being more interestedin the film than I ever was before.

Henri (01:41:19):
That's just me doing my job, Tom.
You have done an excellent job.
I'm a really good American propagandist.
So I think we've got a really goodplace to wrap up here for today.
The, uh, the one thing that I wantedto, to mention again, re mention before
the end of the episode is that foranybody who's seen it and for anybody

(01:41:41):
that watches war films, uh, in general,that, um, ask yourself as you're watching
it, as you're taking it in about thesights and the sounds and how the
violence and, and those kinds of thingsare impacting the way that you see
what's actually happening in the story.
Um, remember that filmmakers in these.

(01:42:04):
Genres, they want you tocenter on characters, very
much like Saving Private Ryan.
Always tell yourself, you know, youwant to look at things certainly from
a historical perspective, and youwant to remember that a filmmaker's
choice to center on an individual, asingle, single individual or group of
individuals is an effort to get youto narrow your focus on the topic.

(01:42:26):
So, Make sure you broaden your focus.
Make sure if you are one of those peoplethat reads all the books on a subject
that you read them from all sides ofthe political aisle and and try to
understand it more comprehensively,except Rush Limbaugh or Jordan Peterson.
You can burn that shit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but Tom, any, uh, any final remarks?

Uh, only that the, I never got round to it.
The best thing on that trip toFrance, to Normandy, when I was
a kid, wasn't actually the beach,it was the Bayeux Tapestry.
If anyone doesn't know what that is,look it up, because it's truly amazing.
And if you ever get the chance togo to the town of Bayeux and go to
the Musée de la Tapisserie, I thinkit is, the Museum of the Tapestry,

(01:43:09):
go there, because it's incredible.
Sounds great.
Nothing to do with.
Saving Jack Ryan exceptthat it's in Normandy.
But yeah, look it up, buy atapestry, seriously people.

Henri (01:43:21):
I will, I will do that as soon as we get off here.
Um, alright folks, thank youvery much for uh, joining us
today on Fortress On A Hill.
I hope that the, the discussion wasinformative and, and I know that these
episodes have usually been good onesfor us, that, that, that it gives
people a lot to think about, especiallywhen, you know, maybe you saw Saving

(01:43:42):
Private Ryan once or twice a long timeago, um, to, to really understand what
its power is in the way that Spielbergand filmmakers like him use that.
And especially just Americanfilmmakers in general using
that, that great propaganda tool.
Tom Hanks with his, his smileand his charm and everything
in, in whatever way they can.

(01:44:03):
thank you very much for joining us.
We'll see you next time.
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The propaganda power of “Saving Private Ryan” w/ Tom Secker – Ep 153

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The propaganda power of “Saving Private Ryan” w/ Tom Secker – Ep 153