Saving Private Ryan

First of all, I suggest that, if you haven’t watched the movie in a while, watch it again. Even after a dozen viewings, it’s rough going, and that’s not even a reference to the first bloody D-Day sequences.

In the comments to the 3-D Warriors post, reader CitadelGrad disputes my recollection of the plot. Little did I know that this dispute has been a long-running one among fans of the movie.

Laβ es uns beendigt.*

Es ist einfach für dich. Viel einfach.

Sorry, Marine, but I think that “Steamboat Willie” (Jörg Stadler) and the German who shoots Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) are the same person. The German, however, who kills Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) is a different person. Recall that Corporal Upham (the translator; Jeremy Davies) could have saved Private Mellish. The latter even calls out to Upham several times, during Mellish’s battle with the German. Upham, however, cowers just around the corner on the stairs. After the German takes Mellish out with a knife to the heart, he saunters down the stairs past the still-cowering Upham, deeming—correctly—that Upham is no threat to him.

Just as the German reaches the bottom of the stairs, there is a full-on close-up of him as he looks around to see if the coast is clear. Different actor (probably Erich Redman, billed as German #1); smaller nose, no dimples, unlike Mr. Stadler.

Near the end of the movie, five Germans are the on the attack as Upham observes them--hidden, but close. His recognition of “Steamboat Willie” is obvious and, as it turns out, it is Willie who takes out Captain Miller. Upham sense of outrage overcomes his fear and he confronts the entire squad, forcing them to cease-fire and surrender.

Ich kenne den Soldaten.

Ich kenne den Mann.

Upham!

Upham takes Willie out with one bullet, then allows the others to escape.

Haut ab!

VERSCHWINDET!!

Even if the man Upham shot had not been Willie, but had been Mellish’s killer, the assertion still stands, however, that Upham committed a war crime: one cheered by movie-goers nearly the world over. And why? Because no real blood was shed. It was all make-believe.

(Cast information courtesy of the ever-handy Internet Movie Database)

ADDENDUM: I would like to thank CitadelGrad, however, for forcing me to watch the movie again. The difference of opinion was minor. It needs to be seen again and held up against the context of real-world events. Additionally, and again, very minor, I enjoy doing movie reviews.

*Not sure which verb was used: beenden or beendigen. Blame it on my deteriorating German. (Native Germans can feel free to give corrections.)

Comments

[Geoffrey]

It's always different on the silver screen.

[David Blue]

For me, that scene at the end, more than anything else, makes Saving Private Ryan hard to watch.

Corporal Upham had those guys under control. He had to keep them prisoner. Good people had died, in the chancy way of war, in effect to put him in a position to take all those Germans out of the war. If other people die to get you into position to deliver the kick, when the time comes you kick - not for all you are worth because that may be little but for all they were worth. There is no how-I-feel-today about it.

Instead of which, he murders one prisoner - semi-understandable in context - and lets the rest go, to kill we don't know how many more of his comrades in arms in days to come, and betraying everything that we've seen and the sacrifices that have been made. For some gesture.

Aaa-aa-aarg!! :(

[David Blue]

"Additionally, and again, very minor, I enjoy doing movie reviews."

So do more of them!

[Jeff Cole]

For me, a more vivid exposition of the fine line (James Jone's Thin Red Line) between moral, legal, sanctioned violence, and criminal mayhem on the battlefield occurs just as the Americans reach the figurative and literal "cusp" of their D-Day objective. There is a moment and scene where the Americans occupy a trenchline mere meters in front of a similar trenchline filled with German soldiers. With the tide of battle shifting against the Germans, they make a tentative attempt to surrender by standing en masse with arms raised. Several are promptly gunned down by the Americans. A war crime you ask? Speilberg brilliantly captures the fog of war in that brief scene -- and no it's not a war crime. It's hot pursuit; it's the heat of combat; it's bloodlust edging towards the abyss of battlefield murder. But I venture that even the viewers with the least exposure to or understanding of close quarters combat could see that The Thin Red Line had perhaps been straddled, but it had not been crossed. Moments later two wiseacre GIs are approached by a couple of dazed Germans with their hands up. The GIs gun them down. Now that, THAT is a war crime.

The incident in the Fallujah mosque, from everything I can glean in the media, is a "heat of combat" event. Not even a close call... Jeff Cole, Marine Infantryman (In Repose)

[David Blue]

A second postscript: I should clarify what I meant by "semi-murdered".

I would have had no problem with Corporal Upham blowing a hole in the German to encourage the others to lie down and stay down. That would have been acting reasonably correctly, as the Marine in Fallujah acted entirely correctly in protecting himself and his comrades from what he reasonably thought was an enemy playing dead. No negligence of your soldierly duty, no foul.

My objection is that Corporal Upham in the movie killed someone for a personal reason, clearly without regard for his duty, because he grossly neglected it in the next instant. If you kill someone for a personal motive, nothing to do with your duty or the war effort, then the responsibility for the killing is yours even if you are wearing your uniform, using your issued weapon, and shooting someone who is more or less coincidentally the official enemy.

"Semi-murdered" is because the motive was to do with the war. If Corporal Upham had shot the guy purely because he recognised someone his family had an old vendetta with or something like that, I would say "murdered" pure and simple.

On the other hand if you were clearly just doing your job, the way the Marine was, you have no case to answer.

I hope he gets through this OK. We owe these guys so much.

[baldilocks]

David Blue: which is one of the several reasons that Upham's actions were a depiction of a war crime.

[David Blue]

Darn, I muddled my posts above. But you got my point anyway. Thanks.

[Eskimo]

Just to clarify the long running issue of who's who. The German who killed Mellish was SS. The close up of him coming down stairs past Upham clearly shows his camo battle smock and SS collar tabs. The splinter pattern camo smocks were unique to SS units.

Steamboat Willie was Whermacht as was evidenced by his collar tabs and lack of battle smock. That was clear during the MG assault scene and at the end.

[Dean Esmay]

I am actually getting to the point where I absolutely despise most of the mainstream press. I mean, just outright loathe them.

[craig mclaughlin]

"Saving Private Ryan" is an okay movie. The beginning and the end are excellent. But the middle drags badly. Spielberg was trying to be clever by having Upham be from the 29th Infantry Division. Their patch a yin yang symbol. Get it? Too clever by half, Mr. Spielberg.

A better war movie for Veterans day would be "They Were Expendable." Considering the context of what was acceptable to be discussed or shown on the screen in 1945, it is a much more hard core movie. I mean John Wayne left Donna Reed to the Japanese Army-- and he seemed damned pretty nonchalant about it. But then the Duke was always hard on his womenfolk...

[jackson]

if you ask me, i think that cpr Upham wanted to go home with the least amount of deaths he could possibly have under his belt. what he did to the german i think was an act out of betrail because he must of thought the german wouldnt do that after they let him go. so after seeing that same person kill his captain, im sure that he took it to heart from a friendship view, and from his relationship with the captain.

just my thoughts on it. i love the movie

thnx PVT jackson