But it’s hard to argue with actual veterans’ responses to the film. And the film has come under fire for a few often-cited inaccuracies – particularly for side-lining the other Allied nations involved in D-Day. Saving Private Ryan presents a truncated version of what happened on Omaha Beach. Realism, of course, is not necessarily the same thing as historical accuracy. See soldiers vomiting as they approach the beach German machine-gunfire cutting them to shreds as the landing ramps open and men drowning under the weight of their equipment. And, unlike the old timey war films that veered far from Arnold Spielberg’s stories, it’s frighteningly real. The sequence is a thundering assault on the nerves and senses – a blur of chaos and carnage concussion-inducing blasts and PTSD in action. Twenty-five years on, the Omaha Beach scenes – filmed in Wexford, Ireland – are among the greatest 20 minutes in Hollywood history. Surviving the brutal German defences, Miller and his men ( Tom Sizemore, Ed Burns, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, Barry Pepper, and Jeremy Davies) are given a new mission: find Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) – whose brothers have all been killed – and send him home to his mother. In the story, Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) is part of the first wave to land on Omaha Beach. Saving Private Ryan – released on J– changed how combat is depicted on screen. “And for many years I believed Hollywood,” admitted Spielberg. I kept wondering, ‘How come movies haven’t done it that way, if that’s what really happened?’” The Hollywood heroics of John Wayne et al – even in the relatively accurate D-Day epic, The Longest Day – did not match up with the harrowing reality. “They’d all tell war stories, and they were horrifying. “He used to have reunions with his friends when I was growing up,” said Spielberg. Arnold Spielberg had served with the US Army Corps – a radio operator and gunner on B-25s over Burma. Interviewed for the New Yorker, he recalled how as a child he’d heard his father’s World War Two stories. In the summer of 1998, Steven Spielberg was on a promotional tour of duty for Saving Private Ryan.
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