The Importance of "Saving Private Ryan"

While seeing parts the movie "Saving Private Ryan" on TV again tonight, I was reminded of how important this movie still is now after almost 17 years since its opening in July 1998.

At first I could not believe that so many years have passed since I saw this movie. I consider this movie the most important and life changing of any movie I have ever seen in my lifetime.

In July 1998 I was a month away from turning 40 and I remember the significance of this milestone year in my life as well as the anticipation that this movie would for the very first time show the real horror of war like no movie had ever done before. I remember the opinions of some of the people who saw this movie and I remember some of their comments which included "the movie was too harsh", "the movie showed too much gore and violence". I thought to myself at the time that comments like this were so ridiculous. How can you show the violence and death that occurred during the Normandy invasion and the subsequent battles in France without showing horrible gore and violence?

If you don't show it like it was for all of these young men who survived and who died during this time, you disrespect what they did and its just that simple. "Saving Private Ryan" will always be the most important movie ever made because it showed what it was really like, even to the point that many of the veterans who were there said that the scenes of war were very accurate. For me there could never be a higher compliment to any war movie but getting the endorsement of the young men who were there, fighting for our country and for their very lives.

Steven Spielberg directed"Saving Private Ryan" and he did win for best director for the Academy Awards in 1998 but for some reason this great movie did not win for best picture that year, losing most incredibly to the ridiculous movie "Shakespeare in Love". In my opinion this is the worst mistake in Academy Awards history.

Tom Hanks also did not win for best Actor probably only because he already won 2 best actor awards already, but I also thought that this was another big mistake by the academy.

"Saving Private Ryan" gave respect to the young men who died during and after the Normandy invasion in 1944 and their great deeds during this horrible time saved the world. I commend everybody who was responsible for creating this great movie which is now almost 17 years old. The fact that it took so many years to make a movie like "Saving Private Ryan" is a shame, but at least we now all have the barometer of what a war movie should be all about. Making a great war movie should never be about glorifying war and only about showing the horror of war really is. It was always my hope that when a war movie that showed what it was really like that perhaps because of movies like this maybe one day the human race would realize that going to war makes no sense. War is about killing young men who are poor and have no other financial recourse other than going into the armed forces. The people who vote for war are never the ones who go to war. Its interesting to realize that if the politicians who vote to go to war with another country were the ones who had to suffer and die, would they still vote Yes?