Connection to the previous post (GOOD WILL HUNTING): Matt Damon co-starred in both films.
Ratings: IMDB ― 8.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 92%, ME ― 92%
Private Ryan: Hell, these guys deserve to go home as much as I do. They've fought just as hard.
Ratings: IMDB ― 8.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes ― 92%, ME ― 92%
Private Ryan: Hell, these guys deserve to go home as much as I do. They've fought just as hard.
Captain Miller: Is that what I'm supposed to tell your mother when she gets another folded American flag?
Private Ryan: You can tell her that when you found me, I was with the only brothers I had left. And that there was no way I was deserting them. I think she'd understand that.
Matt Damon as Private Ryan and Tom Hanks as Captain Miller
Trivia (From IMDB):
Tom Sizemore was battling a drug addiction during production. Steven Spielberg gave him an ultimatum that he would be blood tested on the set every day of filming, and if he failed the test once he would be fired and the part of Horvath would be recast and re-shot with someone else, even if it was at the end of production.
In the German-dubbed version of the movie, one of the actors, who was a German veteran of the Normandy invasion, dropped out and had to be replaced due to the emotional realism of the film.
Steven Spielberg cast Matt Damon as Private Ryan because he wanted an unknown actor with an All-American look. He did not know Damon would win an Oscar for Good Will Hunting (1997) and become an overnight star before the film was released.
The Omaha Beach scene cost eleven million dollars to shoot, and involved up to 1,000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, twenty to thirty of them were amputees, issued with prosthetic limbs, to simulate soldiers having their limbs blown off
When Tom Hanks' character tells the rest of the unit what he does for a living back home, Hanks' speech was much longer in the original script. But Hanks felt that his character wouldn't have said so much about himself, and he told director Steven Spielberg so. Spielberg agreed, and the speech was shortened.
When the camera shakes during explosions, Steven Spielberg used drills attached to the side of the camera, which were turned on when required. While shooting with this effect, the crew's photographer let Spielberg know that there was a shaker lens for cameras. Spielberg said in an interview that he had thought he had invented a great new technique.
The film was blocked by the Censor Board of India for too much violence. The Board demanded cuts that Steven Spielberg declined to make and instead, he decided not to release the movie in India at all. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the then Home Minister of India saw the movie himself and, impressed, ordered it to be released uncut.
The two "German" soldiers who are shot trying to surrender were speaking Czech. They were saying, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!" They were members of what the Germans called Ost [East] Battalions, men, mostly Czech and Polish, taken prisoner in eastern European countries invaded by Germany and forced into the German army.
All the principal actors, except for Matt Damon, underwent several days of grueling army training. Damon was spared so that the other actors would resent him and would convey that feeling in their performances.
Many veterans of D-Day congratulated director Steven Spielberg for the film's authenticity, as did actor James Doohan, who is best known for playing Scotty in Star Trek (1966). Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand and was wounded in the leg during the war. Also, he participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, at Juno Beach, where the 3rd Canadian infantry division led the attack. He commended Spielberg for not leaving out any gory details.
The highest grossing film of 1998 in the United States. It was also the last R-rated film to lead the yearly box office until American Sniper (2014).
Matt Damon ad-libbed the story he tells, towards the end of the film, about spying on his brother in the barn with the ugly girl. As described in Peter Bart's book "The Gross," the speech was rambling and not particularly funny or interesting, but the crew decided that's why it worked; it was true to an unformed kid like Ryan, fated to be at the center of this incredible operation. Steven Spielberg liked it so much he decided to leave it in the film.
Steven Spielberg is on record as saying that even if the film had received an NC-17 rating, he would have released it uncut anyway.
The cast endured a grueling, week-long course at boot camp instructed by technical advisor Dale Dye. Tom Hanks, who had previously been trained by Dye for the Vietnam war scenes in Forrest Gump (1994), was the only one of them who knew it would be a hard and uncompromising experience: "The other guys, I think, were expecting something like camping in the woods, and maybe learning things while sitting around the campfire."
Gunfire sound effects heard in the film were recorded from actual gunfire with live ammunition fired from authentic period weapons, recorded at a live fire machine gun range near Atlanta, Georgia. The range is owned by a weapons manufacturer.
In 2006, Tom Hanks was inducted into the U.S. Army's Ranger Hall of Fame as an honorary member, largely thanks to his portrayal of Captain John Miller.
Cinemas were instructed to up the volume when they showed the film, as the sound effects play such a crucial part in its overall effect.
The actors all had to undergo an intensive pre-shoot six-day boot camp during which all but one of them voted to quit, as they found it too arduous. The one dissenting voice was Tom Hanks, who thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Naturally, his vote counted the most, so the rest of the actors were obligated to complete their training.
The Omaha Beach battle was filmed in sequence over a four-week period, moving the action up the beach shot by shot and day by day. Steven Spielberg claims that none of it was storyboarded in advance.
Two of the landing craft used in the Omaha Beach scenes were actually in use in World War II.
This is the last film edited on a non-digital editing system to win an Academy Award for editing.
The Department of Veterans Affairs set up a special 800 number to help the hundreds of former soldiers who were traumatized after seeing the film.
Steven Spielberg personally held and operated the camera for many shots during the Omaha beach battle.
Edward Norton was offered the role of Private Ryan but turned it down to work on American History X (1998) instead. Both he and Tom Hanks (Captain Miller) would eventually compete against each other for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1999.
In the D-Day landing sequence, there are anti-landing obstacles all along the beach. One type, nicknamed "Czech Hedgehogs," being short and prickly and was designed to rip open the hulls of the landing craft as they approached, and the other being long poles pointing at an angle. Officially called Hemmbalken, they were made out of wood or metal and angled towards the beach, most being topped with a Teller mine (anti-tank mine) and placed in rows. The Germans expected the Allies to land at high tide, to minimize the open space that the infantry had to cross, and the beach obstacles were designed with this in mind. The plan was that the landing craft would ride onto the poles, which, at high tide, would be underwater, and detonate the AT mines, causing death and destruction. However, the Allies landed at low tide, making the obstacles visible, and useless.
Military historian and author Stephen Ambrose, at a special screening of the film for him, had to ask for the screening to be halted twenty minutes in, as he couldn't handle the intensity of the opening. After composing himself outside for a few minutes, he was able to return to the screening room and watch the film to its conclusion.
Vin Diesel was paid 100,000 dollars for the role of Caparzo, when he was still a little known actor.
For the initial battle scenes in the sea, spare ammunition carried by the actors was made from wood, as metal was too heavy.
Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford were both considered for the role of Captain John Miller, before Steven Spielberg decided on casting Tom Hanks.
The role of Caparzo was written just for Vin Diesel, after Steven Spielberg saw Diesel's independent film Strays (1997), which was also his directorial, writing, producing and lead acting debut.
Although Steven Spielberg reduced the color saturation of the movie by sixty percent for artistic reasons, both major American satellite providers (DirecTV and Dish Newtork) and numerous cable television providers turned up the chroma gain to re-enhance the color saturation to normal-looking levels when broadcasting the movie. They did this, because on the first day or two of the movie's broadcast run, their customer service centers were swamped with calls from viewers complaining that something was wrong with the color.
Forty barrels of fake blood were utilized in the opening battle scene.
Steven Spielberg requested that no one gain admittance to the movie once it had already begun.
The Battle of Ramelle never took place in real life: the town and the battle were both fictional. A German counterattack over the causeway at La Fiere by the 1057th Grenadier Regiment and light tanks of the 100th Panzer Replacement Battalion was the inspiration for the climactic battle in the film.
Aside from all the intensive exercises, the actors' boot camp involved camping in soaking wet conditions, only being allowed to call each other by their characters' names and boot camp supervisor Dale Dye referring to them all as "turds".
Steven Spielberg donated an undisclosed amount of money to build a theater at America's National D-Day Memorial in honor of his father, who flew Army Air Corps missions and was a radio operator in Burma during World War II.
Billy Bob Thornton turned down the role of Sergeant Horvath, because he did not want to film the Normandy beach scenes, due to a phobia of water.
Tom Sizemore turned down a role in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998) - which is also set during World War II - to appear in this movie.
Inspired by the true story of the Niland brothers. Sergeant Frederick "Fritz" Niland was in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne. Band of Brothers (2001), produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, told the story of another 101st Airborne unit, Easy Company of the 506th PIR, whose member Sergeant Warren "Skip" Muck was best friends with Niland back home in Tonawanda, New York.
Originally, Steven Spielberg envisioned the film as being like a Boy's Own Magazine adventure. However, after he started interviewing World War II vets, he realized that such a treatment would be wholly inappropriate.
Steven Spielberg claimed that he considered the film a passion project as a gift to his aging father, a World War II veteran. He further claimed that he made the picture against his commercial instincts, believing there would not be a wide audience for a World War II movie with graphic violence, and was pleasantly surprised when it became a blockbuster hit.
When using the field radio on the beach, Captain Miller says something that sounds like "Cadaff, Cadaff" into the radio. He is actually saying CATF, meaning he is calling the Commander: Amphibious Task Force.
The film was banned in Malaysia, as Steven Spielberg refused to cut the violent scenes.
Some critics complained that the scene where the Rangers are throwing mortar rounds by hand at the German soldiers was unrealistic. In fact, Medal of Honor recipient Charles Kelly actually did this during a battle in Italy in 1943.
Writer Robert Rodat first came up with the film's story in 1994, when he saw a monument dedicated to four sons of Agnes Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. The brothers were killed in the American Civil War. Rodat decided to write a similar story set during World War II. The script was submitted to producer Mark Gordon, who then handed it to Tom Hanks. It was finally given to Steven Spielberg, who decided to direct. The film's premise is very loosely based on the real-life case of the Niland brothers.
The beach in which the Omaha scene is shot is in the south of Ireland, called Curracloe.
Private Jackson killing the German sniper by firing a shot through the man's scope and into his eye, was based on a true incident, though not in World War II, and not by a Private Jackson. It was accomplished by Marine Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock II during the Vietnam War. Hathcock was a sniper who was being fired at by a concealed NVA sniper. He finally managed to catch a glimpse of the man's sniperscope, and put a round through it, killing him. The similar sequence in this film is rumored to be a tribute to Hathcock, who has been regarded as one of the U.S.' most famous snipers.
The names Rieben reads off the dog tags are all friends of actor Edward Burns.
Michael Madsen was offered the role of Sergeant Horvath. He turned it down, recommending friend Tom Sizemore for the part instead.
Steven Spielberg considered casting Matt Damon after viewing his performance in Courage Under Fire (1996), but thought he was too skinny. Robin Williams introduced Damon to Spielberg on the set of Good Will Hunting (1997), and Spielberg changed his mind.
Captain Dale Dye (USMC Retired), the film's military advisor, makes an appearance as a War Department Colonel in the scene with General George C. Marshall. He is the white-haired officer advising Marshall against sending a rescue party after Ryan.
There is a close-up of a map in a scene where Captain Miller's hand is holding a compass and shaking. The map used as a prop is an actual map issued to members of the 82nd Airborne, and possibly other units. It is identified as "SHEET6E/5," identical to a map handed down by a survivor of the invasion.
Upham's shoulder patch, a blue and grey "yin yang" symbol, identifies him as a member of the 29th U.S. Infantry Division. It symbolizes the fact that the division was composed of units from Virginia and Maryland, who fought on both sides of the American Civil War.
The input of Industrial Light & Magic was significantly downplayed so as not to make the film appear to be a visual effects movie. ILM's contribution, however, was subtle but highly necessary, as most of the bullet hits in the Omaha Beach attack were digitally created.
The "Bixby Letter," which is featured prominently in the film, was actually inaccurate. The War Department incorrectly informed Abraham Lincoln about the fate of Mrs. Bixby's sons: two had died in battle, the others eventually survived the war. It is not clear whether Mrs. Bixby's story about her sons was borne from error or exaggeration, and why the War Department had failed to correct the report based on their own records.
The term "Fubar", referred to several times in the film, stands for "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition". In Spanish language it was translated as "Fomare", which means "FOllado y MAchacado sin REmedio" (fucked and crushed without a remedy).
The battle of Normandy at the start and the battle to defend Ramelle at the end both run about 25 minutes in length comprising nearly an hour of the film.
To achieve his unique "look" for the film, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski adjusted his film shutter to ninety degrees to create sharper, more realistic images, and used an Image Shaker to vibrate the camera to approximate the impact of explosions.
Local reenactment groups, such as the Second Battle Group, were employed as extras to play German and American soldiers.
The two German Tiger tanks in the movie were in fact Russian T-34 tanks, modified to appear as convincing Tiger tanks. You can see the difference between these fake Tigers and the real ones by the differing drive wheels.
Just after the scene where Captain Miller "recruits" Upham for the mission, there is a short scene that shows the motor pool. For a few brief seconds, a Jeep with a small trailer rolls by. If you look carefully, you can see that the Jeep and trailer contain Miller and his men. The next scene shows Miller and the others walking through a meadow on foot with no vehicle in sight. This is due to the fact that the scene which shows how Miller and the men lose the Jeep was deleted from the final cut. Later in the film, Miller mentions something about losing "most of their ammo." This occurred when they lost the Jeep.
The first DreamWorks film to cross the $100 million mark.
Voted #1 greatest war film in UK's Channel 4 poll in 2005.
The siege in the village of Ramelle was filmed on a set created on a disused airfield in Hatfield, England. The bridge so valiantly defended actually crosses a three foot deep canal created for the movie. Earlier scenes in the village of Neuville-au-Plain used the same set carefully shot from different angles.
Real amputees were used for the shots of people with limbs missing. However, Bryan Cranston, who portrayed the Colonel in the headquarters unit, to whom the three separate death notices are presented, and later presents to General George C. Marshall, is not an amputee, although depicted as missing a left arm, apparently above the elbow.
Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic" in 2008.
Filming switched from England to Ireland, after the British Ministry of Defence declined to provide the huge numbers of soldiers requested to act as extras in the film. The Irish Defence Forces supplied 2,500 men drawn from a mix of units of the FCA (Army Reserve) and Slua Muiri (Navy) reserves. They spent four weeks in the surf on the beaches while filming the landing scenes. The UK MoD also supplied a couple of hundred soldiers from their reserves, but not the thousands that Steven Spielberg had asked for.
The opening scene of the Omaha Beach attack was used for EA's Medal of Honor (1999)'s opening mission. Some of the dialogue used in the movie is also used in the game, and it even follows the movie's general advance onto the German positions the movie portrayed.
Neil Patrick Harris was considered for the role of Private Ryan.
The half-track German motorcycle Miller calls a "rabbit" (its Allied nickname) is a Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101, or just Kettenkrad ("tracked motorcycle"). Meant for towing small trailers and light artillery over rough ground, it was the smallest tracked vehicle used in World War II, aside from the German "Goliath" (an unmanned remote-controlled mine). It was manufactured by NSU Motorenwerke AG. NSU survived the war to merge with Auto Union, forming Audi in 1969.
Harrison Young, who was cast as the elder Ryan due to his striking resemblance to Matt Damon, was 68 years old during production, playing a character in his 70s. During the actual Normandy invasion in 1944, Harrison was 14.
This was the first movie to be rated NC-17 in Singapore. Due to the nature of the violence of the movie, it could not be passed as a PG film. Also, with the lack of an adult theme, it could not be granted an R(A) rating.
In an earlier draft of the script, Miller's squad takes Steamboat Willie with them and camps out for the night in a foxhole. That night, a German Panzer division arrives and camps out right next to the squad's foxhole. When a German soldier named Weiter approaches the foxhole asking for cigarettes, the squad forces Willie at gunpoint to converse with Weiter so their cover is not blown. (Weiter never sees the Americans due to the darkness of the night.) Through Willie, the squad ends up trading Reiben's Mickey Mouse lighter and Mellish's Hitler Youth Knife for food from Weiter, much to Mellish's displeasure.
Til Schweiger turned down the role of "Steamboat Willie" because he feared he would be typecast by it. He would, however, go on to star as a German soldier in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009)
The first independent film by DreamWorks Pictures to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
The whole movie was shot in 59 days. The beach scene alone took 25 days to shoot.
Robert Rodat's script was bought by producer Mark Gordon, who liked the story but only accepted the final screenplay after eleven drafts.
Excluding the opening scene where he appears as an unidentified elderly man, title character Private Ryan (Matt Damon) is first introduced at 1 hour and 46 minutes, and has only 59 minutes of screen time.
Voted #2 in "The top 20 war films as voted for by the British Forces" 2008 poll, by British Forces Broadcasting Service Television (BFBS TV).
President Abraham Lincoln received a letter from the governor of Massachusetts asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. It would later be discovered that only two of Mrs. Bixby's five sons died in battle (Charles and Oliver). Of the other three: one deserted the army, one was honorably discharged and another deserted or died a prisoner of war.
After completing this movie, Steven Spielberg was inspired to create the video game "Medal Of Honor" for the PlayStation System (PS1) under the DreamWorks' video game division, distributed by Electronic Arts. Spielberg is credited as a consultant and producer on that game and Captain Dale Dye, the military consultant on the film, was also the consultant on the game. In the wake of Private Ryan's success and influence, the game went on to become a huge seller for the PlayStation console, producing numerous sequels including "Medal of Honor: Frontline" which features a D-Day opening similar to the one in the film.
Ranked #10 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).
Scott Frank and Frank Darabont did uncredited script doctor work on the screenplay. Scott Frank's work, according to claims, is the most prominent.
The white stripes on the backs of some U.S. helmets indicate higher-ranking soldiers. A vertical stripe indicates an officer (Captain Miller). A horizontal stripe indicates an NCO (Sergeant Horvath).
Selected as the opening film at the 55th Venice Film Festival in 1998.
One of the very last films to be released on laserdisc in November 1999. Laserdiscs ceased being manufactured at the end of that year.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush's favorite movie.
One of Quentin Tarantino's favorite war movies.
Captain Miller uses a M1A1 Thompson, Sergeant Horvath uses a M1 Carbine, Reiben uses a Browning Automatic Rifle M1918A2, Jackson uses a Springfield M1903A4, and Caparzo, Mellish and Upham use the M1 Garand.
In one scene, Upham is laughed at for reading a book about "the bond of brotherhood that develops between soldiers during war." Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg would later go on to be executive producers of Band of Brothers (2001), a miniseries depicting the lives of soldiers during World War II, which is based on a book of the same name.
Paul Giamatti says "The streets have been quiet for about 45 minutes" around the 45-minute mark in the movie.
Final film of Kathleen Byron.
Garth Brooks turned down the role of Private Jackson.
Foley artist Jana Vance dislocated three ribs while lugging heavy gear and military boots for a scene's sound effects.
In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #71 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).
The movie contains four actors, who were also directors, in the cast: Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, and Vin Diesel.
Features two actors who have played the role of Tom Ripley, protagonist of Patricia Highsmith's 'Ripliad' series, which consists of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and its four sequels. Matt Damon played Ripley in that film, and Barry Pepper (Private Jackson) played Ripley in Ripley Under Ground (2005), based on the second book.
During the landings at Normandy, many DUKW amphibious trucks were used in the actual operation. However, because of the late change of location from the UK to Ireland, agreement could not be reached in time with the supplier of the many DUKWs required for the film. Hence, there are no DUKWs displayed in the picture.
Joshua Jackson auditioned for the role of Wade.
On D-Day, the anti-landing obstacles made out of long poles pointing at an angle (officially called Hemmbalken), were made out of wood or metal and were designed to be angled towards the beach. In the movie's D-Day landing sequence, these anti-tank obstacles have been placed facing the wrong direction to what they should have been, and face away from the beach.
This film was a co-production of DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures, with DreamWorks handling the North American release, and Paramount handling the international release. The early releases of the film on video cassette, and Region 1 DVDs, were distributed by Universal, which had agreed to distribute DreamWorks releases on home video when the company was founded in 1994. In 2006, Viacom, Paramount's parent company, acquired DreamWorks and Paramount, and gained U.S./Canadian rights to the picture as a result. The film was one of seven DreamWorks/Paramount co-productions that became fully owned by the latter upon the merger of the two studios.
According to Tom Hanks the decision to film the assault on the machine gun nest through the perspective of Private Upham's monocular was made on the spot by Steven Spielberg when the sunlight didn't allow for the planned coverage.
Private Daniel Jackson kisses a Christian cross before going into battle. Nathan Fillion, who plays the "wrong" Private Ryan, later played Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly (2002), a war veteran who did the same thing. But when his side lost the war, he also lost his faith in God.
Steven Spielberg's last feature film of the 20th century.
Christopher Eccleston turned down a role in the film.
Clifton Collins, Jr. was a finalist for the role of Upham.
Michael Bay once reflected on this film being one of several that he turned down. "I had gotten movie offers and turned them down. I took my time. They sent me Saving Private Ryan, but I wouldn't have known what to do with it."
The Omaha beach scenes were shot in continuity and Steven Spielberg allowed the camera operators to be spontaneous with what they shot.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
This film resurrected Ted Danson's career as Cheers (1982) had been off the air for nearly a decade but he had been in a number of commercial and critical flops since then. his short cameo appearance proved he could do drama every bit as well as comedy and he's worked steadily ever since.
This film was pitted against The Thin Red Line (1998) at the Oscars and amongst war movie buffs. This was more a function of marketing than anything else as the Thin Red Line was significantly slower paced and more philosophical as compared to Saving Private Ryan's traditional war movie feel. (Not to mention one is about the Pacific War, the other the European theater).
Barry Pepper improvised the line "God gave me a special gift made me a fine instrument of warfare".
Tom Hanks celebrated his 41st birthday in 1997, when the movie was in principal photography during a break from filming, he jokingly said to Steven Spielberg "Today I am a man".
Giovanni Ribisi and Adam Goldberg both played secondary characters in the sitcom 'Friends'. Ribisi played Phoebes younger brother Frank Jr and Goldberg played Chandlers unstable roommate Eddie.
Most officers (in battle and combat) were in their late 20s-early 30s by the time of Normandy with everyone under them being younger even if only by a couple years. Tom Hanks was in his early forties (40-41) when this was filmed all of the other actors were (for the most part) older than their characters, except Horvath (whose relative age is left untouched entirely) furthermore, the stress of combat causes accelerated aging, which a lot of the soldiers on the battlefields of World War II would have faced.
The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be nominated for Best Sound Effects Editing.
In 1992, Jeremy Davies (Upham) had a recurring role in Wonder Years as a character named Horvath.
Janusz Kaminski: The film's cinematographer appears as a documentary filmmaker.
Steven Spielberg: [Fathers] In Neuville, a father pleads the soldiers to take his kids with them. After being endangered by this, and then being reunited with her family, the daughter then slaps the father repeatedly for putting her at such risk.
Matt Damon as Private Ryan and Tom Hanks as Captain Miller
Trivia (From IMDB):
Tom Sizemore was battling a drug addiction during production. Steven Spielberg gave him an ultimatum that he would be blood tested on the set every day of filming, and if he failed the test once he would be fired and the part of Horvath would be recast and re-shot with someone else, even if it was at the end of production.
In the German-dubbed version of the movie, one of the actors, who was a German veteran of the Normandy invasion, dropped out and had to be replaced due to the emotional realism of the film.
Steven Spielberg cast Matt Damon as Private Ryan because he wanted an unknown actor with an All-American look. He did not know Damon would win an Oscar for Good Will Hunting (1997) and become an overnight star before the film was released.
The Omaha Beach scene cost eleven million dollars to shoot, and involved up to 1,000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, twenty to thirty of them were amputees, issued with prosthetic limbs, to simulate soldiers having their limbs blown off
When Tom Hanks' character tells the rest of the unit what he does for a living back home, Hanks' speech was much longer in the original script. But Hanks felt that his character wouldn't have said so much about himself, and he told director Steven Spielberg so. Spielberg agreed, and the speech was shortened.
When the camera shakes during explosions, Steven Spielberg used drills attached to the side of the camera, which were turned on when required. While shooting with this effect, the crew's photographer let Spielberg know that there was a shaker lens for cameras. Spielberg said in an interview that he had thought he had invented a great new technique.
The film was blocked by the Censor Board of India for too much violence. The Board demanded cuts that Steven Spielberg declined to make and instead, he decided not to release the movie in India at all. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the then Home Minister of India saw the movie himself and, impressed, ordered it to be released uncut.
The two "German" soldiers who are shot trying to surrender were speaking Czech. They were saying, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!" They were members of what the Germans called Ost [East] Battalions, men, mostly Czech and Polish, taken prisoner in eastern European countries invaded by Germany and forced into the German army.
All the principal actors, except for Matt Damon, underwent several days of grueling army training. Damon was spared so that the other actors would resent him and would convey that feeling in their performances.
Many veterans of D-Day congratulated director Steven Spielberg for the film's authenticity, as did actor James Doohan, who is best known for playing Scotty in Star Trek (1966). Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand and was wounded in the leg during the war. Also, he participated in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, at Juno Beach, where the 3rd Canadian infantry division led the attack. He commended Spielberg for not leaving out any gory details.
The highest grossing film of 1998 in the United States. It was also the last R-rated film to lead the yearly box office until American Sniper (2014).
Matt Damon ad-libbed the story he tells, towards the end of the film, about spying on his brother in the barn with the ugly girl. As described in Peter Bart's book "The Gross," the speech was rambling and not particularly funny or interesting, but the crew decided that's why it worked; it was true to an unformed kid like Ryan, fated to be at the center of this incredible operation. Steven Spielberg liked it so much he decided to leave it in the film.
Steven Spielberg is on record as saying that even if the film had received an NC-17 rating, he would have released it uncut anyway.
The cast endured a grueling, week-long course at boot camp instructed by technical advisor Dale Dye. Tom Hanks, who had previously been trained by Dye for the Vietnam war scenes in Forrest Gump (1994), was the only one of them who knew it would be a hard and uncompromising experience: "The other guys, I think, were expecting something like camping in the woods, and maybe learning things while sitting around the campfire."
Gunfire sound effects heard in the film were recorded from actual gunfire with live ammunition fired from authentic period weapons, recorded at a live fire machine gun range near Atlanta, Georgia. The range is owned by a weapons manufacturer.
In 2006, Tom Hanks was inducted into the U.S. Army's Ranger Hall of Fame as an honorary member, largely thanks to his portrayal of Captain John Miller.
Cinemas were instructed to up the volume when they showed the film, as the sound effects play such a crucial part in its overall effect.
The actors all had to undergo an intensive pre-shoot six-day boot camp during which all but one of them voted to quit, as they found it too arduous. The one dissenting voice was Tom Hanks, who thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Naturally, his vote counted the most, so the rest of the actors were obligated to complete their training.
The Omaha Beach battle was filmed in sequence over a four-week period, moving the action up the beach shot by shot and day by day. Steven Spielberg claims that none of it was storyboarded in advance.
Two of the landing craft used in the Omaha Beach scenes were actually in use in World War II.
This is the last film edited on a non-digital editing system to win an Academy Award for editing.
The Department of Veterans Affairs set up a special 800 number to help the hundreds of former soldiers who were traumatized after seeing the film.
Steven Spielberg personally held and operated the camera for many shots during the Omaha beach battle.
Edward Norton was offered the role of Private Ryan but turned it down to work on American History X (1998) instead. Both he and Tom Hanks (Captain Miller) would eventually compete against each other for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1999.
In the D-Day landing sequence, there are anti-landing obstacles all along the beach. One type, nicknamed "Czech Hedgehogs," being short and prickly and was designed to rip open the hulls of the landing craft as they approached, and the other being long poles pointing at an angle. Officially called Hemmbalken, they were made out of wood or metal and angled towards the beach, most being topped with a Teller mine (anti-tank mine) and placed in rows. The Germans expected the Allies to land at high tide, to minimize the open space that the infantry had to cross, and the beach obstacles were designed with this in mind. The plan was that the landing craft would ride onto the poles, which, at high tide, would be underwater, and detonate the AT mines, causing death and destruction. However, the Allies landed at low tide, making the obstacles visible, and useless.
Military historian and author Stephen Ambrose, at a special screening of the film for him, had to ask for the screening to be halted twenty minutes in, as he couldn't handle the intensity of the opening. After composing himself outside for a few minutes, he was able to return to the screening room and watch the film to its conclusion.
Vin Diesel was paid 100,000 dollars for the role of Caparzo, when he was still a little known actor.
For the initial battle scenes in the sea, spare ammunition carried by the actors was made from wood, as metal was too heavy.
Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford were both considered for the role of Captain John Miller, before Steven Spielberg decided on casting Tom Hanks.
The role of Caparzo was written just for Vin Diesel, after Steven Spielberg saw Diesel's independent film Strays (1997), which was also his directorial, writing, producing and lead acting debut.
Although Steven Spielberg reduced the color saturation of the movie by sixty percent for artistic reasons, both major American satellite providers (DirecTV and Dish Newtork) and numerous cable television providers turned up the chroma gain to re-enhance the color saturation to normal-looking levels when broadcasting the movie. They did this, because on the first day or two of the movie's broadcast run, their customer service centers were swamped with calls from viewers complaining that something was wrong with the color.
Forty barrels of fake blood were utilized in the opening battle scene.
Steven Spielberg requested that no one gain admittance to the movie once it had already begun.
The Battle of Ramelle never took place in real life: the town and the battle were both fictional. A German counterattack over the causeway at La Fiere by the 1057th Grenadier Regiment and light tanks of the 100th Panzer Replacement Battalion was the inspiration for the climactic battle in the film.
Aside from all the intensive exercises, the actors' boot camp involved camping in soaking wet conditions, only being allowed to call each other by their characters' names and boot camp supervisor Dale Dye referring to them all as "turds".
Steven Spielberg donated an undisclosed amount of money to build a theater at America's National D-Day Memorial in honor of his father, who flew Army Air Corps missions and was a radio operator in Burma during World War II.
Billy Bob Thornton turned down the role of Sergeant Horvath, because he did not want to film the Normandy beach scenes, due to a phobia of water.
Tom Sizemore turned down a role in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998) - which is also set during World War II - to appear in this movie.
Inspired by the true story of the Niland brothers. Sergeant Frederick "Fritz" Niland was in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne. Band of Brothers (2001), produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, told the story of another 101st Airborne unit, Easy Company of the 506th PIR, whose member Sergeant Warren "Skip" Muck was best friends with Niland back home in Tonawanda, New York.
Originally, Steven Spielberg envisioned the film as being like a Boy's Own Magazine adventure. However, after he started interviewing World War II vets, he realized that such a treatment would be wholly inappropriate.
Steven Spielberg claimed that he considered the film a passion project as a gift to his aging father, a World War II veteran. He further claimed that he made the picture against his commercial instincts, believing there would not be a wide audience for a World War II movie with graphic violence, and was pleasantly surprised when it became a blockbuster hit.
When using the field radio on the beach, Captain Miller says something that sounds like "Cadaff, Cadaff" into the radio. He is actually saying CATF, meaning he is calling the Commander: Amphibious Task Force.
The film was banned in Malaysia, as Steven Spielberg refused to cut the violent scenes.
Some critics complained that the scene where the Rangers are throwing mortar rounds by hand at the German soldiers was unrealistic. In fact, Medal of Honor recipient Charles Kelly actually did this during a battle in Italy in 1943.
Writer Robert Rodat first came up with the film's story in 1994, when he saw a monument dedicated to four sons of Agnes Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania. The brothers were killed in the American Civil War. Rodat decided to write a similar story set during World War II. The script was submitted to producer Mark Gordon, who then handed it to Tom Hanks. It was finally given to Steven Spielberg, who decided to direct. The film's premise is very loosely based on the real-life case of the Niland brothers.
The beach in which the Omaha scene is shot is in the south of Ireland, called Curracloe.
Private Jackson killing the German sniper by firing a shot through the man's scope and into his eye, was based on a true incident, though not in World War II, and not by a Private Jackson. It was accomplished by Marine Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock II during the Vietnam War. Hathcock was a sniper who was being fired at by a concealed NVA sniper. He finally managed to catch a glimpse of the man's sniperscope, and put a round through it, killing him. The similar sequence in this film is rumored to be a tribute to Hathcock, who has been regarded as one of the U.S.' most famous snipers.
The names Rieben reads off the dog tags are all friends of actor Edward Burns.
Michael Madsen was offered the role of Sergeant Horvath. He turned it down, recommending friend Tom Sizemore for the part instead.
Steven Spielberg considered casting Matt Damon after viewing his performance in Courage Under Fire (1996), but thought he was too skinny. Robin Williams introduced Damon to Spielberg on the set of Good Will Hunting (1997), and Spielberg changed his mind.
Captain Dale Dye (USMC Retired), the film's military advisor, makes an appearance as a War Department Colonel in the scene with General George C. Marshall. He is the white-haired officer advising Marshall against sending a rescue party after Ryan.
There is a close-up of a map in a scene where Captain Miller's hand is holding a compass and shaking. The map used as a prop is an actual map issued to members of the 82nd Airborne, and possibly other units. It is identified as "SHEET6E/5," identical to a map handed down by a survivor of the invasion.
Upham's shoulder patch, a blue and grey "yin yang" symbol, identifies him as a member of the 29th U.S. Infantry Division. It symbolizes the fact that the division was composed of units from Virginia and Maryland, who fought on both sides of the American Civil War.
The input of Industrial Light & Magic was significantly downplayed so as not to make the film appear to be a visual effects movie. ILM's contribution, however, was subtle but highly necessary, as most of the bullet hits in the Omaha Beach attack were digitally created.
The "Bixby Letter," which is featured prominently in the film, was actually inaccurate. The War Department incorrectly informed Abraham Lincoln about the fate of Mrs. Bixby's sons: two had died in battle, the others eventually survived the war. It is not clear whether Mrs. Bixby's story about her sons was borne from error or exaggeration, and why the War Department had failed to correct the report based on their own records.
The term "Fubar", referred to several times in the film, stands for "Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition". In Spanish language it was translated as "Fomare", which means "FOllado y MAchacado sin REmedio" (fucked and crushed without a remedy).
The battle of Normandy at the start and the battle to defend Ramelle at the end both run about 25 minutes in length comprising nearly an hour of the film.
To achieve his unique "look" for the film, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski adjusted his film shutter to ninety degrees to create sharper, more realistic images, and used an Image Shaker to vibrate the camera to approximate the impact of explosions.
Local reenactment groups, such as the Second Battle Group, were employed as extras to play German and American soldiers.
The two German Tiger tanks in the movie were in fact Russian T-34 tanks, modified to appear as convincing Tiger tanks. You can see the difference between these fake Tigers and the real ones by the differing drive wheels.
Just after the scene where Captain Miller "recruits" Upham for the mission, there is a short scene that shows the motor pool. For a few brief seconds, a Jeep with a small trailer rolls by. If you look carefully, you can see that the Jeep and trailer contain Miller and his men. The next scene shows Miller and the others walking through a meadow on foot with no vehicle in sight. This is due to the fact that the scene which shows how Miller and the men lose the Jeep was deleted from the final cut. Later in the film, Miller mentions something about losing "most of their ammo." This occurred when they lost the Jeep.
The first DreamWorks film to cross the $100 million mark.
Voted #1 greatest war film in UK's Channel 4 poll in 2005.
The siege in the village of Ramelle was filmed on a set created on a disused airfield in Hatfield, England. The bridge so valiantly defended actually crosses a three foot deep canal created for the movie. Earlier scenes in the village of Neuville-au-Plain used the same set carefully shot from different angles.
Real amputees were used for the shots of people with limbs missing. However, Bryan Cranston, who portrayed the Colonel in the headquarters unit, to whom the three separate death notices are presented, and later presents to General George C. Marshall, is not an amputee, although depicted as missing a left arm, apparently above the elbow.
Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic" in 2008.
Filming switched from England to Ireland, after the British Ministry of Defence declined to provide the huge numbers of soldiers requested to act as extras in the film. The Irish Defence Forces supplied 2,500 men drawn from a mix of units of the FCA (Army Reserve) and Slua Muiri (Navy) reserves. They spent four weeks in the surf on the beaches while filming the landing scenes. The UK MoD also supplied a couple of hundred soldiers from their reserves, but not the thousands that Steven Spielberg had asked for.
The opening scene of the Omaha Beach attack was used for EA's Medal of Honor (1999)'s opening mission. Some of the dialogue used in the movie is also used in the game, and it even follows the movie's general advance onto the German positions the movie portrayed.
Neil Patrick Harris was considered for the role of Private Ryan.
The half-track German motorcycle Miller calls a "rabbit" (its Allied nickname) is a Kleines Kettenkraftrad HK 101, or just Kettenkrad ("tracked motorcycle"). Meant for towing small trailers and light artillery over rough ground, it was the smallest tracked vehicle used in World War II, aside from the German "Goliath" (an unmanned remote-controlled mine). It was manufactured by NSU Motorenwerke AG. NSU survived the war to merge with Auto Union, forming Audi in 1969.
Harrison Young, who was cast as the elder Ryan due to his striking resemblance to Matt Damon, was 68 years old during production, playing a character in his 70s. During the actual Normandy invasion in 1944, Harrison was 14.
This was the first movie to be rated NC-17 in Singapore. Due to the nature of the violence of the movie, it could not be passed as a PG film. Also, with the lack of an adult theme, it could not be granted an R(A) rating.
In an earlier draft of the script, Miller's squad takes Steamboat Willie with them and camps out for the night in a foxhole. That night, a German Panzer division arrives and camps out right next to the squad's foxhole. When a German soldier named Weiter approaches the foxhole asking for cigarettes, the squad forces Willie at gunpoint to converse with Weiter so their cover is not blown. (Weiter never sees the Americans due to the darkness of the night.) Through Willie, the squad ends up trading Reiben's Mickey Mouse lighter and Mellish's Hitler Youth Knife for food from Weiter, much to Mellish's displeasure.
Til Schweiger turned down the role of "Steamboat Willie" because he feared he would be typecast by it. He would, however, go on to star as a German soldier in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009)
The first independent film by DreamWorks Pictures to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
The whole movie was shot in 59 days. The beach scene alone took 25 days to shoot.
Robert Rodat's script was bought by producer Mark Gordon, who liked the story but only accepted the final screenplay after eleven drafts.
Excluding the opening scene where he appears as an unidentified elderly man, title character Private Ryan (Matt Damon) is first introduced at 1 hour and 46 minutes, and has only 59 minutes of screen time.
Voted #2 in "The top 20 war films as voted for by the British Forces" 2008 poll, by British Forces Broadcasting Service Television (BFBS TV).
President Abraham Lincoln received a letter from the governor of Massachusetts asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. It would later be discovered that only two of Mrs. Bixby's five sons died in battle (Charles and Oliver). Of the other three: one deserted the army, one was honorably discharged and another deserted or died a prisoner of war.
After completing this movie, Steven Spielberg was inspired to create the video game "Medal Of Honor" for the PlayStation System (PS1) under the DreamWorks' video game division, distributed by Electronic Arts. Spielberg is credited as a consultant and producer on that game and Captain Dale Dye, the military consultant on the film, was also the consultant on the game. In the wake of Private Ryan's success and influence, the game went on to become a huge seller for the PlayStation console, producing numerous sequels including "Medal of Honor: Frontline" which features a D-Day opening similar to the one in the film.
Ranked #10 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).
Scott Frank and Frank Darabont did uncredited script doctor work on the screenplay. Scott Frank's work, according to claims, is the most prominent.
The white stripes on the backs of some U.S. helmets indicate higher-ranking soldiers. A vertical stripe indicates an officer (Captain Miller). A horizontal stripe indicates an NCO (Sergeant Horvath).
Selected as the opening film at the 55th Venice Film Festival in 1998.
One of the very last films to be released on laserdisc in November 1999. Laserdiscs ceased being manufactured at the end of that year.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush's favorite movie.
One of Quentin Tarantino's favorite war movies.
Captain Miller uses a M1A1 Thompson, Sergeant Horvath uses a M1 Carbine, Reiben uses a Browning Automatic Rifle M1918A2, Jackson uses a Springfield M1903A4, and Caparzo, Mellish and Upham use the M1 Garand.
In one scene, Upham is laughed at for reading a book about "the bond of brotherhood that develops between soldiers during war." Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg would later go on to be executive producers of Band of Brothers (2001), a miniseries depicting the lives of soldiers during World War II, which is based on a book of the same name.
Paul Giamatti says "The streets have been quiet for about 45 minutes" around the 45-minute mark in the movie.
Final film of Kathleen Byron.
Garth Brooks turned down the role of Private Jackson.
Foley artist Jana Vance dislocated three ribs while lugging heavy gear and military boots for a scene's sound effects.
In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #71 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).
The movie contains four actors, who were also directors, in the cast: Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, and Vin Diesel.
Features two actors who have played the role of Tom Ripley, protagonist of Patricia Highsmith's 'Ripliad' series, which consists of The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and its four sequels. Matt Damon played Ripley in that film, and Barry Pepper (Private Jackson) played Ripley in Ripley Under Ground (2005), based on the second book.
During the landings at Normandy, many DUKW amphibious trucks were used in the actual operation. However, because of the late change of location from the UK to Ireland, agreement could not be reached in time with the supplier of the many DUKWs required for the film. Hence, there are no DUKWs displayed in the picture.
Joshua Jackson auditioned for the role of Wade.
On D-Day, the anti-landing obstacles made out of long poles pointing at an angle (officially called Hemmbalken), were made out of wood or metal and were designed to be angled towards the beach. In the movie's D-Day landing sequence, these anti-tank obstacles have been placed facing the wrong direction to what they should have been, and face away from the beach.
This film was a co-production of DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures, with DreamWorks handling the North American release, and Paramount handling the international release. The early releases of the film on video cassette, and Region 1 DVDs, were distributed by Universal, which had agreed to distribute DreamWorks releases on home video when the company was founded in 1994. In 2006, Viacom, Paramount's parent company, acquired DreamWorks and Paramount, and gained U.S./Canadian rights to the picture as a result. The film was one of seven DreamWorks/Paramount co-productions that became fully owned by the latter upon the merger of the two studios.
According to Tom Hanks the decision to film the assault on the machine gun nest through the perspective of Private Upham's monocular was made on the spot by Steven Spielberg when the sunlight didn't allow for the planned coverage.
Private Daniel Jackson kisses a Christian cross before going into battle. Nathan Fillion, who plays the "wrong" Private Ryan, later played Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly (2002), a war veteran who did the same thing. But when his side lost the war, he also lost his faith in God.
Steven Spielberg's last feature film of the 20th century.
Christopher Eccleston turned down a role in the film.
Clifton Collins, Jr. was a finalist for the role of Upham.
Michael Bay once reflected on this film being one of several that he turned down. "I had gotten movie offers and turned them down. I took my time. They sent me Saving Private Ryan, but I wouldn't have known what to do with it."
The Omaha beach scenes were shot in continuity and Steven Spielberg allowed the camera operators to be spontaneous with what they shot.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
This film resurrected Ted Danson's career as Cheers (1982) had been off the air for nearly a decade but he had been in a number of commercial and critical flops since then. his short cameo appearance proved he could do drama every bit as well as comedy and he's worked steadily ever since.
This film was pitted against The Thin Red Line (1998) at the Oscars and amongst war movie buffs. This was more a function of marketing than anything else as the Thin Red Line was significantly slower paced and more philosophical as compared to Saving Private Ryan's traditional war movie feel. (Not to mention one is about the Pacific War, the other the European theater).
Barry Pepper improvised the line "God gave me a special gift made me a fine instrument of warfare".
Tom Hanks celebrated his 41st birthday in 1997, when the movie was in principal photography during a break from filming, he jokingly said to Steven Spielberg "Today I am a man".
Giovanni Ribisi and Adam Goldberg both played secondary characters in the sitcom 'Friends'. Ribisi played Phoebes younger brother Frank Jr and Goldberg played Chandlers unstable roommate Eddie.
Most officers (in battle and combat) were in their late 20s-early 30s by the time of Normandy with everyone under them being younger even if only by a couple years. Tom Hanks was in his early forties (40-41) when this was filmed all of the other actors were (for the most part) older than their characters, except Horvath (whose relative age is left untouched entirely) furthermore, the stress of combat causes accelerated aging, which a lot of the soldiers on the battlefields of World War II would have faced.
The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be nominated for Best Sound Effects Editing.
In 1992, Jeremy Davies (Upham) had a recurring role in Wonder Years as a character named Horvath.
Janusz Kaminski: The film's cinematographer appears as a documentary filmmaker.
Steven Spielberg: [Fathers] In Neuville, a father pleads the soldiers to take his kids with them. After being endangered by this, and then being reunited with her family, the daughter then slaps the father repeatedly for putting her at such risk.
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