Summary
Historian Dan Snow has praisedSaving Private Ryan’s legendary D-Day scene for its accuracy, passionately explaining why the movie is so well-remembered right from its opening scene. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the 1998World War II moviefollows a group of soldiers led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) searching for Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) after his brothers are killed during D-Day. Said miltary operation was depicted in the opening scene, establishing the tone of the movie while also showing the scale of loss during that day.
Speaking withHistory Hitfor their video seriesDeep Dives, Snow praised the legendary D-Day scene inSaving Private Ryanfor its accuracy and its emotional weight.
Beginning at 0:45, the historian explained how the specific details in the movie were all accurate to what really happened on Omaha Beach in 1944. He says veterans at the time the film was released were impacted by how realistic the movie was, to the point where they would use the film to compare to their own experiences. Check out what Snow had to say below:
They went to enormous trouble to create what it must have looked like and felt like on Omaha Beach, which was the bloodiest of the five beaches which were assaulted by Allied troops on D-Day. This scene, for me, just encapsulates the sheer horror of what it must have been like going ashore. First, what I like is there’s a calm before the storm, you see them going in these landing craft, heavily laden down. People are being sick, a lot of the troops were sick on D-Day, it was a lot rougher than people were expecting. And then, suddenly, that ramp goes down at the front, and German machine gun fire rakes through that unit. Now there are units on Omaha in particular that would have suffered casualties like this. There were units that were almost wiped out on Omaha in particular.
It’s a harrowing depiction of warfare here, and and the time it was even more harrowing. We hadn’t seen moviemaking special effects like this in the late ’90s. You see men losing limbs, you see men blown into the air, a flamethrower operator explodes. It is very troubling indeed. And, in fact, when this movie came out, it was very triggering for a lot of World War II veterans. They set up help lines so that people who had been there could actually call in and talk to a therapist. Remember this is only 50, 55 years after the landings themselves, so there’s a lot of guys still alive - they’d be in their 70s - who would have experienced these beach landings and other landings like them.
Through the morning on Omaha, despite appalling casualties, groups of men are able to get onto those bluffs, onto those cliffs, and eventually up to the clifftops, a couple of hours after landing.
And we see the corpse with “Ryan” marked on his kit. Now, in Saving Private Ryan, the Ryan family are made up, but it’s based on the true story of the Niland family. Two of them were killed on and around D-Day, another one was killed in Southeast Asia, and a final family member was brought home and protected so as not to cause even more trauma to the family.
Saving Private Ryan is certainly one of the most extraordinary war movies ever made. At the time it was first released, I don’t think any of us had seen special effects, we’d never seen war like that on our screens. That first scene that takes on Omaha is iconic. It’s completely extraordinary. And I’ve talked to many veterans on the beaches of Normandy, and I’ve said to them, “What was it like?” And they say, “Just go and watch Saving Private Ryan.”
Why Saving Private Ryan’s D-Day Scene Is Its Most Memorable
The accuracy of the war movie’s opening sequence helped make it one of the most memorable war movies of all time, with the presentation being something never put to screen before. As Snow mentioned at the start of his analysis, the movie won five Oscars, including Best Sound, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. While it lost Best Picture toShakespeare in Love, the upset didn’t impact its ability to become one of the greatest war movies ever made.
The opening scene is not the only harrowing moment to happen throughout the film’s 170-minute runtime, but it helps introduceSaving Private Ryan’s cast, with a focus on Hanks' Miller. Coupling character introductions with an accurate depiction of D-Day makes the movie feel more realistic, even if the characters in the story didn’t exist in real life. Given just how true to life the event was onscreen, it offered an instant connection to the core soldiers in the movie, making what they go through as the film progresses all the more horrifying.
While other movies prior toSaving Private Ryanofferedrealistic depictions of D-Day, the level of close-up violence mixed with practical effects simply made the film’s opening all the more powerful. Because the opening scene comes attached with a larger war story, it only goes to show how horrific World War II was, and what soldiers had to endure in the biggest operations against Axis powers. Although other war movies display plenty of horrific events, D-Day’s importance in history makes the Spielberg film’s opening stand out more than anything else.
Other war movies that have depictions of D-Day includeThe Longest DayandPatton.
Saving Private Ryan
Cast
Saving Private Ryan: Directed by Steven Spielberg, this World War II drama follows Captain John Miller, portrayed by Tom Hanks, as he leads a group of U.S. soldiers on a mission to rescue Private James Ryan, the sole surviving brother of four, from behind enemy lines in German-occupied France.
