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Article: A brutal masterpiece. (Steven Spielberg's movie 'Saving Private Ryan')
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- September 11, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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'Saving Private Ryan'
If you've read anything at all about Saving Private Ryan, you've read about its violence. Yes, it is appalling. But most screen violence nowadays is appalling, and if Steven Spielberg's depiction of the carnage of Omaha Beach and of subsequent battles and skirmishes during the week following D-Day offered nothing more than shock through verisimilitude, there would be little reason to discuss it. After all, do we really need to be told once again that war is hell? Haven't hundreds of movies from The Big Parade to Platoon all told us the same thing by administering large or small doses of fabricated battlefield horror? What could Spielberg do ...