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Home > Listing Index > Actors > Saving Private Ryan

Actors - Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 Academy Award winning film
directed by Steven Spielberg
and written by Robert Rodat.

This film is particularly notable for the intensity of the scenes in its first thirty minutes or so, which depict the Omaha beachhead assault of June 6, 1944. Thereafter it takes a heavily fictionalised route built around the search for a paratrooper of the United States 101st Airborne Division.

Spielberg later pursued his interest in the liberation of Europe with the television mini-series Band of Brothers which he co-produced with Tom Hanks
.

Awards

The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and won five: for Best Director, Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn), Best Cinematography, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing.

Synopsis

After living through the hellish assault of Omaha beach on D-Day, U.S. Army Ranger captain John Miller (Tom Hanks
) is given a new assignment: to find Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon
) who had parachuted in as a member of the 101st Airborne, which was scattered widely across Normandy. Ryan's three brothers have all been killed in action so recently that his mother will be notified of all three deaths at the same time. General George Marshall personally decides to send a squad to bring him back for her sake.

Miller conceals his erstwhile profession of schoolteacher and his background from the troops under his command; the uncovering of Miller's background becomes a sub-plot of the film in as much as the men have a monetary pool on his origins, which he steadfastly refuses to reveal. Under intensely difficult circumstances, Miller displays a decisive and courageous manner to his soldiers - his suppressed nervousness is communicated to them only by an occasional shaking of his right hand, which to his consternation he cannot control.

Eventually, at the cost of two members of their unit, Miller and his men find Ryan defending a vital bridge. Miller breaks the news of his brothers' deaths to him and tells him that he is going home. Ryan is defiant, wishing to stay with his squad because they're "the only brothers I have left." Ryan persuades Miller to remain and take command of the undermanned unit. Because of his inspired leadership, the bridge over the Merderet River in the (fictional) village of Ramelle is saved, but only two of Miller's men survive the ferocious German assault. Ryan lives, but Miller is fatally wounded. His last words to Ryan are "Earn this."

Historical background

The real "Ryan" was Sgt. Frederick (Fritz) Niland, who, with some other members of the 101st, was inadvertently dropped too far inland. They eventually made their own way back to their unit at Carentan, where the Chaplain, Lt. Col. Father Francis Sampson, told Niland about the death of his three brothers, two at Normandy and one in the Far East. Under the US War Department's Sole Survivor Policy, brought about following the death of five Sullivan brothers serving on the same ship, Fr. Sampson arranged passage back to Britain and thereafter to his parents, Augusta and Michael Niland, in Tonawanda, New York. There was no behind-the-lines rescue mission, his mother was not a widow, although it is believed that she did receive all the telegrams at the same time (Ambrose, Stephen E. 'D-Day',Simon & Schuster, 1997). Additionally, the brother believed to be killed in the Far East turned out to have been captured and later returned home. Fr. Francis Sampson wrote about Niland and the story of the 101st, in his 1958 book, Look Out Below123 (ISBN 1877702005).

Main cast

See Cast of Saving Private Ryan
for a more comprehensive cast list.

  • Tom Hanks
    - Captain John H. Miller, a former school teacher from Pennsylvania who keeps his life private from his squadron.
  • Edward Burns
    - Private Richard Reiben, from Brooklyn. BAR Gunner and a wisecracking hothead trying to understand the purpose of their mission. The sole survivior of the Ranger unit.
  • Tom Sizemore
    - Master Sgt. Michael Horvath, M1 Carbine Rifleman and Miller's number two guy.
  • Matt Damon
    - Private James Francis Ryan, Paratrooper Rifleman
  • Jeremy Davies
    - Corporal Timothy E. Upham -- not originally in Miller's company, he is attached to the squadron by Miller to function as a language translator.
  • Adam Goldberg
    - Private Stanley Mellish, a Jewish Rifleman.
  • Nathan Fillion
    - Minnesota Private Ryan, Rifleman

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Saving Private Ryan ]


Some related entries: Julie Cox | David Jason | Linda Lusardi | The Rainmaker | Julian Glover | Jason Dolley | Chris Elliott | Kathleen Harrison | Felicity Kendal | Mark Dobies | My Name Is Not Susan

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Saving Private Ryan; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

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