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1、拯救大兵瑞恩英文影评The soldiers assigned to find Pvt. Ryan and bring himhome can do the math for themselves. The Army Chief of Staff has ordered them on the mission for propaganda purposes: Ryans return will boost morale on the homefront, and put a human face on the carnage at Omaha Beach. His mother, who ha
2、s already lost three sons in the war, will not have to add another telegram to her collection. But the eight men on the mission also have parents-and besides, theyve been trained to kill Germans, not to risk their lives for publicity stunts. This Ryan better be worth it, one of the men grumblesIn Ho
3、llywood mythology, great battles wheel and turn on the actions of individual heroes. In Steven Spielbergs Saving Private Ryan, thousands of terrified and seasick men, most of them new to combat, are thrown into the face of withering German fire. The landing on Omaha Beach was not about saving Pvt. R
4、yan. It was about saving your skin.The movies opening sequence is as graphic as any war footage Ive ever seen. In fierce dread and energy its on a par with Oliver Stones Platoon, and in scope surpasses it-because in the bloody early stages the landing forces and the enemy never meet eye to eye, but
5、are simply faceless masses of men who have been ordered to shoot at one another until one side is destroyed.Spielbergs camera makes no sense of the action. That is the purpose of his style. For the individual soldier on the beach, the landing was a chaos of noise, mud, blood, vomit and death. The sc
6、ene is filled with countless unrelated pieces of time, as when a soldier has his arm blown off. He staggers, confused, standing exposed to further fire, not sure what to do next, and then he bends over and picks up his arm, as if he will need it later.This landing sequence is necessary to establish
7、the distance between those who give the order that Pvt. Ryan be saved, and those who are ordered to do the saving. For Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) and his men, the landing at Omaha has been a crucible of fire. For Army Chief George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell) in his Washington office, war seems more r
8、emote and statesmanlike; he treasures a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote consoling Mrs. Bixby of Boston, about her sons who died in the Civil War. His advisors question the wisdom and indeed the possibility of a mission to save Ryan, but he barks, If the boys alive we are gonna send somebody to find him
9、-and we are gonna get him the hell out of there. That sets up the second act of the film, in which Miller and his men penetrate into French terrain still actively disputed by the Germans, while harboring mutinous thoughts about the wisdom of the mission. All of Millers men have served with him befor
10、e-except for Cpl. Upham (Jeremy Davies), the translator, who speaks excellent German and French but has never fired a rifle in anger and is terrified almost to the point of incontinence. I identified with Upham, and I suspect many honest viewers will agree with me: The war was fought by civilians ju
11、st like him, whose lives had not prepared them for the reality of battle.The turning point in the film comes, I think, when the squadron happens upon a German machinegun nest protecting a radar installation. It would be possible to go around it and avoid a confrontation. Indeed, that would be follow
12、ing orders. But they decide to attack the emplacement, and that is a form of protest: At risk to their lives, they are doing what they came to France to do, instead of what the top brass wants them to do.Everything points to the third act, when Private Ryan is found, and the soldiers decide what to
13、do next. Spielberg and his screenwriter, Robert Rodat, have done a subtle and rather beautiful thing: They have made a philosophical film about war almost entirely in terms of action. Saving Private Ryan says things about war that are as complex and difficult as any essayist could possibly express,
14、and does it with broad, strong images, with violence, with profanity, with action, with camaraderie. It is possible to express even the most thoughtful ideas in the simplest words and actions, and thats what Spielberg does. The film is doubly effective, because he communicates his ideas in feelings,
15、 not words. I was reminded of All Quiet on the Western Front. Steven Spielberg is as technically proficient as any filmmaker alive, and because of his great success, he has access to every resource he requires. Both of those facts are important to the impact of Saving Private Ryan. He knows how to c
16、onvey his feelings about men in combat, and he has the tools, the money and the collaborators to make it possible.His cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, who also shot Schindlers List, brings a newsreel feel to a lot of the footage, but thats relatively easy compared to his most important achievement, which is to make everything visually intelligible. After the deliberate chaos of the landing scenes, Kaminski handles the attack on the machinegu
