Saving Private Ryan (w/ Melvin Benson)

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (00:08.43)
There you go.

Eli (00:12.19)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives and two directors and their filmography's I am your host Eli Price and We are here on episode 78 of the podcast Continuing in our Spielberg series Yeah, and we're we're kind of hitting the end of the 90s here last movie of the 90s with Saving Private Ryan So yeah, I'm excited. I have

returning guests, Melvin, Benson is coming back on, he is the host of another film podcast called cinematic doctrine. but yeah, Melvin, it's great to have you back on.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (00:53.326)
Excited to be back. I have not watched this movie probably since the standard millennial hyper fixation of World War Two that most people have during their like preteens to like early teens. And so it was really fun to revisit this after probably over a decade. And spoiler, still a good movie. So so I'm excited to get into this. This will be a lot of fun.

Eli (01:05.048)
Yeah.

yeah.

Eli (01:17.61)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:22.142)
Yeah, for sure. This was so one of the good things about doing these like director series is I get to fill in like blind spots along the way. And this is surprisingly was one of my Spielberg blind spots. I don't know why it just, I had never gotten around to seeing it. So I was, yeah, I was excited to fill this blind spot in. Yeah. It is a good movie for sure. so yeah, there's a, mean, there's a reason.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:45.891)
Yes! man.

Eli (01:50.932)
Spielberg won best director for it. you know, yeah, Melvin, like I said, he has a podcast that I would definitely recommend. I enjoy popping on some episodes whenever I see one, a movie that I like. like, let's see what, Melvin and his guests have to say about that. but yeah, Melvin, what do you want to share a little bit? for those who didn't catch the last episode that you were on, which was ET, by the way, that was a good episode.

fill them in on what your podcast is all about and maybe some of your favorite, recent episodes that they should check out.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:28.846)
Sure thing. So, yeah, I am Melvin Menson from the Cinematic Doctrine Podcast. I've been doing this podcast since about early 2019. So about five years of podcast episodes to check out. We roughly try to release about one episode a week. And then January is usually a hiatus. But otherwise, I mean, you're getting like 40 plus episodes every year. And we try to do a mix of modern movies as well as just generally like

the classic quote unquote, I have a podcast, so I'm going to pick the movie that I want to talk about kind of discussion. I will say though, over the last year, we've primarily tried to pick a mix of just generally interesting or generally popular movies as opposed to modern movies, just because I've been doing so many more guest appearances. for instance, I had Eli on earlier this year to do Howl's Moving Castle. yeah, that's not a modern.

Eli (03:03.64)
Yes.

Eli (03:13.182)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:21.704)
Yeah, that was fun.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:23.83)
movie. And so like, we, but we still got to discuss Miyazaki as a modern filmmaker. And yeah, so the last year in particular, it's a lot of movies from, would say generally the last 20 years, and then a few that were much further into the past. Yeah, a couple of episodes that I think have been particularly interesting. just to go give a quick rundown of like the style. So we have movie discussions, which are probably like,

I would say 30 % less informative than the type of episode you guys do. Because you will do very deep dives into the filmmaking, the general development of the film. We will do much more like, what is the film? And then express our thoughts through a series of five general questions that kind of help us to draw out discussions. Then we have party pleasers, which are more like, here's the movie from beginning to end completely described. And then we add in commentary here and there. And so that's really good for more.

Eli (03:59.337)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (04:22.792)
weird or eccentric movies or funny movies even like bad so bad that's like the so bad it's good category that lets us watch movies that frankly I would like to talk about more often. And then we have the let's talk format which is way more broad and far less frequent in terms of release schedule. But it is one of the more interesting things I think we do where we kind of pick a topic we use movies to talk about the topic but primarily discuss it. So the most recent episode for that was a I had a musician

Eli (04:26.334)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (04:39.838)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (04:52.622)
Kirsten St. John, who is the lead producer for a duo called Zoetic. And they came on to talk about how they create CCM music and what is their ethics for contemporary Christian music. And we then talked about two movies, The Jesus Music and Jesus Revolution, and then developed into modern CCM. So that's Less Talks formats. And over the last four five years, we've done.

Eli (05:14.612)
Mm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (05:21.262)
types of discussions through the Let's Talk format, but otherwise primarily you'll see movie discussions. And then in terms of ones I would recommend, I think our episode on the 1994 version of The Crow, I think turned out really great. I thought that was a really just excellent discussion on the film. In terms of your series on Spielberg, I thought Ready Player One turned out really good. I had Sheila Gregoire from the Bare Marriage podcast come on to talk about the assistant. A seriously underseen film.

Eli (05:42.494)
Yeah.

Eli (05:48.074)
Ooh, yes, love that movie.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (05:50.107)
but that discussion was very good. and that is hard movie to watch.

Eli (05:55.612)
Yeah, I would be interested to hear her thoughts on that. Cause yeah, cause I'm familiar with her, her content. and my wife loves her content too. yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (05:59.084)
Oof.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (06:05.592)
I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, she is so good. I was so happy to have her on. actually really tried to get her on throughout the whole year, but I kept having literal technical issues. For some reason, when sending Outlook emails to a Gmail email, for some reason, it would not verify my Outlook email as a real email. So I kept having issues. And then at some point, I gave up and just made a new Gmail email for the podcast and then just contacted them. Anyway, so that turned out good. And then

Eli (06:09.449)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (06:15.656)
Yeah.

you

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (06:35.35)
I would say like in terms of like general interesting episodes there, we had one at beginning of the year on Animal Farm, the 1954 version. very soon after the publication of the book. And it just to tease a little bit of what makes it so interesting is that animated rendition of the film is a CIA developed film. And so I'll leave it at that.

Eli (06:46.442)
Mm.

Eli (07:00.984)
Interesting.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (07:02.926)
Tune into the episode, you'll hear some very interesting things about how the CIA used that to target the, it's pre Russia, what's it called? The Soviet Union. But I digress. We do all kinds of things in the podcast. It's very fun. yeah, it's been, I think you said you were a longtime listener, which I've really appreciated. I'm glad you enjoyed the show.

Eli (07:18.43)
Yeah.

Eli (07:23.23)
Yeah. Yeah. I wish I was able to listen more often. but I do try to catch like, especially like if I've seen one of the movies you're covering, I'll try to like throw that in the queue, you know, to hear the thoughts. So yeah, it's, it's a great podcast. I definitely recommend it. It's, yeah. And, know, you have my podcast is like not

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (07:43.256)
Thank you. Thank you.

Eli (07:51.602)
Religious focused. It's just like general talk about the film and its themes and stuff Melvins does a lot of the same really so like you don't have to be like a Christian or religious to listen and they the discussion is very engaging But you but y'all do get a little bit deeper into that stuff sometimes so if that's something you're interested in and how like You know film relates to like faith and all of that then yeah, definitely check out cinematic doctrine, but

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (07:55.893)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (08:21.108)
Yeah, I was joking with Melvin before we started recording that. I'm going to steal all of his ideas from his Ready Player One episode whenever I get ready to record that episode. yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (08:28.387)
you

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (08:32.595)
Feel free to steal from Frank too. His thoughts were very good in the film too. That was the guest I had and he, gosh, had, I was really, he was just a really great guest. He had good stuff. So yeah, if you guys want a good, good addition, maybe a jump ahead, so to speak on the Spielberg series, check out the cinematic doctrine ready player one series episode we had. It's pretty fun.

Eli (08:35.923)
Mm.

Yeah.

Eli (08:44.17)
Cool, yeah.

Eli (08:49.982)
Yeah.

Yeah, I remember too, a while back you had sent me like a, it was like a post or an article or something about 1941, the Spielberg movie. I don't know if you remember that, but you, you sent me, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to scroll back in our messages. But yeah, you, you, it was a letterbox review you sent me of a review from a guy named Justin.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:05.966)
I'm trying to remember.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:14.574)
I'm about to do the same.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:20.76)
sounds about right.

Eli (09:22.43)
Declode, decloude? Yeah, declue.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:24.359)
yes, yes, Justin DeClew. Yeah, he's a really good podcaster and film discussion guy.

Eli (09:29.642)
Yeah. But yeah, 1941, that might be an interesting party pleaser episode. It's definitely a bad movie that is fun to talk about how bad it is.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:37.582)
You

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (09:43.63)
Keep watching that inbox Eli, I might be reaching out soon.

Eli (09:50.835)
man, but yeah, it's, don't know that I would want to watch it again. That's the only thing I'm like.

but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's just, you know, it's, it's that bad. It's Spielberg. So it's like, man, I expected so much more, you know, it's the standard goes up when it's, when you're an all time great director, it's like, you know, you get, you get counted off more if your movie is not up to par to your normal, you know,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (10:00.524)
That bad. that's brutal. I haven't seen it. I

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (10:20.172)
Oof, yeah.

Eli (10:28.202)
you

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (10:28.692)
I own a copy of Duel and because I haven't watched it yet, haven't listened to your episode. It's good? Yeah. Because I know his early movies are consistently good except for 1941.

Eli (10:33.236)
Dual is good.

It is good. It is,

Eli (10:43.826)
Yeah. So he had, he had like three TV movies and then he had a bunch of like episode, like not a bunch, but he had like a good handful of like TV episodes that he directed and then, TV movies. But dual is the one that got him out of TV and able to start in. Like making films. like he did, it was a TV movie. did like, it actually did a theatrical tour in Europe.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (10:54.702)
Mmm.

Eli (11:13.348)
And yeah, and I'm pretty sure true foe or somebody like that, like went to his hotel and like wanted to like congratulate him because it was really good. was like, that's, but yeah, dual is really, really good. It's, it's not, it's not like top tier Spielberg or anything, but it's like, man, this dude made this movie like as his, basically his first

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (11:13.422)
This is about right, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (11:36.619)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (11:43.124)
feature film, it's like, it's one of those like, man, this guy is going to make some good movies kind of thing. But it's basically Jaws with a, with a big semi truck.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (11:49.024)
Mm-hmm. Well, if you...

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (11:55.968)
All right, you saw me. That's awesome. man. Yeah. When you're talking about like TV movies and to like, this guy has a good career. The first thing I thought was John Carpenter with someone's watching me. He made that movie that it released the same year and I think like two months either before or after Halloween. And it's really well made. It's super thrilling. It's complicated in terms of like what it wants to explore.

Eli (11:57.29)
You

Eli (12:08.244)
Okay.

Eli (12:15.466)
Mmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (12:24.77)
There's a couple things that like later on in his career, he would like improve on turn in terms of thrilling this but like as a TV movie, you're like, this guy's gonna be transitioning out of TV very soon. Because it's so impressive. So it's cool to hear about like more directors being the same way that like, yeah, they just get out of TV.

Eli (12:36.02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli (12:43.25)
Yeah, whenever you watch dual, whenever we watch dual hit me up and let me know what you think. Cause yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (12:48.044)
absolutely. my gosh. Yeah, I'm super interested in it. I love that era of like cars are scary. What's the there's a Stephen King one. I forget what it's called. I think it's Amelia Estevez. I can't remember it's called. I remember seeing it on TV as like a really young kid and being like, that's the coolest, most adult movie I've ever seen in my life. So I've always wanted to go back and watch it again.

Eli (12:58.058)
yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't remember what it's called.

Eli (13:10.474)
Yeah.

Dual is like a master class in like tension building and tension holding, which is something that you kind of see throughout Spielberg's career. And we'll probably talk about it a little bit in this movie for sure. so yeah. And so I'm going to use that to segue us into talking about this movie, which is Saving Private Ryan. And we're going to go all the way back to the beginning as we usually do with, Robert Rodat, which I'm

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (13:20.558)
Mmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (13:29.044)
yes.

Eli (13:44.38)
Assuming that's how you say his name. watched like the making of docs that he was in. I think that's how they said it anyway. so around the 50th anniversary of D-Day, he was visiting a war memorial in his small town in New Hampshire. And notice that there were these recurring last names of fallen soldiers at this war memorial. there was like three.

lost during the Revolutionary War and five during the Civil War. They all had the same last name. It was, they were all from this town, New Hampshire, and it got him thinking about, you know, families losing, you know, a bunch of their family members in the war. and then he got ahold of one of Stephen, Stephen E Ambrose's books, which many people may recognize Ambrose, his name.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (14:30.638)
Mm.

Eli (14:42.216)
because he wrote the book that inspired a band of brothers, the HBO series that Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced together. And Ambrose is a really well-known like World War II expert and has a bunch of books on World War II. So, but yeah, he was reading one of his books about D-Day and ran across this story about the Neeland family.

the Newlands had, basically their, their story is basically like the inspiration for the story that we see in the movie. So they had, there was four sons and three of them, die or like reportedly died and they were, they tried to extract the, the fourth brother. and yeah, I think the, the real history is that they later found out that one of them hadn't died. It was like falsely reported and.

that sort of thing, but it's the idea of that that inspired it. And then, you know, he was kind of reading too about the reason brothers ended up getting split up in the war in the first place, which was this 1942 warship early in the war where five brothers were on this warship and it sank and they all died.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (16:07.374)
Jeez.

Eli (16:08.082)
Yeah. it's so it sparked to this kind of unwritten military rule where brothers could not serve like in the same companies and the same on the same ship, you know, all that sort of thing. So that's, that's what makes the, kind of Neelon family story, which happened later in the war, even more like heartbreaking is, you know, they, they're, they're splitting up the brothers, but they still all died within days of each other.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (16:18.67)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (16:36.412)
or at least reportedly, know, except for the one. And so he starts kind of developing the idea for this story off of those. pitches it to Mark Gordon, who was a producer. yeah, Gordon commissions a script from him, starts talking to Paramount about it. They are interested, but weeks later they acquire some scripts about World War II. One is like a Bruce Willis,

medium called Combat. One is written for Arnold Schwarzenegger called With Wings as Eagles. I don't know if those movies ever happened because I've never heard of them. But they, he kind of gets nervous. Gordon's getting nervous. He brings on this guy, Gary Levinson, as another producer. And

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (17:15.916)
Ha ha ha.

Eli (17:29.32)
They're in talks with Karen Sage, who's an agent that's connected with both Spielberg and Tom Hanks. And she kind of reassures him and arranges for Hanks and Spielberg to look at the script. Well, they both... So Spielberg and Tom Hanks are really good friends at this point. They've never worked together. tried to... At one point, Spielberg was supposed to direct Big.

which is based on, I'm pretty sure Big was based on a script that one of his sisters had written. And so Spielberg was originally going to direct Big with Tom Hanks, but didn't end up doing that. But at this point, they're really good friends, but they like kind of separately catch wind of this project through this agent. And so kind of separately, Gordon,

meets with Tom Hanks and Levinson and Hanks is like very passionate about World War II and love the story. He hears that Spielberg might be attached and he kind of gets excited about working possibly with Spielberg. Spielberg gets the script and he's like very like drawn in. Spielberg also really loves World War II which we'll get into and is drawn by like these moral kind of questions that are in this story of like

sacrifice and civilized men being turned barbaric and all these sorts of moral questions. and I was actually, I was actually thinking about it and they're apart from 1941, which is really not a war movie. It's really a comedy kind of set around the like war. He really hasn't made a war movie.

before this or since this. They're all like war adjacent movies. So it's like Schindler's List and The Bridge of Spies and Lincoln and Empire of the Sun. They're all these movies that are kind of like adjacent to war, but not like quote unquote war movies. So which is interesting.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (19:25.25)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (19:40.088)
Which even kind of feels present with Saving Private Ryan in that like it has great action very clearly. Cause you know, the first 40 minutes are amazing, terrifying action sequences in the last 40 minutes, the same thing. But like most of the drama is how the action impacts the players. and like that seems to be more of what's compelling to him. Otherwise he would make a world war two themed Marvel film.

Eli (19:46.206)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (19:59.434)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (20:04.286)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (20:08.792)
where like it would just be action. And like that is 100 % not Spielberg's interest at all. And I think that that's what benefits the film is that he like, the rest of his filmography proves that he's less interested in the excitement, the surface level excitement of the action and more about like, how does this disruptive extravagant moment affect these people?

Eli (20:29.001)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (20:36.15)
And then he also has, you know, a pension for brilliant, thrilling moments. And that, you know, makes the film all the more better.

Eli (20:36.169)
Yeah.

Eli (20:42.193)
yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it really is that like human element, that, that story, like that human story aspect that kind of drew him in, in the first place. and which is why probably most of his other ones are like war adjacent because it's, it's easier to kind of like stay out of the weeds of like the war itself and just like dig into these characters, these, these people and their stories.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (21:03.534)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (21:14.802)
and so, yeah, so like I said, he, he was very drawn to war war two. he saw, I wrote down this quote. said, quote, war war two was the crossroads of the 20th century. It's consequences still affects us today and will still crucially affect the coming millennium. Unquote. And so like he saw war war two as very important. his dad, Arnold Spielberg served, in Burma on the Indian front.

in the Air Force. He was a radio operator on bombers in World War II. And so he kind of grew up hearing those stories from his dad about that. And his dad brought back like stuff from Burma that, you know, I would imagine he probably has at this point as kind of like, you know, heirlooms. But yeah, so he

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (22:09.676)
yeah.

Eli (22:13.032)
Was always fascinated with it. And in fact, when he started getting into film, if you've listened to the whole series, you might remember early on, me talking about, know, when he was a kid, he made some movies and two of those movies were World War II movies, he made when he was around 13 to 14 years old. One was called escape to nowhere. And it's like, it's basically him and his like, Boy Scout troop.

all got together on a weekend and went out into the desert in Arizona and made this war battle film. It's like, I don't remember how long it is. It's probably like 30 ish minutes long, 30 to 40 minutes maybe. And it's really like, you can see clips of it. You can catch clips of it on like YouTube and stuff. And it's really kind of cool because these kids and Spielberg's dad who

who kind of helped him put it together really were inventive. So they didn't obviously have like a budget for special effects, but they were like figuring out ways to show like, grenades hit. And so they would like set up these planks on top of a rock, like a seesaw and have like a bunch of dirt and mud on one end of it. And so when they were running, they would like step on the other end, it would throw up the dust and then they would throw themselves forward.

Like they had just gotten hit with a grenade or something. So like super inventive as like 13, 14 year olds. the other one was called, fighter squad. And it was like a kind of a air force thing. So his dad was able to get them on some like world war two planes so they could shoot in the cockpit. and, Spielberg was like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (23:40.28)
That's great.

Eli (24:08.262)
And, and actually one of the making of things on the Blu-ray for saving private Ryan, his dad is talking about how like, yeah, so like when the plane was supposed to be banking, he, he would like, Steven would like turn the camera to make it, to give the effect like that. The airplane was banking and stuff. And, and then he went and found this, this like black and white archive real footage, from like a, I don't remember where he found it. It was somewhere in town.

at a shop, found this World War II footage on Reels and he took that and edited splices of actual World War II archive footage into his little film. So, you know, would have like in the cockpit, it's his friend acting as the pilot and then it cuts to an actual World War II footage. Really inventive stuff. I'm just like, man, I wish I was making stuff like that when I was

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (24:48.014)
you

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (25:01.976)
So cool.

Eli (25:08.458)
13 years old, you know. But yeah, he, so what's interesting though coming off of that, so in 1964, his parents got divorced. He thought it was because of the kind of neglect of his dad. And then later found out his dad kind of like took on the blame, but he later found out that his mom actually

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (25:10.446)
Sorry

Eli (25:36.85)
Had kind of fallen in love with his dad's best friend. And so all along he's harboring this bitterness against his dad when really it was His mom that kind of like sparked the divorce In the first place, so he had he had started reconciling with his dad in the mid 80s. And so at this point he's like He's like loving his dad again, you know, and so he made he had kind of dedicated sendlers list to his mom

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (25:40.216)
Oops.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (25:55.128)
Mmm.

Eli (26:04.69)
And so this was like the movie that he dedicated to his dad. So there's a lot around this film that makes it very important for Spielberg in his life. know, it kind of like, in a way this like solidifies him being reconciled with his dad, that father son relationship. Like, okay, this movie is like for my dad and all the other World War II vets too, but like personally for him, it was for his dad.

So, I thought that was really cool and really sweet, you know? and so all that to kind of say, it wasn't hard for Spielberg to say yes to this movie. yeah. But yeah, so he gets, dream works in, you know, dream works is his fresh new studio still at this point. And they kind of deal with the casting in the U S paramount is on.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (26:47.766)
Yeah, I bet.

Eli (27:05.162)
gets on board too. They do the casting abroad and yeah, he starts jumping into the script. They do some reworks of the script from Rodat's work. Hanks does a little bit of help with him and then Frank Darabont, who was uncredited, actually did a bunch of reworking of the script with him. And Darabont, if you're unfamiliar is...

Shawshank Redemption, the Green Mile writer and director of those. So pretty good screenwriter, I would say.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (27:41.02)
yes, yeah, even like as late as like season one walking dead, like this guy, yeah, consistently putting out like, just excellent work. So yeah, that's like a dream team working on this script.

Eli (27:45.546)
Yeah.

Eli (27:51.452)
Yeah.

yeah. Yeah. So he, he's not credited, but, definitely does some important stuff. they, they really worked to accentuate kind of the documentarian feel of some of the, some of the parts. like in the original script, there was kind of like jokes that were exchanged in that opening D-Day scene, between people that was kind of typical of it's the films that were coming out at that time. and so they like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (28:06.88)
Mmm.

Eli (28:23.538)
remove all of like the jokes, all of like, yeah, anything that takes away from like the horror and the chaos of it, of the moment. They, kind of remove all that stuff. and I know dare bunt to kind of did some work on the, is it Jackson private Jackson, I think is the sniper. I'm pretty sure that's the guy.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (28:26.178)
Good choice.

Eli (28:51.036)
Anyway, yeah, the Barry Pepper character, Jackson, he kind of like all like the religious stuff. From what I've heard, I haven't, I wasn't able to like completely verify this, but I did hear that he kind of added in like the, so like when he's like reciting scripture, like that religious stuff is like, Darabont did that stuff. Which makes sense, you know?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (29:15.694)
Good choice. it's that little quirk that like, okay, so you're stripping out the comedy. Fair. Because you want this film to be digestible, authentic, and you really want to like...

Eli (29:26.794)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (29:33.972)
orient your point and your thesis with such integrity that you don't want to like break it down. But you have to find a way to still at least make things like, cool isn't really the right word, but like engaging. so to have this sniper character be, and here's where cool is the right word. Cool.

Eli (29:37.384)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (29:52.584)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (29:58.348)
Like the fact that he recites scripture or like recites at least some sort of spirituality and then like does some awesome stuff throughout the movie. Like that at least brings not levity, but like at least a, I would almost say like a reinforcement of confidence throughout the film because like it is such a debilitating feature. It is such a exhausting movie that like you do kind of have to have some set of character or characters.

Eli (30:03.359)
Yeah.

Eli (30:15.901)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (30:27.308)
that have something at least a little more, just like defined other than just sad characters suffering through World War II. And, yeah, it's, it's a great choice for him. Cause I know like people ostensibly, like when you talk about this film or like, yeah, what about that sniper guy? Like it's, it's like the one guy that everyone's like, he's so cool. Like, so yeah, great addition.

Eli (30:29.706)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (30:34.238)
Right.

Right. Yeah.

Eli (30:45.875)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (30:50.588)
Yeah. Yeah. And he, yeah. And I think too, like Spielberg is really, and we'll probably talk about this later, but like, he's really good at like, not, not, he, he kind of falls short in some of his films, but in a lot of his films, he's very, very efficient with building a character.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (31:16.034)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Eli (31:16.198)
and getting you to say, okay, this is what this guy is and this is what he's about. And so, you know, with this with and he works with his writers, obviously, to do that. He he's very he's involved. He's always involved in the script. He's never just like taking a script and leaving it as is. He's always like very involved with it. And and he he really like

He really needs someone to write it for him to kind of take all of his ideas and like, parse them out. yeah, it, it's something that he he's, he's done a couple of good screenplays, but I think his best movies are movies where someone has written for him. but yeah, so, you know, going off of that, he,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (31:51.214)
You

Eli (32:12.734)
He kind of like, they're really watching a lot of World War II films, documentary and fictional both. They're watching testimonial accounts. He has a good friend, Samuel Fuller, who we met on the 1941 set actually, who was a vet that lived through Omaha and had actually made a film in 1980 about it called The Big Red One. So Fuller kind of like gave him a lot of advice about the, you know,

D-Day and that sort of thing. The fear that he felt in that moment and like the noise and sound of it all are like some of the things that Fuller emphasized and that kind of comes across like in the movie for sure. But yeah, another major influence were photos taken by Robert Capra on D-Day morning. And so,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (32:58.382)
Yes it does. man.

Eli (33:11.356)
Yeah. So in the first minutes of landing, this guy Capra was on the scene with a camera taking photos. There are these like heat of the moment photos. They're often pretty blurry. I saw, I've looked at a few of them. they're, they're actually like, were a bunch that were destroyed in a lab accident when they were being developed. And so there would have been like 300 of those photos, but I think now there's only like a handful of them.

that survived. so it's, it really like, I think these are, this is like the main thing that convinced him, okay, these are what the photos look like of that day. And so that along with like all the newsreel footage that was captured in World War II really inspired the whole handheld camera chaotic film, like filming that are in those battle sequences.

but yeah, those pictures are really interesting. you can see, you can probably just search Robert Capra D-Day pictures and, and look at a handful of them. but yeah, another thing that I thought was interesting was that Spielberg talked about watching war films from like when he was, that he loved when he was younger, not to pull from them, but to kind of distance this movie from those movies.

Yeah, because the World War II movies he grew up loving were very like, let's make these people as honorable as we can. Let's like make this more glorious and more, you know, that sort of thing. And he was going for the opposite of that in many ways. And so he wasn't wanting to glorify the war. He wasn't wanting to just like,

make basically like, you know, a superhero movie with military men as the superheroes. He was wanting to get into the nitty-gritty. yeah, he actually watched these films to kind of like distance himself from those a bit, which I thought was interesting. And yeah, he, so the other like crazy thing about this movie is

Eli (35:35.784)
He's really like jumping into this after, mean, he is on a movie spree. so he's, yeah, so he actually was like looking to do this after the lost world, Jurassic park. and then Almostad seemed like it was years away still. he was, he was looking to produce that. And then he gets the script for Almostad.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (35:45.718)
Yes.

Eli (36:04.362)
And the script is like really great. He loves the script. And so he's like, let me I think I might want to make this kind of on a whim like I think I'll make this movie and If you go back to the Amistad episode, I have a lot to say about that I don't think it was the best choice for him to direct that movie But I already did my rant on that in that episode it was a solo episode which was good because I was able to go on a rant

I don't often rant on this podcast, but I have one for that. It was good to get it off my chest. but, but yeah. So, I mean, he, he has a four week break after the lost world before he starts shooting Amistad. And then he finishes Amistad and has a six week break before he starts filming this movie. So he's really, really moving. yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (36:44.588)
I get that.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (36:56.088)
Man, why?

Yeah, jeez.

Eli (37:00.692)
There's a reason why this movie came out in 1998 and his next movie doesn't come out till 2001. So, he, he needed a break. or yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, it's kind of a trend. So this is like, he has like this burst of three movies. he has a break, then he has like another burst of three movies and a break. And then another burst of, like he, kind of

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (37:11.942)
He's like, I did it. I won. I'm going to take a break. I succeeded.

Eli (37:29.342)
makes that a trend for a while, for like a good like two decades. Yeah, let's talk about the crew that he assembled. Spielberg produced with, as I said, Mark Gordon and Gary Levinson, and Ian Bryce was another producer. We already mentioned Robert Rodat wrote the screenplay. He has Janusz Kaminski coming back.

fourth film now together as the cinematographer or the director of photography, whatever you want to call that guy. I don't know what more people say. Like what's the more common thing? Do people say cinematographer or director of photography more? I think director of photography is like the, what comes up in the credits, like when the credits roll. So yeah, that's probably the better.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (38:12.428)
I'm not actually sure either. I feel like I've heard.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (38:20.972)
Yes. I do think I've heard like more commonly cinematographer, but director of photography, think is the appropriate.

Eli (38:27.336)
Yeah. Yeah. He has some camera operators that were listed in my source material that I feel I would shout out because there is a lot of camera work, you know, in this movie that's important. Seamus Corcoran, I guess? Corcoran? I don't know. Which, by the way, I was laughing recently about the name Seamus because

My wife didn't think it was a real name. then she realized, that's how you pronounce that name. Because it's spelled, yeah, not Seamus, it's Seamus. And so I thought that was funny. Not to call out my wife behind her back, but we laughed about it together.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (39:06.028)
not semas.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (39:16.206)
The song Seamus by Pink Floyd is often considered the worst Pink Floyd song ever written. And so that's why I'm familiar with the name Seamus. And yes, that song is not very good. That album, okay. But that song, not very good.

Eli (39:21.204)
Mmm.

Eli (39:24.926)
Yeah. That's funny.

Eli (39:33.288)
Yeah. That's funny. I don't actually know how to say this next guy's name. Is it Sian or Chien or Sian? I'm going to say Sian de Butler. We're going to roll with that. Mitch Dubin and Chris Harhoff are the other two camera operators. Yeah, definitely a lot of guys running around with cameras that deserve shout outs.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (39:39.712)
You

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (39:51.566)
Huh. Got it.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (40:02.86)
I'll say, yeah.

Eli (40:03.33)
Sergio Mimica Gazan is the assistant director. Pretty, you don't hear assistant directors a lot, but this guy has been with Spielberg for several, like a good handful of movies now. And so he obviously is a big help for Spielberg. you never see him in the making of stuff either. I don't even know what this guy looks like. but he's, he's been on, his name pops up in a lot of Spielberg movies as the assistant director.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (40:25.678)
Interesting.

Eli (40:33.462)
but yeah, Michael Kahn doing the editing, course, and John Williams doing the score for the movie. Of course, those are no brainers. you know, anyone that's been listening to this, this series could have told you that probably that those were the, going to be the guys? real, and he has some returning sound guys to Andy Nelson has worked with them before Ron Judkins.

as a, as a staple, Gary Reidstrom is a staple for him for sound, at this point. then Gary Summers as well. which these guys are big, huge shout out to these guys because the sound in this movie is maybe one of the best things about the movie. So yeah, it is.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (41:20.128)
It's, it's amazing. It, I would love to rewatch this movie with headphones to even like, just see where they splay, like they place the sounds. I watch it with my, on my television with the speakers I have, but like it, even that sounded just so impressive. And years ago I watched band of brothers and even that sounds great. I don't know how involved they were with that or if at all, but it carries over similar.

Eli (41:25.748)
That's what I did.

Eli (41:30.025)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (41:44.831)
Yeah.

Eli (41:48.959)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (41:49.31)
of like focus on just how deafening and like, just almost like hypnotic the sounds become. Yeah, it's, and even just from the start of the film, there are points where you're like, you kind of just are so drawn into the fact that like, part of the exhaustion of the violence of the film is you just have to pick out one or two words and then hope you heard the correct thing. And then do that thing to try to defeat your enemy and

Eli (41:56.788)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Eli (42:16.339)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (42:18.242)
That that really adds to the material. Plus, it's typical for Spielberg to have characters talk over each other all the time. So like you're adding that on top of his interests as a filmmaker. And you're just like, it might as well be a silent film because I don't know what they're saying. And so it's it's yeah, these guys put in the work. It's it's impressive.

Eli (42:25.279)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (42:34.77)
Yeah.

Eli (42:41.01)
Yeah, it's yeah, the sound is so impressive and the production design is really good too. Thomas E Sanders production designer and set decoration by Lisa Dean. Shout out to those guys. The makeup done by Lois Burrell, Connor O'Sullivan and Daniel C. Stripekey. Neil Korbold does the special effects. He's worked with Spielberg before as well.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (42:48.918)
yeah.

Eli (43:08.562)
Gotta shout out stunt coordinator, Simon Crane. You can't have a movie like this without a really good stunt coordinator. So, and he, he, he pops up in some of the making of little shorts. So, fun. It's always fun to hear from the stunt coordinators on this. They, you can tell they just really are having a good time usually. But hard work, it's hard work too. So,

But last few casting by Denise Chamion and Stephen E Ambrose that we've mentioned was the history consultant and Dale Dye who we'll get into in just a bit was the military consultant. And so yeah, that's the crew. The cast, the cast is a very interesting cast, I think. Tom Hanks obviously comes on as Captain Miller.

He was in it from the beginning really. They did consider Harrison Ford and Mel Gibson for the role as well. That at least that's what I read somewhere. So there's always like rumors of alternate castings that it's hard to like nail down if they actually, sometimes they'll like talk about it in like the making of docs. And so you're like, that's a real one. Cause Spielberg said he wanted this guy and he refused the part.

But this one, I couldn't really find that. So maybe those guys actually were, but who knows. but what's interesting about Tom Hanks that I thought I would mention is this dude is on like a, like all time. Like Hollywood star run. He makes this, like this is right in the middle of it. So I'm just going to list these out because this is just going to show you how.

incredibly impressive this run is. So he's got a League of their own in 1992, Sleepless in Seattle in 1993, Philadelphia in 1993, Forrest Gump in 1994, Apollo 13 1995, Toy Story in 1995. He's got this movie in 1998, then you've got Melon 1998, Toy Story 2 1999, The Green Mile 1999, Castaway 2000, Rotor Perdition 02.

Eli (45:38.066)
like crazy run and then it all caps off with catch me if you can in 2002. He basically has a run of so the only movie that was a flop in the middle of all that was that thing you do in 96. which if you haven't heard of that movie, it's probably because not many people have cause it was a big flop, I guess.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (45:41.176)
Yes.

Eli (46:02.546)
So basically he has 13 in that run, 13 of his 14 movies are a hundred million dollar domestic box office movies. That's insane.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (46:16.398)
It really asserts like having you compile this here really brings clarity to like the just absolute fascination with Tom Hanks as an actor, because that is a crazy decade of films. Yes, it is like just to bring a Marvel again, like you have like these IP characters coming back every couple of movies.

Eli (46:30.335)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a decade of dominance as a movie star.

Eli (46:45.673)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (46:45.88)
But here's like one actor coming back every couple months to like come in and just like do a new performance and they're consistently successful. yeah, Forrest Gump is a banger. Apollo 13. Great. Toy Story. Super good. Toy Story 2. Really great. Green Mile. So and so forth. And like, yeah, like this guy just like his agent and his own work just consistently bringing out like

Eli (46:48.36)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (46:57.31)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (47:02.643)
Yeah.

Eli (47:12.425)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (47:14.88)
success one after another. And like half of the reason people check out these movies has been like, yeah, he's also in it. so like, yeah, it's a like, what a, what a decade, right? Like that's amazing.

Eli (47:21.514)
because of Tom Hanks. Yeah.

Eli (47:28.746)
Yes, it really is. And all of them being like a hundred million dollar domestic, not just worldwide, like just domestically breaking a hundred million dollars or more is like so big. 13 of 14 movies in one decade. That's crazy. Yeah. The movie he does after Catch Me If You Can was The Ladykillers by the Coen Brothers, which is

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (47:39.637)
Yeah, that's huge.

Eli (47:58.866)
I've never seen it. It's one of my Cohen blind spots, apparently it's considered one of their worst films. So it's unfortunate that the one Cohen Brothers movie Tom Hanks joins is considered like one of their worst.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (48:15.118)
Maybe he should have joined in with the, the Wes Anderson crew instead of the Cohen crew. Has he? Cause I can't remember. I haven't seen enough. Okay. Good. Good. Yes.

Eli (48:19.592)
He did. He did. Yeah. He was in Asteroid City. Yeah. He's actually like surprisingly fits into that movie really well.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (48:31.234)
He looks like he ought to be throughout Wes Anderson's legacy. Hopefully he sticks around and is in a couple of new ones.

Eli (48:35.122)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (48:39.858)
Yeah, I would love to see him in another Anderson movie. That would be great. He plays the dad of, my mind is blank, of the main character.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (48:51.306)
I'm, I'm misremembering the after his name too. I know you're talking about Swarshman. Yeah.

Eli (48:54.356)
Jason Jason Schwartzman. Yeah, he plays his dad in Asteroid City really well Yeah, it's a Impressive run by Tom Hanks just and this is like right dead in the center of it just I don't know just crazy and It all Coleman it kind of culminates with catch me if you can which

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (49:18.135)
Yes.

Eli (49:23.284)
We'll get to eventually. not their last collaboration though. They, they keep collaborating on and off for a few movies. yes. So one of the things that I thought was interesting is in the, making of Spielberg and Hanks talked about how they had kind of been avoiding making movies together because they were really good friends. and didn't want to like ruin their friendship first making like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (49:50.668)
Hahaha

Eli (49:52.458)
by working together, which is strange because neither Spielberg or Tom Hanks seemed like the kind of guy that would easily just start hating each other just because they work together, even if it was a bad. They just seemed both genuinely pretty easy-going, nice guys. I'm like, I don't know. It just doesn't match what they're like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (49:53.998)
Makes sense.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (50:09.463)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (50:22.548)
persona feels like to me, but.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (50:25.07)
I wonder if like their work ethic is so serious that like when they're on set and then when they're like working on a project together, there's worry of like, just sort of like steamrolling. so, yeah, I don't know. I'd be curious to hear about their consistent work moving like forward and to see like how they approached their relationship while working together. Cause very clearly like outside of it, they're

Eli (50:29.288)
Maybe.

Eli (50:42.441)
Yeah.

Eli (50:54.002)
Yeah. I mean, when you see like Spielberg on set in the making of stuff, like he's always like very pleasant. Like he's, he gets like in a focus mode where he's like, here's what we're doing. Let's go, let's go or whatever. But he's never like mean or rude, but also like, I don't think you would put that on a making of documentary if it was there. So,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (50:54.08)
have a relationship. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (51:04.789)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (51:10.861)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (51:19.032)
Gosh, I would love it. Like just that honesty would be so fascinating. I don't know. I guess that would probably be for like fan forest stick with Josh Trank, but like that would be like also really embarrassing to watch, but I digress.

Eli (51:23.186)
Yeah.

Eli (51:29.63)
Yeah

yeah. Yeah. But I mean, so on this movie, they were both so excited about it that they just were like, screw it. We'll do it. well, we're going to work on this together. and then Spielberg too talked about how Hanks really fit his vision for these character, which were quote unquote faces of ordinary Americans. kind of the antithesis of like muscular action heroes that you would see in

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (51:56.226)
Makes sense, yeah.

Eli (52:01.332)
war movies sometimes. yeah, think Hank's does fit that mold. As well as like, pretty much all the other guys, all the other cast members fit that mold of like faces of ordinary Americans.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (52:02.84)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (52:19.682)
The only one that like comes out of it, not fitting that mold in terms of their career is Vin Diesel. And even then during this era, like he still fits that mold. and so yeah, it's such clever casting to be like, I want to purposely make these people be grounded to reality. And then that of course runs narratively because you know, the whole intent is like, these are just normal people who were then like,

Eli (52:26.377)
Yeah.

Eli (52:30.131)
He does, yeah.

Eli (52:38.398)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (52:47.17)
either a mix of volunteers or drafted into this awful event. So yeah, that's good stuff.

Eli (52:49.128)
Yeah.

Eli (52:53.042)
Yeah. Yeah. And really the only other guy that was like pretty well known at this point would would have been Tom Sizemore. Originally Billy Bob Thornton was asked to play Sergeant Horvath, which if you're trying to like place character names, Horvath was like Miller's kind of right hand man through the through the movie and the crew. So Billy Bob Thornton refused. They asked Sizemore.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (53:02.734)
Mm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (53:15.308)
Yeah.

Eli (53:22.282)
to play the role and Sizemore, he had been on a little run of like pretty good roles. He was in true romance and natural born killers. He was coming off of a heat with Michael Mann. You know, the action is the juice is like a line that I love that Sizemore says in that movie, which I caught up with for the first time earlier this year. I had another one that I was like, man, I really need to see heat.

Have you ever seen heat?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (53:53.08)
I haven't. I've also heard like in terms of an action movie, it's like peak. And I just haven't dove into it. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (53:56.17)
It is. It is really incredible. Yeah. I've been doing a little bit of like Michael Mann blind spotting over the past year. Every once in a while I'll be like, all right, what Michael Mann movie have I seen, not seen? So.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (54:07.0)
time to dive into another. Well, and I know you're literally about to read it, but your next note about thin red line, like I also was like reminded that like, yeah, same year and same Oscar. I'm during saving private Ryan. would have been nice to have watched it by then, by now, but it still continues to sit on my shelf in preparation for, for watching it. Thank you thrift store for having a copy. So.

Eli (54:14.41)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (54:18.718)
That movie, same year.

Mm-hmm.

Eli (54:27.698)
Yeah. Yes.

Eli (54:34.218)
Yeah. yeah. So he, you know, like you were mentioning, he, Sizemore turned down the role and that was offered to him by Terrence Malick in the thin red line to, take on this well, which, which honestly like for, as a career move is the right choice. Like take the Spielberg movie over the Malick movie. Cause you don't know when the Malick movie is ever going to come out.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (54:55.542)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (55:02.798)
Yeah, yep, yep.

Eli (55:05.106)
And you don't know if he's going to cut all of your scenes. Malik is one of my favorite directors, just like all time. I think Malik is a genius, but like if I was an actor, I would not, I would be like, you know what Malik love you. I'm going to watch your movie, but I'm going to take the Spielberg role. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (55:08.494)
Yeah, there is next Malik's next movie.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (55:27.362)
Yeah, or like pay me up front and guarantee that I get to work on your second, like your next following movie. So I still have work. yeah. my gosh. Like his next movie being like a, like a poetic depiction of like stories of the gospel. And it's like, I half expect him to just cut Jesus out of it. Like at this point, because he just cuts whatever he wants and puts in whatever he wants. And he just becomes so transfixed in the visuals. Cause he's like,

Eli (55:33.193)
Yeah.

Eli (55:46.652)
Yeah.

Eli (55:54.194)
Yeah. Yeah. This movie is supposed to be coming out for a while now, but

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (55:55.182)
It's beautiful. It's like, there we go. Yes. Like, like I think Hidden Life is till 19, 2018. And like, it was already like halfway working into like that film. So yeah, who knows? Boy, he just is like, people support me, whatever. I'll work whenever I want.

Eli (56:09.0)
Yeah, still in post-production.

Eli (56:17.684)
Yeah, mean props. I like I said, I he's made some of my he's made like some of my favorite movies of all time. So Yeah, and the thin red line, you know great movie phenomenal I would say it's like up there with this one. It's like as far as like best war movies easily so

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (56:28.062)
yeah, he has earned the right to take his time. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (56:42.958)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (56:47.602)
Yeah, same year, crazy. and this is another very interesting thing about Sizemore. Sizemore apparently had a big drug problem at this time. And the rumor is that Spielberg told him that he had to do drug tests every day. I have a very unfortunate, very unfortunate typo that I'm not going to read.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (57:09.688)
Taper.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (57:13.248)
it's funny. I was going to make a joke, but you mentioned it first.

Eli (57:17.39)
Yeah, I have, I'll let your imagination figure out what my typo says, but, he did drug tests, every day. And if he failed, apparently Spielberg told him if he failed, even on the very last day of shooting, he would re reshoot his entire role. so seems like Sizemore passed all his drug tests cause he's in the movie. So yeah, he is, he is.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (57:40.714)
He's good. He's a genuinely good addition to the film.

Eli (57:45.418)
He's a good like kind of counterpart to the to Hanks his character I think like not in that they have they're like opposite but just more of like The chemistry of them kind of bouncing off of each other works really well Moving on through the cast The rest of these guys are really like not super well known at this point. So Edward Burns plays private ribbon he's kind of like the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (57:50.562)
Yes. Yeah.

Eli (58:15.778)
You know, he might just be from Brooklyn this character You know, I don't you know, I don't know why else he would have it plastered on the back of his uniform And big letters, but you know, I have a hunch that that character is supposed to be from Brooklyn Yeah But Edward Burns is not Edward Burns was is a Boston guy and he actually at this point was kind of like a

Not super well known ND writer director. He had done a first feature called the brothers McMullen in 95 where he played the lead role. And that's actually where Spielberg saw him and thought he would like play this like strong New Yorker really well. one of the, one of the things that Spielberg said in the making of about him that I thought was thinking back was on it was like, that's so true is that he could get a laugh without milking the cow.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (58:49.122)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (59:14.706)
Meaning like he kind of like would say these kind of offhand lines that were funny. but he's like, he's not like, eh, you know, with his, with his little jokes, he just like says it and moves on and you chuckle and Spielberg really liked that about, about him as an actor. So, Vin Diesel plays private Caparzo, and unknown at the time.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (59:25.858)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (59:35.702)
Yeah, super charismatic.

Eli (59:44.334)
He had written and directed a feature called Strayz in 97. So that, so these two guys, Burns and Diesel, both were like, they both were interested in like writing and directing alongside acting. So Spielberg, I don't know if he had seen Strayz, but he definitely cast him off of a short that Diesel had directed and starred in called Multifacial.

And so I have not seen that so don't know what drew him to to diesel in that but Yeah, so diesel joins smartly very smartly joins the team And yeah, when you see what's cool is when you see diesel in the making of stuff he is all the other actors

You know the other actors are talking about Spielberg and What he did is stuff and they're talking about how they got into their parts Diesel is just like this is what Spielberg did really well as a director You can tell he's like in the mindset of like he he's a director and so like he's like thinking about like What can I draw from Spielberg as a director for my own work, which is cool, you know? Then these next four guys are all like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:00:58.104)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:01:10.324)
very beginning of their acting careers. So you have Barry Pepper as Private Jackson, the sniper, Adam Goldberg as Private Melish, AKA Fish, Giovanni Ribisi as the medic Wade, and Jeremy Davies as Corporal Upham, who is the cowardly translator. Yeah, so those four guys are really like

at beginning of their careers. They're just guys that I guess like came through auditions. Spielberg liked their faces and liked their feel and brought them on board. And the only one that I had really a note on was Spielberg talked about how Jeremy Davies like really brought a ton to the character that wasn't on the page. And he was just talking about how much he appreciated that character and what

Davies brought to that character. So that was cool to hear. And then of course, you have Matt Damon as Private Ryan. This is where the quest for anonymous faces kind of went wrong. Obviously you have Hanks who's a big star. So it's not like the movie was devoid of big stars, but you do have to have one big star. He was not going for that with Damon and actually like this character, if you think about it,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:02:16.974)
Thanks

Eli (01:02:35.346)
should be the most anonymous face of them all. But unfortunately, Good Will Hunting came out between the shooting of Saving Private Ryan and the release of Saving Private Ryan. So by the time it comes out, Damon is already pretty famous from that movie. yeah, as a writer with Affleck,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:02:38.284)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:02:59.594)
And on like multiple levels even. Yes. Yeah.

Eli (01:03:04.072)
You know, they got nominated for the screenplay. So he's, he's like there at the Oscars. you know, it's yeah, he's, he's become the face that you were hoping he wouldn't be by the time this movie releases.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:03:21.196)
Yeah, and I can totally understand Spielberg's reticence to having like a known face because like part of the ethic and the question of the film is like, are earn this have you earned the right of being protected of being saved or being sacrificed for and like that's supposed right and that has to be like to the layman not to the Oscar winning actor who wrote a script that ended up like just like exploding his career.

Eli (01:03:29.353)
Yes.

Eli (01:03:34.728)
Yeah.

Eli (01:03:38.152)
Yeah. Yeah. Is this guy worth it? Yeah.

Eli (01:03:50.152)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:03:50.486)
alongside his best friend. so I can totally understand the like directorial pursuit of casting someone who's a no name getting Matt Damon. And then like, yeah, the sky blows up and you're like, pour another glass of whiskey, you know, dang it, like it didn't work out like, and in the end, the film the whole package works exactly. And and it's benefited by Damon also being a great actor that like it carries into

Eli (01:03:59.849)
Yeah.

Eli (01:04:04.008)
Yeah.

Eli (01:04:08.199)
huh. It still works. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:04:18.274)
Like he transforms into a nobody, to speak. and that's what, you know, that's what good acting has to be, but it is extremely funny that that's how it turned out.

Eli (01:04:24.179)
Yeah.

Eli (01:04:27.686)
Yeah. And of course he was introduced to Spielberg by Robin Williams. so, you know, I blame it on Robin Williams for not saying like, Hey, I know you want this anonymous guy for this role. Here's this guy that's about, I was just in his movie and it's really great. So you should have told him, you know, should have warned him that this movie was about to blow up, you know.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:04:37.685)
Ha!

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:04:45.024)
Yeah, yeah, wait, look, what the heck?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:04:50.894)
He was a joke. That was one of his really meta jokes on Spielberg. I don't know. Man alive.

Eli (01:04:55.996)
Yeah. but yeah, Damon does a good job. he talked about how like he read a bunch of world war II stuff and kind of track down some veterans and talk to them about, you know, he was just talking about, you know, he, he has no experience in this, like he doesn't know anything. So he can't really like draw from his own experience for the character and, really sought out that.

kind of testimonial experience for the part. Cool to hear. I'm gonna run through the rest of these. You do have a couple more like big names in Ted Danson and Paul Giamatti who play Captain Hamill and Sergeant Hill. Not really much to say about those guys. They're fine. They're very good in their parts. Yeah. I especially liked Giamatti's clumsiness in that one scene where he like breaks the wall and

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:05:47.278)
They're good. Yeah.

Eli (01:05:54.868)
There's all the Germans. I love that. but yeah, the rest of these guys, just to run through the rest of the, kind of major players, there's obviously like a ton more cast than this. but you have Dennis Farina as Lieutenant Colonel Anderson. you have Jorg Stadler as Steamboat Willie, who you probably don't know who that is. So.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:05:55.042)
Great scene. Yep. Great scene. So good.

Eli (01:06:23.856)
will tell you that is the German that they let go, which he talks about Steamboat Willie, so that's I guess why they named the character that. You have Max Martini as Corporal Henderson comes into play. Nathan Filliam plays in the... I love that in the... he's called Minnesota Ryan, so he's the fake Private Ryan is what I called him.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:06:45.142)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:06:49.56)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:06:52.862)
So I didn't realize this. didn't recognize him, but he plays the lead role in Firefly. He's that guy. Which I just, it did not click with me while I was watching the movie. So.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:07:00.312)
Yes. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:07:05.23)
It is interesting how much younger he looks, even though it's 98. It's not that earlier than Firefly.

Eli (01:07:07.754)
Yes, he is very, yeah, it isn't. But yeah. Yeah, so Harve Presnell plays General Marshall. He is the guy that reads out like the Lincoln letter to two guys and Bryan Cranston, who plays War Department Colonel.

If you'd read, I don't know if you recognized all young, younger Brian Cranston, not young, but younger. and then Dale Dye plays the other guy that's there when he's reading the Lincoln letter, who was the military consultant that we're about to talk more about. Amanda Boxer plays the mama Ryan, Ms. Margaret Ryan. and then of course I have to shout out.

Kathleen Byron as old Mrs. Ryan and Harrison Young as old Ryan, who's kind of bookends the film. And yeah, that's the crew. There's a lot more, there were a lot more names that kind of pop up. Those were the, the, I tried to hit everyone that had like speaking parts. But yeah, that's all those guys. Does any of those,

Let me ask you this, who, who to you stood out like as a performer other than like Hanks and Sizemore in the rescue crew?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:08:47.246)
Yeah. So everyone has like their moments, which I really appreciated. So Giovanni Verbici as T, I don't think he was listed here, but he, yeah, he was, pardon. was, he's, he has this great monologue about like, in the middle, they're at a church and it's shot so beautifully. It's so focused on him. and it's just about like how he has this past moment of.

Eli (01:08:51.785)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:08:56.712)
Yeah, as Wade, yeah.

Eli (01:09:02.738)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:09:14.264)
When he's growing up, his mom worked during the night, so she's sleeping for him during the day. like he's or it's one or the other, but basically he doesn't see his mother and he's always waiting to like stay up to see his mother when she comes home, but he would always fall asleep. But then whenever she would come home in time, he would play like he's acting asleep and he'd never understood why he did that because like now he's thinking to himself, like I did.

Eli (01:09:35.838)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:09:41.804)
I miss these opportunities to be with her. And then like his character develops into this just like tragic character who just is like desperately like, because he's a medic, he's perpetually giving other people opportunity to essentially go home and essentially make amends to like almost their past regrets and nostalgia. And then he never gets that opportunity. I really enjoyed kind of seeing

Eli (01:09:44.329)
Yeah.

Eli (01:09:48.586)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:10:05.182)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:10:08.75)
how his character contrasted with a lot of the other characters who like, who just became very callous. And that's a way to survive so many horrors, but his endurance to permit himself to hurt was just really well-performed even to the end. And it's that like character that ends up bringing a new found life for the rest of the team into the third act wherein like,

Eli (01:10:11.658)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:10:16.178)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:10:26.569)
Yeah.

Eli (01:10:33.714)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:10:38.686)
the second act they have like really descended into like cynicism and and hurt and suffering and then this character's let's say social sacrifice inadvertent social sacrifice ends up bringing back a humanity to the rest and so he was absolutely a significant one

Eli (01:10:55.432)
Yeah, and he pulls off that like little monologue in the church just so well like yeah like lump in your throat, you know, yeah very good

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:11:00.403)
man. Yes he does. It is so good.

I know a consistent thing though, in terms of the cast and characters that is often brought up is Jeremy Davies as Corporal Upham. I like this, the first time watching it, know, first time watching it, you know, like 13. So it's not like I have any understanding of anything by that point, but like this time watching it, like I definitely connected more with the, with two things. One, his

Eli (01:11:15.571)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:11:37.08)
character's performance, which is significant as just very well performed, but then also just like, perhaps like just the need to have him do maybe a little bit more than just be who he is up until the end of the film. And I do like, I still think the film is like, you know, relatively in so far as art can be perfect, but like,

Eli (01:11:39.007)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Eli (01:11:54.74)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:12:04.114)
It is in need of something more than what it is. And but but what it develops into and like how it affects Captain Miller and so on and so forth is good. But it as and now an adult looking at the film and his performance combined with his character, it just makes it taste different than it did growing up. But otherwise, yeah. And then all the bit roles like Giamatti and

Eli (01:12:31.786)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:12:31.894)
and Cranston and so forth are like, these guys are just pros. They just know what they're doing. And so it's just a cast where like, know, probably everyone on set was like stressed because the project is so serious, but also like very confident because they're like, man, we've been doing this for years. We know what we're doing.

Eli (01:12:35.775)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:12:41.502)
Yeah.

Eli (01:12:49.992)
yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too, cause Davies, cause Davies does play the part really well. and Spielberg actually talked about how Upham was the character that he most identified with, which is very interesting. I guess just kind of that's, I guess it's because like he is like, in a sense, he's kind of like a pacifist.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:13:06.84)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:13:19.368)
He doesn't want to have the gun. Like he doesn't want to go into the war. he just wants to like translate and read maps. Like he doesn't want to go fight. but he's forced into it. But then when he is forced into it, he, turns into a coward. And so, I'll, wonder, it might be interesting to talk about at some point, like why the Spielberg identify with this guy.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:13:30.432)
Yes.

Eli (01:13:49.162)
most out of all the characters, it putting himself into, like, if he was like to go to war, would he feel like he might be a coward? Like this guy was, is it, is it just like the, I don't know. It's very interesting. I'm not sure exactly. I didn't find anything going into like why he identifies with that character the most.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:14:02.432)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:14:20.383)
But it's definitely like interesting to think about.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:14:23.746)
Yeah, I mean, he's like, he's incidentally pulled into the situation, like, he probably was at the right position, like where he had the desire to assist whether he was perhaps he was drafted, but like, if he volunteered, like he was at a place in which he wanted to help the war effort for the common good, so to speak, but then was drawn into this thing that is

like extraordinary. And so like in that way, like it is a compelling character to see develop, but there is something purposefully and perhaps even to the detriment of the film in terms of enjoyment that he is so borderline irresponsible with the understanding of the situation. And that makes it very tough, even up to the last moment.

Eli (01:14:54.812)
yeah.

Eli (01:15:18.739)
It does.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:15:20.48)
And so it is, for lack of a better term, ballsy to have a character like that in a film like this. But I think that goes in line with what like is desired here, because I think like even like just talking like the contrast to like the glorification of war violence, like most a lot of injuries can be from friendly fire. And I don't recall if there's any friendly fire moments in the film.

Eli (01:15:32.351)
Yeah.

Eli (01:15:45.599)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:15:48.706)
But the point made here is that like inadvertent cowardice slash chaotic moments lead to error. like Davies is like a one up him pardon is like perpetual error from beginning to end. And really he he shines in his relationships and the way he sees the world less so much how he responds to it. But yeah, it's interesting.

Eli (01:16:03.497)
Yeah.

Eli (01:16:13.576)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, one of the, think the standout guy for me was Adam Goldberg as fish. I, he was so good. Like, cause it throws you off because the first time you really see him, he's like sobbing. I don't know if you remember that, like it's right after they get through D-Day. He's like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:16:23.278)
Dang, he's so good, he's so good.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:16:35.298)
Yes. Yes.

Eli (01:16:41.802)
He finds something like a little, I don't know. He finds like a little something. I don't remember what it was. It was a little item and it, guess it like triggers something in him and he, the wave of what he just went through and he's like sobbing. And then the rest of the movie he's like, so you know, like that's what you start off with about this guy. but the rest of the movie he's like kind of the jokester, like the

And so it's like just this very interesting, like you start off with this guy sobbing, but then he's kind of like the jokester callous, mostly the rest of the movie. But he's also like, there's moments where that sensitivity comes out. sport, like whenever like one of his teammates is like about to die or whatever, like when Caparzo is, is like bleeding out, it's like, it's him, it's fish. That's like.

keeping eye contact with him and it's like desperately just like I wish I could do something, you know? So yeah, I thought he played it very like dynamic kind of doing different things in this role. So yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:17:42.734)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:17:58.232)
Super good. Yeah.

Eli (01:18:00.414)
Yeah, let's, let's get a little bit more into the production. So Dale Dye, as we've mentioned, was the military consultant. he had worked, he had been working, in Hollywood for a while now. he def like one of the movies he worked on was platoon. so, and he, he kind of moved to Hollywood with the intent of working.

on movies that were going to have like military stuff because he had seen been seeing like military stuff in movies and was like kind of fed up with the way they did it and he was like I'm gonna go fix Hollywood's military and war stuff. Yeah he he literally like says that himself so yes uh-huh and so

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:18:39.404)
Yeah

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:18:44.866)
funny.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:18:49.294)
That's very capitalist. He saw an opportunity. He took it. That's good stuff.

Eli (01:18:55.452)
Del Dye comes on board. He does a boot camp with the rescue crew. Damon doesn't take part in that. The idea was kind of like to reinforce the bonds between the actors on the rescue team. Spielberg doesn't go to that, obviously. He's like, I'm good. And yeah, so Del Dye takes these guys out.

He basically like roughs up these guys for six days. They're like hiking all the time. It's cold and wet. They're sleeping on the ground, have these tiny stoves to warm up their food. They're, he's like yelling at them when they're doing something wrong. They're waking up at 5 a.m. for, for PT. he's like putting them through it. And the funny thing is they, they kind of, a few of them, they're telling the story of how like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:19:43.726)
Heh

Eli (01:19:51.004)
After three days, they took a vote and like everybody but Tom Hanks voted to go ahead and go back home because you know, they do have the freedom to do that. Like they're not actually, yeah, they're not actually in bootcamp in the military. but Hanks apparently convinces them to stay and they do another vote and everybody votes to stay. So, I think they did like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:20:05.24)
Yeah, they're actors.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:20:18.03)
pretty funny.

Eli (01:20:20.574)
There was the caveat, like they got like extra blankets and warmer clothes and stuff. that was like their impetus to stay. so they do these like six days of just like brutal bootcamp. They also do, three days of weapons training, with guns and artillery and tanks. They learn how to like strip their guns and load them and fire them. they learn like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:20:26.254)
That'll definitely help.

Eli (01:20:46.066)
Marching and hand signals maneuvering techniques. So he's he's really like just putting them through all of this training to get them in the the mindset of what to do and how to do it and What it what it was like I thought it was cool Hanks was Hanks talked about how like all the technical stuff was like helpful, but it wasn't as important as just like Experiencing that for just six days like not even like to the extent that the actual

these guys back then actually did, but just a mini version of that was what was most important. And Sizemore talked about how Dai really pushed into them the idea of brotherhood. Like you fight, you do whatever it takes to keep the guys around you alive. And he said that really seeped into the film. Pepper talked about how

He told them that they better do the men who died in the war, right? And the film. and, yeah. yeah. And so, and what's, what's crazy is Dell die. The dude just like, he's just like, I'm here to like, make, make these guys' life miserable so they know what it's really like. And so this is going to be more authentic. Like he was like saying this stuff, like in the.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:21:53.23)
sure that made them feel great.

Eli (01:22:14.844)
I don't know that this would like pass today. But back in 98, people were loving hearing this guy talk about how like he like braided these guys for six days straight to get them more authentic for the movie.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:22:19.501)
No.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:22:33.134)
Honestly, that's like a podcast in its own right, like 90s exploitation of actors. Because Blair Witch is the other thing that comes to mind. The team for the actors for Blair Witch were given maps that were basically just like, go here. And then the directors would have speakers throughout the forest, wherever the actors would go to literally camp and just play horrifying noises so they could never sleep.

Eli (01:22:35.914)
you

Yeah.

Eli (01:22:49.832)
Yeah.

Eli (01:22:57.571)
huh.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:23:00.92)
They would find like packages with food, but they became progressively less and less food each package they'd find. So it's just like literal torture for these actors. It's part of why they're so exhausted. So I'm sure there's so many films in the 90s that are just full of directors abusing just like their actors because they're like, well, hey, you want to make a movie, right? Come on, guys.

Eli (01:23:00.927)
Yeah.

Eli (01:23:08.508)
wild. Yeah.

Eli (01:23:19.187)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, what's funny about this one is like they voted to leave and then Hanks convinced them to stay. yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:23:28.046)
Yeah, he's got a great record to hold up. He's like, I'm thinking I'm planning to make a decade of good movies, guys. Come on, stick around.

Eli (01:23:36.424)
Yeah, I think Vin Diesel, Vin Diesel, I remember him saying like, you know, I would never in my life do do that again, but I am glad that I did it. So, yeah, but Hanks, Hanks said that to also like they basically go straight from this to filming the D-Day sequence. And so he said like without.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:23:48.566)
Good for him

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:24:00.248)
Oof. Brutal.

Eli (01:24:02.59)
going through that boot camp, but he doesn't know if they would have like made it through that shoot. but yeah. and this is actually the first film since ET that they, he shot chronologically. yeah. So yeah, full circle are two Spielberg movies together. ET shot chronologically, Saving Private Ryan shot chronologically. How about that? yeah. So it,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:24:17.806)
fascinating.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:24:24.11)
Nice.

Eli (01:24:30.642)
It was kind of like the idea of Spielberg wanted them to be in the right mindset, like going from start to finish as these characters, you know? So it makes sense. but yeah, they really hit the ground running. They, you know, we, talked about that fast turnaround between Amistad and this movie. and so he didn't really get any pre-planning on location like he typically does.

And he actually said that was a blessing in disguise because a lot of times he's much better just like hitting the deck running and sometimes like all of his like storyboards and drawings can like actually limit his imagination. And one thing that Spielberg that I've kind of noticed that he's really good at doing is like showing up somewhere and just like and you hear this over and over from people that work with him is he can like show up

on a set and spend like 10 minutes looking around and then basically like edit the cuts in his mind and just be like, okay, we need a camera here, here and here to get these shots. Cause these are, this is how it's going to end up looking like he can just like do all that in his mind. He just, he just has to like take it in for a few minutes. And then he's just like, okay, here's what, here's what we're going to do. and yeah, just

an incredible filmmaking mind. But yeah, they didn't storyboard for this at all.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:25:57.454)
It's impressive. Yeah.

Eli (01:26:06.986)
Yeah, it's really impressive. He... I'm trying to see where I am. So yeah, they really start production in June of 1997. It goes through September of 97. And they start off doing the Omaha Beach sequence, which is not actually on Omaha Beach.

The French kind of restrictions for filming were there was I guess too much red tape, but also even probably more than that, the infrastructure just didn't compact like wasn't compatible anymore. obviously after the war, there was a lot of rebuilding of infrastructure and it just didn't look the same anymore. So they found a nearly ideal location and I'm not sure how to pronounce this, but I'm going to say Kura Klo beach.

which is near Wexford in Southeast Ireland. So they do 11 weeks of prep, which is crazy, for this 24 minute Omaha Beach chaotic sequence. so they do have to do some playing around with the camera because this beach is not as large as Omaha Beach. So the cliff is actually like much, much closer to the beach.

than the actual Omaha Beach D-Day would have been. So they do some playing around with depth of field to make it look like there's a longer way to go across the beach before you get to the cliffs where the German bunkers are. So yeah, they shot there. That was a 15-day shoot. So it makes sense that Tom Hanks said they really needed that boot camp to make it through that D-Day shoot.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:27:54.99)
That is nuts.

Eli (01:28:03.294)
So other locations the Cemetery scene was actually filmed at the military cemetery in Normandy a few minutes from Omaha Beach Colleville Sir Mayor I'm gonna say is the name of that cemetery and the crazy thing is like most of those crosses you see like are from that day It's like just yeah

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:28:27.439)
Mm Yeah. Yes. It's insane.

Eli (01:28:31.402)
Like that cemetery is comparable to something like, you know, the Arlington Military Cemetery. But Arlington is just like, is a bunch of, is all the wars. And this is basically from that one day, this cemetery. Which is, when you think about it in that context is like, man, just horrible. But the rest of the filming was mostly done in England. They do some filming.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:28:37.422)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:29:01.3)
for the fake farmhouse for the Ryan home in Wiltshire, kind of as a stand-in for Iowa. The German outpost attack was filmed in a place near Oxford. And then they used an old Hatfield airfield north of London for that final battle sequence. yeah, it's basically like finding locations to use in England from there on out.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:29:29.919)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:29:31.092)
But yeah, the pace of shooting was really fast. They were averaging four takes per shot, which aren't that many. So they were really trying to like blast through these pun not intended. They actually completed a few days ahead of schedule because of that. This is a quote from Spielberg. said, quote, war doesn't give you a break and I didn't want the production of Saving Private Ryan to give them one either.

unquote. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:30:05.196)
benefits that they're filming chronologically, because then you can kind of capture the exhaustion of the actors and it probably takes some weight off of the actors to perform because they, they can kind of just carry over the reality of like, this is terrible. Like it didn't just like their characters. So it's pretty funny.

Eli (01:30:11.251)
Yes.

Eli (01:30:16.116)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:30:20.006)
Yes, yes. And to start with that first like 15 days of shooting D-Day is like, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:30:28.319)
yeah.

The stunts, the work, the running, all that stuff. Yeah, sounds terrible.

Eli (01:30:33.928)
Yeah, it's intense. Yeah. And they're in those like uniforms. Yeah. and for Spielberg adding to the intensity of shooting that sequence, he, while he was shooting that, he learned about, the rest of this guy, Jonathan Norman, who was trying to enter his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in LA, found, found with a knife and tape and handcuffs and razor blades.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:30:39.722)
yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:30:57.742)
Good.

Eli (01:31:03.114)
and they, they said that materials in his car suggested extreme obsession with Spielberg and he was wanting to take him and his wife hostage. So learns about this while he's like in the middle of filming this sequence. yeah, this guy, he was a 30 year old actually at an apprentice screenwriter apparently. but he was, he did get sentenced to 25 years in prison in June of 98, like a month before the film released. so.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:31:17.326)
What the heck?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:31:33.39)
So he's almost out, or he is out. Let's see if a lot of his movies gets made. Got to go see it. Got to cover it on the show.

Eli (01:31:36.174)
no.

man.

Yeah bonus episode Jonathan Norman script Yeah, I just thought I was like man you're already in shooting this intense sequence and You then you have the stress of like worrying about this guy, you know Yeah, just ridiculous And yeah, it's

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:31:45.678)
My day with Spielberg.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:31:55.896)
Yeah, after two other movies you just did with no break. Yeah.

Eli (01:32:10.262)
The other thing that I thought was interesting that Spielberg did on the set There was like a scene That I think it was Edward Burns was talking about this in the making of there was a scene that Spielberg just wasn't liking they were trying to shoot it and he was like this isn't working so he got them to like improv some stuff and He took the transcription of that improv like they filmed it wrote it got the transcript made from it and he gave that to

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:32:23.384)
Mm.

Eli (01:32:38.504)
his writing team to rewrite that scene based off of the improv. So I thought that was really cool. There's some other improv. Like apparently the Damon story was kind of improv'd that he tells while they're like waiting for the German tanks to arrive. yeah. Cinematography. Definitely got to talk about this. Apparently Spielberg

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:32:43.736)
Mmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:33:05.765)
yeah.

Eli (01:33:08.414)
did briefly consider doing it in black and white. I'm glad he didn't. But it was not a traditional color process that they used. They really wanted to go for like desaturated colors that were like similar to period archive images. Spielberg talks about like really wanting to avoid like a technicolor extravaganza with this movie.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:33:12.62)
Agree. Agree.

Eli (01:33:37.874)
And so Janusz Kaminski did several things. He actually got these special lenses ordered from Panavision and removed the protective coating on the lenses. lenses at this time had this protective coating on it that would help with the way it takes in the light. So he took that off to help desaturate the color and the image. And yeah.

He made sure he was like very, very like adamant about making sure there was no blue skies ever in the film. Yeah. The, and then in in post, like when they were developing the, the film, they, further the color effect by like processing the negative in a way that neutralized a lot of the color.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:34:16.993)
choice.

Eli (01:34:32.912)
And Kaminsky said that they ended up with about 40 % of their original color by the end of the process. Yeah, which comes through in the movie for sure.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:34:43.65)
yeah, and I think like in the end it obviously comes out positive because like the movie's beautiful, but like it works in terms of like probably saving some production time or even special effects because like, war times would produce a lot of like, you know, fire and smoke. And so the skies would just be like naturally desaturated and not blue. And so like, that's just such a clever way to like,

Eli (01:34:51.838)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:35:12.842)
look forward to like post-production and like thinking about it. And, you know, it's pretty early in the age of like extreme special effects. So like, it's not like that was on their mind anyway, but, it's an interesting technique to do. then even just thinking of like where war movies or action movies of this capacity have become now, they're they've imitated that a lot. then, and then very obviously, you know, band of brothers in the Pacific, of course did that, but that's, know,

Eli (01:35:15.293)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:35:21.865)
Yeah.

Eli (01:35:36.316)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Eli (01:35:41.032)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:35:41.794)
they produced it. That makes sense. And then contrasting with like modern films that I feel like I've watched that have had a warlike atmosphere. I feel like the only ones that like have captured the similar desaturation, which also helps with like making the outfits look more natural because they have a faded look like they've been worn over and over and over and grossed and sweaty and bloody, whatever. Like the only one I can think of that like

Eli (01:35:51.134)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:36:03.934)
Yes. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:36:09.504)
also kind of does that as like Lord of the Rings. Cause even like watching Avengers end game with or, or Avengers, well end game too, but infinity, infinity war, infinity war, infinity war. thought of infinite warfare from Call of Duty. they, the colors are way more bright and it kind of makes it weird to watch this fight scene. Cause I feel like I've been trained as an audience member to not watch fight scenes with such bright colors because like,

Eli (01:36:12.394)
Mm.

Eli (01:36:20.008)
Yeah.

Eli (01:36:36.351)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:36:38.338)
I guess everyone watched Saving Private Ryan and went, yeah, this is how it should be. But I digress. I think it looks so good on top of that. And then it also still is beautiful at the same time, because the use of lighting, the use of gold, the use of the sunlight, all that jazz. So it's just excellent stuff.

Eli (01:36:46.58)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:36:52.329)
Yeah.

Eli (01:36:55.635)
Yeah.

Eli (01:36:59.76)
yeah. Yeah, apparently too, like the weather was bad for a lot of the shooting, which actually helped. it was like, you know, yeah. And actually like similar to what the weather would have actually been like probably. I think from the history records, but, yeah, I would be interested. It's been a, it's been a long time since I've watched the thin red line, but my memory is that it is.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:37:06.412)
Good, yeah.

Eli (01:37:27.88)
the opposite in some ways to this like desaturated look. know, Malek is very like interested in nature and the, you know, the contrast of like the, you know, the kind of contrast of humanity and nature. And so my memory of that movie is that there's, it's a different, it's not a World War II.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:37:32.088)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:37:41.392)
yeah.

Eli (01:37:58.746)
I want to say it's Vietnam but I don't I'm not gonna like plant my flag in that because I'm not a hundred percent sure but it's there's more vibrancy in some of that but I think that's it's just and I would be interested to go back and re-watch that like shortly after watching this because just to contrast like

what the different effects they're going for with the way they use color in their war movie would be interesting to think about. But yeah, they do some different some other tricks with the camera too. Apparently there's like these shutter, like the degrees of the shutter is traditionally 180 and they were doing like 90 or 45 degrees sometimes. I'm not sure exactly what that means.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:38:29.464)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:38:53.618)
There's some like technical things that I just like, I haven't learned enough about to understand what they mean. But I did write down this quote to, so that I could let Kaminsky talk for himself. He said, used a different shadow degree to achieve a certain staccato in the actor's movement. We got a crispness of explosions. Everything we shot became slightly, just slightly more realistic. And so I think it's like,

just the the feel that you get in the final product feels more like that newsreel kind of footage. I think that's what that shutter degrees ends up giving the effect of. And you do have like the handheld. I think so the handheld thing is really interesting because this was not like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:39:34.37)
Yes.

Eli (01:39:52.81)
common, especially especially for like mainstream movies at this point in time. We see more of it now. But this was there was not like handheld action sequences at this time. It just wasn't really a big thing. So I thought that was really something worth emphasizing is that Spielberg's kind of on the front end of that style of shooting an action sequence.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:40:23.266)
Yeah, he, a lot of like action sequences are still embrace like standard film language of like wide angles or maybe at least a little closer, but very much the audience existing as like an omniscient viewer. And then here, like, it's very clear with the opening scene, he wants to put you in the position of the soldiers. And that's why, like even the pace of that opening, D-Day sequence.

Eli (01:40:32.383)
Hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:40:52.332)
Like there are scenes of like the camera right next to like the MG 42 shooting at the, know, ally soldiers. And then there are scenes where the camera slowly inches forward as the, know, allied soldiers move up the beach and that's it. And so like, you're getting a lot of like borderline POV and even one moment that is literally just POV of what's going on. And that also just.

Eli (01:41:00.874)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:41:08.639)
Right.

Eli (01:41:18.164)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:41:19.852)
goes well with the fact that the opening sequence is like focusing on the eyes of a, you know, by the time the movie starts, an unknown old man. and then transitioning into like, you're now seeing this, these eyes. So, yeah, it's a, it's impressive and it's a really good choice. feel like the only other couple of times I've heard of like, handheld being used is like a couple moments in like, to mention Carpenter again, but like Halloween has some handheld camera.

Eli (01:41:33.822)
Yeah.

Eli (01:41:48.776)
Yeah, like some POV stuff. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:41:49.13)
And like at the time that was super new. and again, yeah, POV and then nowadays like, yeah, handheld is used just because it's easier. You don't have to lug around this thing.

Eli (01:41:54.047)
Mm.

Eli (01:41:58.152)
Yeah, mean, well, yeah, and even like, more just thinking about like a very like comparable director and Christopher Nolan has done a lot of a lot of handheld work, but in a different way, like it's he's kind of like, changed the craft of how handheld looks because it's they've developed this like these technologies and these like ways of

anchoring the camera in handheld where it's still pretty smooth, but you still get the effect of like the close quarters without the shaky cam handheld stuff. So yeah, just interesting to see how it's like that style has like progressed since then. But yeah, just like to go through some of the like production design and effect stuff. So in the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:42:34.702)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:42:45.442)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:42:55.28)
Opening Omaha sequences, they obviously had to get some landing craft. and funnily enough, they sourced most of them from Palm Springs of all places. it's very random. They, I think they did get some, like a, maybe a couple from England and Scotland, but most of them were from Palm Springs. And then, they didn't obviously have enough, of those. And so ILM did go and then like enhance.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:43:05.225)
Eli (01:43:23.484)
adding more ships in in post for like wide shots. and then they had the Irish army come in. They provided 750 soldiers, some of whom had been in Braveheart actually, a few years before. so they, I guess we're a little more, a little familiar with being on a set. but yeah, they had 750 real Irish soldiers. they had a thousand or so fake corpses made.

for that beach and they even had about 20 actors that were amputees to add some more like authenticity to some of those characters that you know have arms blown off or whatever I guess. Which is interesting I guess like I guess it's good to get some amputee representation you know. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:44:18.318)
Yeah, I'm sure they appreciate it. More carpenter connections. It's like the thing. It's what they use for one of the effects there. It's an amputee. So makes sense. Makes sense.

Eli (01:44:22.824)
But

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, actually, he does that again with AI, which I'll talk about in that episode, which I've already recorded. he has some of the robot AI characters that are amputees with devices on their arms. Dale Dye, of course, is intervening when explosives look too much like pyrotechnic displays. He's like, no, it wouldn't look like this.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:44:47.0)
interesting. It's

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:44:58.968)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:44:59.986)
I guess he's done berating the actors, now he's berating Spielberg when the effects look bad. And I did read this that at the time a lot of specialists were still identifying multiple errors in the military equipment use. I didn't really find a list of what they thought was wrong, but that's inevitable.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:45:03.79)
Spielberg, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:45:23.806)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember watching like, some movies or even like TV shows or music videos that had like period piece set up stuff. And my dad having knowledge of like, you know, like most dads having knowledge of war stuff would be like, yo, those patches are not correct. Like those don't make any sense. So yeah, like that makes

Eli (01:45:39.262)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:45:43.933)
Right.

Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:45:49.774)
Total sense. It sounds like the broad strokes and the majority of the material is pretty accurate. And that's really what matters. But the Saving Private Ryan pop collectors who complain about the authenticity of their material might just have to put up with it. Yes. Yeah.

Eli (01:45:58.086)
It is. Yeah.

Eli (01:46:05.458)
It's like, it's like, come on guys, it's, is still a movie. It's not a, it's not archive documentary footage. yeah, they did have like, so, I mean, they had thousands of extras that needed costumes. So they did have to like make a ton of costumes. I think, I think the lady said they had made three and a half thousand uniforms. there weren't

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:46:33.56)
Made it alive.

Eli (01:46:34.526)
They tried to like find some that they could like borrow and there just weren't any so they had to make all of them. was funny listening to her cause she was like, she played it off really cool, but I can only imagine she was like, I didn't realize what I was signing up for when I got on this movie. Cause you have to not only like make thousands of uniforms, but also like age them and make them look used. yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:46:52.577)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:47:01.89)
Yes.

Eli (01:47:03.332)
very intensive.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:47:06.136)
This is, you're reminding me of a thought I had consistently watching the movies. I just want to cut in and mention it, mentioning it like how there's thousands of, know, or hundreds at least of extras watching this. kept thinking like, this is an era of like, because it's like just before the extreme transition to like embracing CG, where it really felt like we continued through the eighties into the nineties of like peak.

Eli (01:47:17.161)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:47:35.64)
filmmaking where like 80s part of why people love the 80s and filmmaking is because it's just before CG became more common. So you get a lot of really talented, impressive special effects. And, and then here, like the same thing is kind of true where I kept thinking, like, if this was made nowadays, there might be like 30 extras and then they would be like repeated across the set to like, look like it's hundreds. But here it's like, no, they just like cast like.

Eli (01:47:42.74)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:47:55.954)
Yeah. Right.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:48:04.166)
or they hired a bunch of extras to come on. It just looks so good. Then there's all these sets they constructed and this and that. I kept thinking, it's so gross. It's because they had the integrity to embrace what they're doing and make it look realistic and authentic. There are good seats.

Eli (01:48:06.484)
Right.

It does.

Eli (01:48:14.056)
And even like the fake corpses, like actual fake corpses that they made.

Eli (01:48:27.412)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:48:32.992)
CG moments, like in Spielberg, obviously with Jurassic Park, you know? But like, I kept thinking like, we are so beyond that era now. And it's just such a refreshing thing to watch Saving Private Ryan and be disgusted because it's so tactile and permitting itself to do all that.

Eli (01:48:35.07)
Right.

Eli (01:48:44.446)
Yeah.

Eli (01:48:53.286)
Yes, we really only have Christopher Nolan. Like that's all we have left.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:48:58.754)
Yeah, because even Spielberg kind of is like, you know, to the wayside, kind of comfortably embracing special effects. then Cameron's like, goodness. Yeah. my gosh. Yeah. Where I'm desperate for it to be a little more tactile. And then, yeah, Cameron like does not care at all anymore. so, and that's kind of in line. He's always been interested in special effects, but yeah, it's a...

Eli (01:49:02.856)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:06.214)
Yeah, speaking of Ready Player One, you know, it's... Yeah, like you're berated with them.

Eli (01:49:23.466)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:49:26.506)
It was super refreshing and disappointing at the same time, metatextually speaking, because yeah, it's, here we are at this like almost precipice of like, this is so good. I can't wait to see what's next. And then like, boom, it just goes down and turns into the mail Mandalorian super dome. That's used for almost every Disney project now. And you're watching the trailer for wicked, which comes out in like two days, one day. I don't know. It's Thursday, right? Like today.

Eli (01:49:31.316)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:41.704)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:47.987)
Yeah.

Eli (01:49:52.52)
Yeah, at the time of our recording, yeah. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:49:55.534)
And I'm like, the trailer, you're watching it thinking like there's no sense. So no extras, no sets, no nothing. So anyways, it just everything looks like the boo now. It's like it just looks like the boo. So yeah. Yeah. Well, everything goes back to him. Man alive.

Eli (01:50:00.871)
Yeah.

Eli (01:50:07.048)
Yeah, thanks Lucas.

We'll blame it all on Lucas. Yeah. I mean, yeah, like, okay. I'm going to just like emphasize your point. 2000 weapons used. 500 of them could shoot blanks. another one and a half thousand were like rubber ones that are like being carried around. You have, you know, you have like liquid propane being used to simulate flamethrower flames. You have

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:50:30.179)
Man alive.

Eli (01:50:43.73)
I mean, these guys are actually on stump, are actually on fire, you know? you have, yeah, it's crazy. You have, okay. So the ending at Rimmel is literally none of that was there. They built all of that stuff. They were like, okay, we need this village that has a river running through it with a bridge.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:50:47.372)
Yeah, the stunts are nuts! They're crazy!

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:51:01.462)
Yes!

Eli (01:51:10.61)
River was not there that they dug that thing and put two to three feet of water in it. it's yeah, it's, it's incredible. It, it, looks phenomenal. They, they build all of these buildings. like make them look like they've been exploded. and they, they're going to construction sites around and buying debris from construction sites to like toss around their set. it, and it looks incredible.

It really does. I don't know what else to say about it. It just looks so good. they're even like, so like thinking of special effects. So like, if you think about the, the tank, when the tank shoots the building, and like the building collapses and like cloud of dust, like a wave comes over Jeremy Davies as up them, like a dust.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:52:06.798)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:52:09.822)
They have this like, they actually like explode the building, of course. And they have this like crane holding this big crate that when the building gets shot, like when the explosive goes off, the crate drops like a ton of debris, like extra like dirt and debris so that you get this like huge cloud. Like that's real. It's not added in in post. It's an actual huge cloud of dust that's dropped.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:52:35.661)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:52:39.476)
that they dropped from the sky, you know? And it just all looks great. One of the things I thought was cool, so like stunt-wise, they would use these like tricks and the framing of the shot to kind of hide the fakeness of some of the stunts. So especially like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:52:41.742)
You

Eli (01:53:08.23)
One of the things that they talked about was whenever they were, especially like on that D-Day sequence, whenever a guy was like exploding up into the air, they would use this trick where they would have like some soldiers maybe run in front of the camera in that moment where it looks the fakest. and so like, you're really like, you see the soldier running in the background, some, some like legs of soldiers pass in the foreground.

and you see the explosion and the guys like up in the air by the time they pass, pass by to it's yeah, I was like, that's genius because sometimes those things do look a little bit fake. You're like, okay, I know that guy was like pulled on the cable. and you can kind of tell, but that, like just that simple framing like trick that they use to kind of hide that fake more fake aspect.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:53:43.31)
Fascinating. That's so smart.

Eli (01:54:06.282)
Just super like well thought out. Yeah So Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the sound they took very particular care with the sound The they didn't use any electronic simulations for weapons so it's all like it's all actually like recording bullets firing a their Firing bullets near mics. They're recording different

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:54:09.613)
you

Eli (01:54:35.486)
bullets hitting different objects. For bullets hitting flesh, actually like recorded shooting beef carcasses in a slaughterhouse. So yeah, they're really going for authentic here, I guess. Gary Rydstrom is just like, he's like, he might be the goat sound guy. All of the great like sounding movies.

or like go back to Gary Rydstrom, I feel like in this era. He says he did more research than ever. And one of the things he talked about was how like, when he talked to a lot of vets, like World War II vets, and he said that he was super surprised at how much sound was a part of their memory. And this is something that you, I think people are more aware of now, how like sounds can like set off PTSD.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:55:07.918)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:55:35.034)
people were like way more aware of that then, but right from was just talking about how surprised he was that that was such a huge thing. and like one of the things he talked about was how like, even not just like sound, like setting off like PTSD, but just like remembering sounds that were like so specific. so they, they talked, he said one thing that came up a bunch of times was how

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:55:35.52)
yeah.

Eli (01:56:02.152)
The ping of the M1 rifle when you ejected a cartridge was like a very distinct sound. so, so much so that like Germans would listen for that sound and then they would start, they would come out and fire whenever they would hear it. And then they, the Americans caught on. And so they would have someone like eject a cartridge to draw Germans out, to like thinking that they were out of ammo or whatever.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:56:08.91)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:56:15.436)
Yeah, they would. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:56:26.894)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:56:31.31)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:56:31.954)
So just like, just one example of like sounds that they like things that they tried to put in the movie. these sounds, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:56:41.004)
I want to, I didn't see if you had this at the end with like impact or legacy, but I know that like Saving Private Ryan hugely influenced like Call of Duty. Like it's early era now it's, know, Call of Duty is it's own crazy thing. But like, I wonder like talking about sound, like part of why it's much more distinct and understood and expected now is because of like things like video games where like

Eli (01:56:54.703)
Mm. Yeah.

Eli (01:57:08.831)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:57:09.568)
as you're playing them and they're pursuing simulating reality like that ping noise. And actually a lot of moments in early Call of Duty games, whether one, two, three, four, unless so much forks, this one at warfare, but world at war five, very overtly, very overtly influenced even down to the, taking a mortar shell, smacking it against something and then throwing it kind of thing.

Eli (01:57:33.672)
Right, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:57:34.562)
are all greatly influenced by like a lot of what's drawn out from this film. and then in that way, I'm sure like nowadays you'd watch it and the, the distinct idea of them being memorable is so much more present. so yeah, that's interesting to think about.

Eli (01:57:48.756)
Right.

Eli (01:57:52.72)
Yeah, it's, I'm trying to remember. I did, I just released today as we're recording, obviously when this comes out, it'll be a couple months ago, probably. But, I, I talked about, like kind of the history of dream works in that episode. and dream works did at one point have a video game, division,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:58:02.018)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ha

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:58:20.332)
Yeah.

Eli (01:58:21.13)
And I'm trying to remember the game they put out. Medal of Honor. So Medal of Honor was like deeply influenced and like inspired by Spielberg's work on this movie. So yeah, I don't know. I would imagine like that game. When was the first Call of Duty game? Like mid 2000s? Yeah, so.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:58:25.614)
Medal of Honor. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:58:42.158)
Oof, 2004 maybe, 2003. I know it was on like PS2 before, you know, going on like the seventh gen or sixth gen consoles, but yeah, mid 2000s.

Eli (01:58:49.78)
Right.

Eli (01:58:53.906)
Yeah, so probably this movie along with like Medal of Honor probably I'm sure if Medal of Honor was influenced by this movie, it probably like had a big focus on sound I would imagine so I'm sure that's there for sure. And yeah, I mean they really like they really focused on I mean you have so you have like the bullets underwater in the first scene.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:59:07.435)
Mm-hmm. yeah

Eli (01:59:23.934)
which is actually like a sound that he took from a movie that he worked on called A River Runs Through It. And it's the sound of like a fly casting line being whipped off of this water surface. Super smart. This guy's like always like pulling strange sounds that he remembers recording for something else like to put in other movies. Yeah, you have so for the parts where like you have the Captain Miller being shell shocked in that point of view.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:59:24.014)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:59:42.158)
That's cool.

Eli (01:59:53.79)
where everything kind of fades out. He was trying to think like, okay, what does it sound like when you're only hearing yourself? And he was like, I bet it's like kind of like a seashell, like listening to a seashell. And so he recorded the ocean and then he played that recording through out of a speaker through a tube and recorded that. And that's like the sound you're hearing that kind of like that whirring like in your head sound.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (01:59:55.863)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:00:14.86)
Interesting. Yeah.

Eli (02:00:24.264)
And then like they did a lot of work like even with just like the atmosphere sounds. So he was talking about watching a lot of archive footage and there's this kind of like ominous sound of a thunderstorm that sounds kind of like a thunderstorm in the distance of like bombs going off and stuff. And so they added that into like, you can really hear that in like the church scene where there's this kind of atmosphere of like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:00:41.9)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:00:52.798)
thunderstorm or maybe war in the distance going on. You have incredible like sound transitions even where there's that one shot of like the rain starting to drip on some leaves and some water and that sound actually transitions into the sound of gunfire. Which that feels like a Malik move actually.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:01:16.792)
So good. Great stuff.

Yeah, I actually thought the same thing. Yeah.

Eli (02:01:22.856)
Yeah, I was... But yeah, and then, you know, they're... he was going for like this... he actually said that Spielberg told him watch this movie Zulu and there's this part where the Zulu warriors are approaching and they're like beating their shields and he kind of took that as influence for the tanks approaching for that last battle. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:01:49.262)
Great stuff. Yeah.

Eli (02:01:50.748)
So I mean, he's just like, the sound is just incredible in this movie. He's like scraping metal on plates and for the tank sounds like that's, and he actually, he talked about how vets were coming up to him and saying like, I don't know how like you captured the sound of like those tanks. Like it sounds, it like sounds just like they sounded.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:02:02.507)
You

Eli (02:02:20.08)
Yeah, so I mean it's yeah and really incredible sound. The score, what did you think about the score for this movie? Because I thought it was fine.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:02:31.85)
It's interesting. feel like it's sort of become like of all the things out of Saving Private Ryan, which is still a very like reverential film and part of what it's successful at being. Like the score is what's kind of become like a meme and like that type of like, it's almost become like ironic to have like that faux reverential, like for the troops, quote unquote type music. And I think

Eli (02:02:42.227)
Right.

Eli (02:02:48.639)
Yeah.

Eli (02:02:58.484)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:03:00.92)
Part of that is like, it's been so heavily co-opted by like political aesthetics to be used. And in that way, like it's lost a lot of it's like, and like, cause yeah, cause it's like, it is obviously being very evocative of, from the beginning of,

Eli (02:03:06.666)
Sure.

Eli (02:03:14.152)
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Eli (02:03:20.714)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:03:26.078)
I forget the term, but like when soldiers die, they have, the trumpet off in the distance playing. It's like this song that's like. Right taps. And so like a lot of the tunes to the song feel very much like born out of that. And in that way, like that's a positive and a good thing, but it's very hard to take it seriously when it's sort of transitioned into this, like if you actually care about America.

Eli (02:03:29.97)
Right. Like the taps and... yeah.

Eli (02:03:40.916)
Sure, yeah.

Eli (02:03:49.491)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:03:52.972)
You will vote so and so and like that's you know why? Because we like this music. And it just gets a little ridiculous. But when you kind of get over that and it's very easy to do so, the movie itself is in no way affected by it. Also, because there's not much music like Williams barely does the work here.

Eli (02:03:54.826)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:04:10.162)
Yeah, there isn't. And I think that's actually the best part of, yeah, that's the best part of the score is that they decide not to play the score in like the battle sequences and stuff at all. And so they really only use the score to kind of like emphasize more dramatic moments. and, you know, I think it's fine. It's not, I don't think it's a bad score. And it is interesting to think about it in the way that you're

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:04:21.314)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:04:29.315)
Yes.

Eli (02:04:39.914)
you were like framing it in that I wonder if it would have played differently at the time than it does now having like heard this sort of music over and over again. But yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:04:52.526)
Well, and to contrast, just because of what this will be influencing with HBO, the Band of Brothers score is obviously way more prominent throughout the series and genuinely a thousand times stronger. It has motifs, it has consistent... Yeah, the fact that it has motifs that it draws onto throughout the material,

Eli (02:05:08.746)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:05:20.52)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:05:21.606)
also makes it much more a part of the story as opposed to like the music here, which is more of just like a supplement to the character dialogue or character moments, which is not as like strong or valuable. Like when you think of like Williams working on Star Wars, you're like, there's motifs, there's songs, there's moments that draw on particular things, even up to episode three, not so much the sequel series.

Eli (02:05:31.401)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:05:40.372)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:05:47.854)
which I found just like his scores were just like, man, let the guy rest. Let's let him retire. But like here, it's also lacking, I feel in terms of like being a part of it. But I think it's serviceable and doing the job because the movie is not about the music. It's about the characters.

Eli (02:05:51.604)
Ha ha.

Eli (02:06:01.502)
Yeah. Well, real. Yeah, it's not. And I think like, I mean, like just thinking again about like the other episode that we did together in ET, the score like is such a huge part of the movie. Like it's so vital. And in this one, it's just like, it's just interesting. And even like in the making of, doc stuff, like John Williams talks about how

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:06:14.443)
my word. Yeah.

Eli (02:06:27.56)
so many of his projects with Spielberg, he appreciates because Spielberg has him doing so many different types of scores. Like they're hardly ever like too much the same as the last one. And so like even on a movie like this where it's like, okay, your music and this one is gonna be taking kind of a backseat. Like Williams like really appreciates it. It's a different challenge. Okay, how do I like, how do I fit into that?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:06:35.586)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:06:41.036)
No, not at all. Yeah.

Eli (02:06:57.118)
mode for this movie. So yeah, Aureus appreciate, it's hard not to appreciate John Williams even when like, yeah, he has a score that's like maybe not like his best standout iconic scores, but they're still like, they're always solid, you know? Yeah. I'm noticing in my notes, I have like no notes under editing and post-production.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:07:16.012)
Yes, yeah, it's strong. It's

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:07:26.304)
It's good. It turned out good.

Eli (02:07:26.812)
It's just, I'm just going to emphasize this point. I wish there was more talk about editing and like making of documentaries and in like, and in books about films because editing like is movie making at end of the day. And I just feel like it's not talked about enough and I would love to hear more about how movies were edited and the choices in that. So,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:07:36.568)
I agree.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:07:41.527)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:07:53.198)
think I remember, to add to your point, think I remember reading something that mentioned like editing is exclusive to the medium of filmmaking. Whereas like, you music, you're not, you're not changing the song by reorienting the melody, the chorus and the bridge, but like a movie literally can be changed, fixed and reordered and made better by putting scenes in different orders.

Eli (02:08:09.832)
Yeah, the mix and

Eli (02:08:17.736)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:08:21.684)
apart from what you intended in production and pre-production. so, yeah, it's so important.

Eli (02:08:26.13)
Yeah. And like a, even like a scene, even like a dialogue scene can be dramatically changed by the way you edit the shots together. it, yeah. So I just wish there was more out there. I don't have anything in my notes for it because there wasn't anything in my research about the editing and I don't know. It's a, it's a, I would say this is an extremely well edited movie, like top notch editing.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:08:36.546)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:08:47.267)
Mm.

Eli (02:08:55.624)
So.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:08:55.822)
Two hours and 40 minutes, it goes by in no time. Like the pacing here is so expertly constructed. So good. Yeah.

Eli (02:08:59.313)
Yes.

Yes. And that's another thing. Pacing is the edit. The edit determines the pace of the movie. Yes, you can shoot scenes a certain way. Yes, you can have like a certain pace to your acting, but it all comes down to the way it's edited. So this, that's my short rant on we need more editing content out there. interviewers ask the directors about the editing process, please. If you're out there and you're interviewing directors,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:09.432)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:22.412)
Yes. Yes, please.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:28.174)
You

Eli (02:09:31.498)
Ask more questions about the edit. But yeah, so this movie is released on July 24th, 1998. So that would be the day after I turned seven years old.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:33.55)
Yes, please.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:47.192)
The day after I, well, not day, but year in which I would probably be three or two. Babber mill.

Eli (02:09:52.616)
Yeah, my birthday is the day before that, so I just turned seven. So I did not see this movie in theaters. Yeah, that would have been wild. I would not, I mean, I would put money on, there's definitely seven year olds in the theater watching this movie because yeah, parents are always taking kids to movies they shouldn't be in.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:09:59.95)
Dang, that would have been cool though.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:10:13.653)
yeah.

Eli (02:10:20.234)
It's the American way, I guess. I don't know Yeah, I mean so this movie releases only seven months after Almasot so really quick turn around there and Yeah, it it opens number one opening weekend It has a it ends up with a worldwide box office of 482 million dollars which in 98 98 money is probably like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:10:22.881)
You

Eli (02:10:47.634)
at least twice that much in today's money, if not more. so that's just wild to think about that a movie like this, earning that much in the box office and nearly 50 % of that was earned domestic too. and I mean, it only had a 65, $70 million budget. yeah, which actually like is a pretty big budget. Yeah. Pretty big budget back then, but like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:10:50.168)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:11:08.728)
Which is crazy. Like, come on. I know like inflation is a lot, but still.

Eli (02:11:17.906)
Yeah, it's, I mean, it made all that back. This was interesting too. It's the only the third rated R movie to reach $200 million domestic. So the other two had been Terminator 2 and Beverly Hills Cop at that point in film history. So I thought that was interesting. What is crazy to think about is Spielberg and Hanks

Refused their base salary and opted instead for 70 17.5 percent each of the studio profits. So yeah, mean that's like over they're getting basically over Over 400 million so 17 percent of over 400 mil. I mean, that's a good that's

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:11:54.638)
made some good money.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:12:08.366)
160 million, right?

Eli (02:12:10.854)
I guess between the two. like, I mean, yeah, it's yeah, they made a lot of money. Spielberg and Hanks off this movie. Let's just say that. the reception of the movie at the time. So nationally critics mostly praised it. I think obviously, critics that had long been doubtful of Spielberg, even after Schindler's List saw this as a real watershed moment.

for his emotional maturity, which I thought was interesting. they felt like he was finally really truly trusting his audience and manipulating them honestly. which is an interesting thing to think about. And I think is true to some degree. Like he is, there is, there are cases where like, you know, you're being manipulated, but you also know that like, it makes sense to be manipulated emotionally in that way to get the right.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:13:08.44)
Yeah, yes.

Eli (02:13:10.186)
feel out of feelings out of you for that scene. So.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:13:14.062)
To continue the consistent comparison to Banda Brothers and the future Steph, this is very blunt and Banda Brothers is way more nuanced about what it's exploring because it's also episodic. So every episode is exploring something new. Whereas this is like,

Eli (02:13:20.404)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

It is. Yeah. And you have more like character development in Band of Brothers too, just because you have more time to do that. Yeah. Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post said that, quote, the greatest war movie ever made in one of the great American movies, unquote. So that's pretty high praise, I would say.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:13:32.467)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:13:48.938)
Todd McCarthy and Variety said, quote, no further commentary is needed when the raw brutality of combat is presented as indelibly as it is here, unquote. So I would say it got some pretty high praise. Those two quotes are pretty representative of how a lot of critics felt about the movie at the time. Not everyone loved it. There was a William Goldman essay that's kind of notorious for

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:14:02.316)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:14:16.934)
really ripping the movie to shreds. And I think we'll talk a little bit about that and when we get past this last little bit of the reception of the movie, because I think it's, I think he has some interesting points about the movie in the last like act that are going to be interesting to talk about. In England and France, it was received with a little bit more reticence than it was here.

they thought that there were crudely portrayed characters. I mean, it's, it's a very American movie in that, like they're very American characters. So it's like, I don't know that I can trust like the, the opinion of England and France, English and French people on like how crudely portrayed the characters are when they're American characters, but, whatever.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:15:12.226)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:15:14.25)
Neil, Nell Norman in the England's Evening Standard, which is an England's publication said, quote, it seems almost spinel in its achievement, a film that sacrifices humanity for technical wizardry. I think that's a little off base, but.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:15:33.218)
I wonder, I wonder what he's responding to there. Cause if he's responding to the fact that like the film displays war as dehumanizing where like you have scenes of like characters who are so disoriented by war that they're looking for their, you know, disarmed arm or a character at the end who just literally gets turned into a mist by a 20 millimeter cannon or something. Like I could understand maybe that where like you're showcasing technical wizardry.

Eli (02:15:42.089)
Yeah.

Eli (02:15:49.63)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:16:03.13)
in contrast to like, you know, the humanity of like what took place. But I, I think that would be a case of like, and I guess if there hadn't been a war movie like this to this degree, I don't, couldn't criticize you for being like, you know, what ticket did you think you were buying? But like, that's what's coming into my mind is like, what ticket did you think you were buying? Like that, but yeah, I guess for the time, like that would have been very shocking to see.

Eli (02:16:21.16)
Right.

Eli (02:16:31.976)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:16:32.93)
Because, I forgot that that guy just like gets obliterated. Both of them. There's the one guy with the sticky bomb who forgets who for some reason doesn't throw it. And then the other guy who like is on the tank. Yeah, I wonder if that was what it was, too. And then there's the other guy who like is on the tank when like the gun shoots through and he just turns into mist. So.

Eli (02:16:37.524)
Yeah.

Eli (02:16:43.858)
Yeah, maybe it stuck to him. It is a sticky bomb.

Eli (02:16:55.282)
Yeah, which the sticky bomb thing is apparently like a real thing that was that they did. yeah. yeah, I almost wonder if he's just like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:17:00.387)
I can believe it. I can totally believe it. Yeah.

Eli (02:17:07.742)
I almost wonder if like, just feels like the by technical wizardry, he just maybe means like, yeah, like it's so focused on the trying to capture the brutality of war that like you lose all the human aspects. like, but like to come to that, I almost feel like to come to that conclusion, you would have had to maybe go to the bathroom during all the in between scenes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:17:34.84)
The human stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:17:36.874)
where they're like discussing stuff and you know, I don't know. It seems like a strange take to me. yeah, there was another, a French review by Gerard Lafort in a liberation, a French publication where he was talking about, the inability of the movie to transcend the subject, as open as the opening had led one to hope. So,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:17:44.013)
That is an interesting take. Yeah.

Eli (02:18:06.61)
He said, quote, foot by foot, shot by shot, the never seen before gives way to the deja vu. In the course of this acknowledgement, attention wanes, enjoyment melts away and consequently also the famous fund of emotion of which Spielberg is the chief banker, unquote. so his kind of take is that like, as the movie goes on, like you, it's almost like a take of you're so like the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:18:27.886)
Interesting.

Eli (02:18:35.87)
that opening and Omaha beach is so like crazy and chaotic and breathtaking and emotional that like nothing else in the movie lives up to that. like, as you go through the movie, you're, you're kind of like, you start off so strong that the rest of the movie, you're maybe let down emotionally. And, and I don't know that that's kind of seems like what he's saying in that quote.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:19:04.928)
It's like a mix of that combined with the fact that like Spielberg at his best is so good at emotional, like catharsis. Cause like obviously Jaws, like every time you see that in a theater, it's always packed and everyone claps at the end. And then Jurassic Park is, you know, like just amazing. And then ET everyone's weeping at the end. so like, like I could totally see that like you have this film that like starts out at such a, for lack of a better term, like a such a high.

Eli (02:19:21.395)
Similar,

Eli (02:19:34.345)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:19:34.626)
of a of such emotional intensity that like, yeah, it doesn't quite keep it by the end. But I think that's because it's setting the like, I think it's a matter of reading the text in terms of like, it sets the groundwork to then go into the, like, the way humanity treats itself after such events and like changes and evolves and, and, and so in that way, like, I almost see like,

his interpretation as like a response to Spielberg's career, but perhaps a not full understanding of like the film, the film on its own. Yeah.

Eli (02:20:06.377)
Yeah.

Eli (02:20:11.038)
Yeah. Well, I think too, yeah, that's, that's an interesting thought. And I also think in addition to that, like it's, it's kind of a misunderstanding of the, the whole point of starting you off in that moment, which is to literally like put you in the mindset of these guys. Like it's like this chaotic, you have no idea what, what's going on. And then you have to like, like you're seeing people explode all around you. Like

You know, all of your friends are dying, you know, and then you have to like go on from there and like keep living and keep trying to like do a mission and it's disorienting. Like, and so I think like what he saw as a weakness is actually like kind of the point. So, yeah. not all the critics abroad were this.

aware of the movie's appeal Samuel Blummenfeld of Le Monde, another French publication said quote, the mourning of a certain America in the style of Frank Capra, a filmmaker with whom he is obsessed. That is to say a country united, supported, preserved in the respect of certain values of which the family is cornerstone. Saving Private Ryan is the first film in which Spielberg yields and draws the line.

between what he can and cannot film. So he was just, I guess another guy just really kind of sweat like coming on board with the Spielberg as a mature director now kind of thing. yeah. But yeah, the movie went on to be very revered. Spielberg actually like got some personal honors. He was honored by the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:21:54.094)
Interesting.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:22:03.44)
yeah.

Eli (02:22:08.01)
Department of Defense, the Smithsonian, and other American institutions. Bill Clinton, who was one of his friends, actually gave him a National Medal of Humanities in 1999. And he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2001. I did not know what that was, but I looked it up and apparently it is an award given by the British monarch to recognize a person's prominent role at the national level.

leading role in regional affairs or a distinguished contribution to their field which I guess this would be the last the latter of those I guess they saw this movie as a distinguished contribution to the field of filmmaking yeah I was like what is a commander of the order of the British Empire I was like I got some weird names for honors over there let me just say

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:22:55.968)
You

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:23:02.485)
yeah, that's why we left. Never going back, we're done.

Eli (02:23:06.026)
Yeah, so it did get nominated for 11 Oscars so It makes sense for sure it it didn't win all of them at one five the six that it didn't win Hanks did not win win for lead actor Which to be honest like he is really good like he I could definitely see him winning for this this role I think he's great in it Yeah

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:23:12.718)
Makes sense.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:23:31.935)
yeah, yes. Super good.

Eli (02:23:35.816)
yeah. Screenplay didn't win, art direction and set decoration, makeup, original score, and best picture, which it lost to Shakespeare in love of all movies, which.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:23:49.868)
Yeah, a movie I don't think anyone talks about. And that's kind of common for best picture winners, but still.

Eli (02:23:53.018)
Not really. I haven't seen it, but so I can't really say, you know, it should have lost to this movie, but yeah. Harvey Weinstein apparently lobbied real hard for that movie. So yeah, not gonna talk about that guy.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:24:03.694)
Mmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:24:16.718)
And that's that.

Eli (02:24:18.436)
It did win in five categories though. One for cinematography, for sound, for sound mixing, for editing. Shout out again to the editing. And Spielberg won his second best director Oscar, which I think is very deserving. And in his speech, he dedicated the film to his dad. He said, quote, dad, you're the greatest. Thank you for showing me.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:24:30.552)
Yes.

Eli (02:24:47.828)
that there is honor in looking back and respecting the past. I love you very much. This is for you." Got to love a dedication to a parent for an Oscar speech. Loved it. And then, like we said, Spielberg and Hanks kept their World War II obsession going together, producing Band of Brothers in the Pacific, which I've seen all of Band of Brothers and probably half of the Pacific.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:25:15.426)
Yeah, it seems pretty consistent. The conjecture is like Band of Brothers is like, you know, just a banger, like perfect piece of media. And then like the Pacific is like, this is not perfect. It's supposed to be quite interesting, but not to the degree, but.

Eli (02:25:21.288)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:25:28.778)
yeah what's interesting actually have like the the little tin you know DVD set of Band of Brothers I think I might have I might have Pacific too I don't remember but

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:25:35.968)
of the two. okay.

I know the tin though. remember, I think we owned a DVD of it.

Eli (02:25:44.136)
Yeah, but it's what's cool about those is like yeah, you have the obviously the the mini series in there the 10 episodes of bander brothers, but there's so much cool history stuff and like interviews with veterans and it's so all that stuff is like Maybe even cooler than the than the show. so

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:25:57.123)
Yeah, the interviews with the veterans, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:26:07.426)
Yeah, I think by memory, like each episode even would have like interviews that you could optionally watch at the end of each one to then like get a follow. It's like, it's so compelling. Yeah, it's, it's really neat. and then I do believe, I don't know, I don't know if they produce, Spielberg and Hanks produced this, but there's a third kind of in the series that specifically I think has to do with like air force.

Eli (02:26:10.387)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:26:14.067)
Yes.

Yeah. Talking about the things that happened in that episode. Yeah.

Eli (02:26:33.821)
Okay.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:26:34.134)
I forgot the name of it, but it's like very underseen. was like in the last like five years, but, but they, yeah, yeah. Well, not many people do it seems. I think it kind of like came and went because you know, the Pacific didn't really succeed well. Like band of brothers really was like when it came out, was like, my gosh, like.

Eli (02:26:37.17)
Yeah, I don't even know about that.

Eli (02:26:48.244)
Yeah.

Eli (02:26:52.316)
Yeah, and it, I mean, it's an incredible series.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:26:57.132)
Yeah, it's stellar, stellar stuff.

Eli (02:26:59.88)
Yeah. all right, let's, let's jump into just kind of digging a little deeper into the movie and its themes and whatnot. I wanted to start with things that might be considered quibbles with the movie just so that we could like end on the better stuff and not like end with quibbles. but let's talk about. Actually, here's what I want to do. I'm going to skip.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:27:21.09)
Hehehehe

Eli (02:27:29.584)
around in my notes. Let's talk about the William Goldman review. This was actually a last-minute addition to the notes. I knew that there was this review, but I read it just a little bit ago before we started recording and added some extra notes. So William Goldman wrote this essay. He actually wrote a series of essays about the Best Picture nominees.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:27:31.79)
I think

Eli (02:27:59.158)
During this time and so obviously one of them was about saving private Ryan and He actually really enjoyed the movie up to the point after they find private Ryan So that's an I don't think he likes the whole old guy at the beginning stuff, but starting after that he's like he actually really loved it and so after they find

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:28:24.014)
Mm.

Eli (02:28:28.564)
Private Ryan, he just like goes into this like ripping all the story apart. Like, he's like, this is bad and this is bad and this is bad. And so his first quibble is that the whole like deliberation of do we leave him or do we stay with him is like totally like ridiculous to him. He was, he's like, here you have this kid like.

He feels like the motivation of Ryan to stay is like only half believable Which I I don't know like I feel like you can kind of get on board with like these are his brothers now Yeah, so I don't really agree with him there but I did think it was at least like interesting he said he kind of gave this analogy of like your friends ask you to take their kid to school for them the next day and you show up and the kids like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:29:06.562)
Yeah. Brian's motivation is sensible.

Eli (02:29:24.086)
I can't go today because this cool thing is happening or my friend is coming over. And so you're like, okay, well, do I just leave them here or do I stay with him and watch him while his friend comes over? It's like, okay, well, what about the third option? Say, no, you're going to school and I'm taking you to school. And so he talks about like this whole like deliberation between Miller and Horvath.

Hanks and Sizemore's characters where they're like going back and forth and they're like, well, you know, we can, he has a point, you know, we can leave them here or how about this? Maybe, you know, we stay and maybe we'll make it out on the other side with him and stuff. and he's just kind of like, or why don't you tell this private? No, you're going with me. This is my mission. This is my, this is my orders. and I was like, you know what? That's actually, that's actually a good point.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:30:14.254)
Yeah, orders are orders.

Eli (02:30:21.93)
And he even said you could even, you could even still have that final sequence. His fix was, okay, you're like, no, you're coming with us. They start to leave. And then all of a sudden you hear the tanks coming and you're like, crap, we've got to make a plan. and so like, was like, man, that actually, that actually is a pretty good script edit. to be honest. so I don't know. I thought that was interesting. I think the movie is still fine as it is.

but I thought that was a very interesting thing. He also really hated having the steamboat Willie German guy be the one that kills captain Miller, which I didn't even notice to be honest. okay.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:31:04.726)
it's debated whether or not it's the same actor. So some people have interpreted that Steamboat Willie, is the man who they release, is then brought back later in the film.

Eli (02:31:14.824)
Yeah, they let go.

Eli (02:31:20.094)
He definitely is because there's the scene where Upham is like holding up the guys after the planes come through and that Steamboat Willie character goes up him like he recognizes him. So he's definitely there. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:31:34.862)
It could be. Is that the guy who he shoots then? Okay, so yeah, couldn't remember if like, because he doesn't look totally the same in the end sequence, because both the, you know, the German in the end and then Steamboat Willie have their hats off. So it's very easy to see their facial features and they do look

Eli (02:31:41.896)
Yes.

Eli (02:31:46.43)
Yeah, that

Eli (02:31:51.486)
Hmm.

Eli (02:31:59.134)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:32:02.36)
quite different, but that could also be performance. Whereas like Steamboat Willie is trying to be pathetic in terms of performance. And then the German at the end is trying to be, you know, harsh and confident. So I, but I also saw stuff online about like people talking about like the interpretation. I do think it's like the ethic of what is being talked about still stands that like, sometimes you release people, sometimes you don't. And sometimes like they come back.

Eli (02:32:03.708)
Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:32:19.754)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:32:30.018)
you know, to target you. And in this case, like the film does both. Like if, if it's not Steamboat Willie, it is able to show like you could let someone go and perhaps outside of your own knowledge, they end up being, they end up, you know, being a prisoner of war and that's it. But you also have the risk of if you don't take that shot, they might shoot you or someone you love. And so,

Eli (02:32:30.12)
Yeah.

Eli (02:32:34.067)
Yeah.

Eli (02:32:44.778)
that kills you.

Eli (02:32:49.066)
Yeah.

Eli (02:32:53.086)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:32:54.678)
Yeah, I could, I mean, it is the crime of the up home character is that it gets to this ending of like, yeah, just like what you don't want to have seen by the end, you want to see this character get to the end and like, at least go up the staircase and save, you know, private melish and then he can't do it. And it's like almost distractingly frustrating. So I get it.

Eli (02:33:13.106)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:33:18.654)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. it's, it's like, so Goldman's like big beef was that like, it negates the whole moral like stance that, that captain Miller takes in that moment of like, I'm going to let this guy go. And then you have it come back, you have this guy come back and kill him in the end. And then I personally think that is steamboat Willie. I don't know.

I didn't notice that he was the one that shot Captain Miller, but I do, I do like pretty strongly believe that is him there at the end that Upham shoots because he says Upham. like he, calls him by name. He recognizes him. and he would have known his name because he was sitting there with them digging, digging graves for awhile and Upham was the translator. yeah. And so like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:33:56.482)
The language. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:34:07.95)
because they speak German.

Eli (02:34:17.168)
He Goldman felt that it negated that and like Made the whole like war logic to be the big he said the the point was that miller dies like that is a important important thing that should That makes sense to happen emotionally he said but like that that emotion is negated by If that is steamboat willy that kills him because then it's like the war logic is what we should have gone with

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:34:35.212)
Yes. Yes.

Eli (02:34:46.792)
You know, you don't kill this guy, he might come back and kill you. And so it like reinforces the war logic that we're trying to stay away from instead of like the point that like war is hell and now captain Miller is dead. And so. Yeah, I thought it was interesting too, so.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:35:00.718)
It's an interesting read because part of, like in contrast, at least his interpretation, what I think it would reinforce is the honorableness of Miller that he is, Miller and the entire group are in the position of power and authority judged during the executioner to kill this man and they permit him to go. And by then at the end, him,

Eli (02:35:23.42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:35:29.462)
making it, assuming it seemed but really killing Miller in the end, then reinforces like two things. One that Miller was, had a, was convinced and had a goodness to, permeate across the group and do the right thing. then two that like the kindness that he shared is now the like, in spite of the evil that is

Eli (02:35:46.078)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:35:57.632)
expressed in his death. So in other words, it makes the evil worse. So I don't necessarily like, like I kind of see it differently in that like it actually makes Miller more heroic, not in being foolish, but more and not even necessarily naive, but more in a like in, opportunity of being killed, he still chose what was right to do. because yeah, they're not in combat when they finally get to the guy. Like he is.

Eli (02:36:08.906)
Mm.

Eli (02:36:19.688)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:36:24.974)
kind of knocked out and out of anger, one of the soldiers goes to just beat the crap out of them, which is like that is no longer like quote unquote laws of warfare of which there really aren't any, like, you know, like it's not honorable, so to speak. yeah, it's, it's interesting.

Eli (02:36:30.409)
Yeah.

Eli (02:36:36.136)
Right. Right.

Eli (02:36:43.464)
No, I like your read. Yeah. I mean, I think that there is a degree to which like, I think Goldman is being a little bit too nitpicky with that. because like in the, the end of the day, like the moral choice that Miller makes is the same moral choice either way. and so, so yeah, I don't think it really negates that the, if that is steamboat Willie that shoots him in the end.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:37:04.568)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:37:13.926)
but it is, it is, I did still think that it was an interesting read and something that should be discussed. and then yeah, Goldman just did not like the, the book ending with Ryan. this is something interesting. So him, and he wasn't the only one, there was a lot of people that didn't like the fact that you start with this old man and it like,

Close does a close-up on his eyes and then like fades to them on the boats headed toward You know Omaha Beach and so they felt like it was like this kind of manipulative trick to make you think that the old man is supposed to be Captain Miller or somebody that was there at D-Day and then in the end it does the little face morph thing and you you realize like this is supposed to be right like Private Ryan

as an old man and they felt like it was kind of like a dirty trick and like, but Goldman even went further than that and said, like, it makes it feel phony because like you're told this whole story and then you, you go back and it's like this guy that wasn't even there like for that story. And so he, he said it should have been someone like, it should have been like the Edward Burns character, like Ryban or somebody like that kind of like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:38:29.806)
That's a funny rate.

Eli (02:38:41.052)
at the, at his thing and, know, at his grave site, visiting his grave site. Cause he was actually there on D-Day. He was a part of the group the whole time and visiting the grave at the end of his life saying, you know, Hey, you know, this guy, we saved this guy. he, he didn't do anything that may be spectacular, but like he, he lived a good life. You know, it was, it was worth it because that guy got to live his life or whatever. He, that was kind of his fix for that.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:38:54.552)
Yeah, and he lifts, yeah.

Eli (02:39:11.198)
whole thing, but.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:39:11.758)
Yeah, that's interesting. I think there are two things that makes me think of is one is, well, three, I say. The first one is it's just clever like filmmaking to set you up to think Miller is going to make it to the end. Totally, totally. Yeah, I think it's good filmmaking in terms of just broad overarching storytelling and thrilling movie language.

Eli (02:39:23.536)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't have a problem with the quote-unquote trick. I think that's fine. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:39:40.062)
So that's cool. Because like, yeah, you really don't if you don't know the movie, you do not think Miller is going to die at the end because you're like, he's there at the end, right? Like he's a lot and he's like, no, no, no.

Eli (02:39:45.076)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But it is, it is a, like, it is one of those decisions that you know, like some people are not going to like. It's like some people are going to be like, and then some people are going to be like, come on. Like I roll. just got, when you make a decision like that, it's going to go like, you're going to have both reactions. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:40:07.118)
100%. the second thing it makes me think of is like the whole movie is about people's investment into preserving life. And like, that's kind of what an honorable investment into war is. Wherein like you are investing the possibility of sacrificing your own life for the greater goods, so to speak, however that's defined. you know, that's the ideal.

Eli (02:40:16.681)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:40:34.732)
And so like the fact that it goes from what we learn is Ryan's eyes into the eyes of the man who will then lead a group to save him is here is the the the story of the people who are then behind the story of Ryan even living at all. And so in that way, it's it's calling to the fact that like the because the film is putting to task the audience member to think the same way. The fact that there are people within

Eli (02:40:47.326)
Right.

Eli (02:40:53.844)
Right.

Eli (02:41:01.396)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:41:03.34)
your own life that you've never met ever that have continued to preserve your own life in respect to stuff. then in terms of like, as Christians, like you can't not think of Christ. And so like the idea of like going from my own eyes, transitioning to a life of Christ and then realizing, that entire life has been cost and paid and full to my own life. that, that then is what it makes me think of. And then the third thing is if

That idea of Edward Burns' character, Private Rybin, doing his scene at the end or book ending, I think that would be more compelling if the book end was longer and you had moments of maybe like, if the movie really wasn't about the act of saving Ryan, but was more like flashbacks and then to the present moment. And then it would be more about these old men.

Eli (02:41:38.772)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:41:51.519)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:41:59.982)
who are then reflecting on their lives very overtly in front of the camera. Wherein maybe Ryan didn't go on to cure cancer, but he actually got married, had an affair, ruined his life, and is trying to reconnect with his kids. And now Private Ryman's dealing with the idea of we spent all this time in the lives of other people to bring back a man who has made bad choices. Is that the right thing? That's a different movie?

Eli (02:42:21.396)
Yeah.

Eli (02:42:24.862)
Yeah.

It is, yeah. Yeah. Well, like, if you... All it is is that one little tweak at the end, right? And it makes it a totally different, like, thought, like... It totally changes the whole way you see the movie if you just make that one little change at the end. And so...

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:42:28.684)
And I kind of want to watch my movie now that I described it, but like it's it's not the same thing.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:42:44.45)
And it's not really a charge to the audience, which I think is what Spielberg wants to do. Like Spielberg is making a charge to the audience that like, like have you earned the right to even be sitting in the theater comfortably with air conditioning in the life you have.

Eli (02:42:48.551)
Yeah, he does.

Eli (02:42:56.552)
Right. And I think he is. think, I think when, I think when Hank says, earn this to Ryan as he's dying, I think that is Spielberg saying that to the audience in memory of these men that have died for the country. So at the end of the day, is a, like, it is a holy and fully like patriotic movie trying to honor veterans. and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like the,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:43:12.63)
Yeah, totally.

Eli (02:43:26.518)
You know, there's a degree to which like we do need to honor people that have fought in wars. it's not like, I think the, I think that war is an awful thing. And I think there should never be wars, like obviously, but I don't think anyone would disagree with that. Like, but they happen and people die. and yeah, and this, this too, like it being World War II.

Makes it a little bit easier. It's a little bit harder when you have like, you know, wars that seem a little less ethical. But this is, this is a war that's really easy to get behind. Like, okay, we're going to stop Hitler. Like everybody wants to stop Hitler, you know. It's the classic, like he's, he's, he's doing an actual war movie where the Nazis are the bad guys. Instead of an Indiana Jones movie where the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:44:12.576)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:44:22.232)
Yeah.

Eli (02:44:25.3)
where you have the easy villain and the Nazis, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. my, if I have any like issue with the movie, I don't like love the bookends. I think they're like.

I do things like the, I don't know. Here's the thing. Here's, yeah, they do. They feel very different. They, I don't think you need.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:44:49.688)
They feel very different from the rest of the movie.

Eli (02:44:59.592)
I don't think you need them necessarily. or you need less, you need just less, some less, a little less. And I don't particularly like the, like earn this like line. And here's why, because like the whole film Spielberg is just doing an incredible job of like show, don't tell, he like over and over again, he's doing show, don't tell. Like I'm going to show you what these people are feeling.

so that you can empathize with it. I'm gonna show you like these emotions instead of like telling you, hey, this is how you should feel. And then like you end the movie with like trying to like shove a like take away from the film, like down my throat. And I'm like, I probably would have taken that away without you trying to shove it down my throat on my own, just by the experience that I just had. And so like when

When I've already had the experience with the move that I've had, and then like, now you're like trying to shove this like moral takeaway down my throat. Now, like, I'm going to like kind of step back and be like, Whoa, like I'm to be a little resistant to it. Whereas before I would have just like taken it and run with it. So that is like one thing that I think personally didn't entirely work for me. And it, and it even kind of feels like

jerk thing to say to a dude like Yeah, it feels like really like it you're you've been such a like Nice guy and a very like moral upstanding guy all through this movie and then like you're like pulling this kid in and saying this it's like That doesn't really make sense for the character either to me so

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:46:30.21)
Yeah, it's interesting.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:46:51.928)
That's interesting. So the shadow and tell thing I think is true because like he, Spielberg sets up these scenes where they're constantly bringing up the cost of human life. Like what is the cost of human life? So the dialogue scene between, in the church where, you know, Millard says like, I can make the decision to like,

Eli (02:47:06.43)
Yeah. Yeah, and it's great.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:47:18.266)
lead to direct my soldiers to do something knowing that they may die because if one dies, it's possible. Whatever they were doing might save two, three, 10 people. And he's like, which, which is setting up the idea of like, but now people are dying for one person. And so like the math doesn't lead to add up. And then they have a later scene where they meet like a pilot who crash lands. And it's because they, they crash land because he wasn't notified of the load of the plane.

Eli (02:47:33.446)
One guy, yeah.

Eli (02:47:47.828)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:47:47.886)
So it ends up crashing and the load was prepped because it was made to protect a general who had the like protective armor on the plane and like a car in the plane, which then caused them when they crashed for the car to like essentially sandwich every soldier in the back like and kill them all. So he's the only one who survives. And they pointedly say like all that for one general, like how important can one general be? So someone in position of power and all those people die.

Eli (02:47:56.926)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:48:06.643)
Yeah.

Eli (02:48:13.549)
Mm. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:48:17.428)
And, so there, there's a lot of stuff consistently like throughout that like sets this up so that at the end we're getting as the audience, like, okay, there's a lot of investment into one person. that worth it? But my emotional reaction and tears, which poured out my face throughout the film, even to the end of like earn this. then even the bookends at the end are so, strong that like,

Eli (02:48:27.135)
Yes.

Eli (02:48:35.689)
Yeah.

Eli (02:48:45.513)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:48:46.284)
Because I'm buying into the fact that now like Spielberg is raking sure to hit home to the audience, which is not always as intelligent as people wish they were. think like he is, he is trusting the audience to put up with a lot because the film is so brutal that then he's getting to this point of really just saying like, turn away from all the flashiness, turn away from the technicals of which we've learned our Oscars for and just.

Eli (02:48:56.5)
That's true. Yeah.

Eli (02:49:04.532)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:49:13.966)
recognize like what I'm trying to say, which is, you know, pulling the audience to the Miller's face, as as real as with Ryan and saying earn this and I so to me like I stepped away with it feeling good.

Eli (02:49:23.838)
Yeah. And asking yourself the question like the old man does, I guess at the end, like, yeah, was I a good man? yeah, I, yeah, I, I love that you love it. And I think that, I think that a lot of people did and have loved that aspect of it. You know, we talked about a lot of the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:49:30.082)
Yeah, like did I live a good life? Like that's so great. Yeah, I love it.

Eli (02:49:51.668)
people, a lot of the critics were talking about the, you know, the mature use of like emotional manipulation. And that's probably like one of the major scenes they're talking about when they're saying that. but I don't know, I feel like I would have, I don't love the earn this line. I just think it's like, it feels weird for the character for me. and I, I feel like the, I feel like the bookend

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:50:05.006)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:50:21.67)
Emphasizes that by dragging out his like wrestling a little bit too long and like having the wife come up and him like asking her because like, what is she going to say? Like, you know, no, you're pretty, pretty, pretty blah life. Like, of course she's going to be like, yeah, you lived a good life. Like who, who wouldn't like what spouse wouldn't, you know, reassure you even if like your life wasn't that great. Like what spouse isn't kind of like reassure you that you.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:50:34.602)
Yeah

Eli (02:50:50.526)
Like lived a good life. I don't know. It's just feels if it just feels weird to me.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:50:51.79)
Yeah, and like, can-

Eli (02:50:59.37)
I just wish it could have been a little bit less. Like it could have been, it could have been like less dragged out. yeah. And then I don't know, like it doesn't even end on that. It ends on like, waving American flag and which doesn't read. It might've read well at the time, but now like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:51:05.676)
Yes, totally.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:51:20.972)
Yeah, it's an, that's the true book. And it's just really interesting.

Eli (02:51:28.094)
The true bookend is the waving American flag and I don't know that just reads weird to me now. I'm like, but I'm also like, not like the super patriot guys. So like, that just feels weird to me. I'm like, yes, I love my country and I'm glad I was born in my country, but I'm like, I'm not like super patriot.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:51:43.33)
Mm-hmm. Me too, yeah.

Eli (02:51:53.448)
You know, USA America is the best country that ever was and ever will be. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:51:57.654)
It's like the music. It's correlation has been co-opted in such weird ways that like, that that feels like something it does. And which is annoying because like, it's my flag too, you know, it's your flag too. So it is bizarre that it feels that way. I think it's one of those things where like, if, if the U S federal or state had like a similar to like Australia or New Zealand, like a film board where they would like,

Eli (02:52:01.437)
It is.

The American flag feels weird. Yes. Now it does.

Eli (02:52:11.026)
Yeah, right.

Eli (02:52:24.106)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:52:24.952)
Hey, we'll give you some money, but you got to bookend the film with the American flag. Like then like, I feel like it would be more sensible, but it does feel a little odd. but as a film that's also, yeah, yeah, that's not that, that distracting, but yeah, I, the final thing, like just to put the rest, like the book ending and the, you know, the wife coming up, like this movie isn't stalker where it's like super slow paced and just constant conversation about philosophy and.

Eli (02:52:28.266)
Yeah.

Eli (02:52:33.404)
Yeah, it's not a big deal to me, but yeah.

Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:52:55.374)
And so it doesn't have it doesn't earn this point where like a character who is barely in the bin in the film can step in and then turn out to be deeply important. So like the wife and stalker is really like the book end of the movie. And she's like, borderline hysterical, the beginning of the film and weird. And that's like your first sign to be like, maybe this movie isn't for me. And then like, by the time you persevere for the film,

Eli (02:53:03.762)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:53:10.597)
Yeah, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:53:22.412)
And you get to the end, she ends it with this monologue directly to the viewer, as that film does several times. And like, it ends up being so deeply important and so deeply valuable to better understanding the material. so like this movie isn't, it's not an art house film. It's not like just doing weird things to do it. And if you buy into it, makes it better. It's being much more conventional because Spielberg is so brilliant at doing so.

Eli (02:53:26.676)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:53:33.002)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:53:50.988)
So yeah, does feel, it really does come out of place, but I think like that's also because it's filmed differently from the rest of the film. It feels very different from the rest of the film. then, yeah, like looks are so important. We have connected with Private Ryan as Matt Damon, not Private Ryan as old man. So it does, it requires some buying into.

Eli (02:53:59.143)
It is,

Eli (02:54:08.733)
Yeah.

Yeah, and it Another thing like this is kind of adjacent, you know, we can kind of wrap that talk up about the book ends up but like the The ryan character is like I don't know. It's it's hard to even like like him. So if Like he has the whole He's barely in the movie. So like you don't get close to him. And then when you finally do meet him, he's like he's like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:54:32.14)
Yeah, he's barely in the movie. Yeah.

Eli (02:54:40.082)
not as emotional as you feel like he should be about his brother's dying and his mom being alone now. And then, and he's like, no, I'm staying. And then like, he tells this like really immature punk kind of sounding story about like, like immature sexual story about his brothers to, to Miller. And you're like, this is just a punk kid, you know.

And so like they, they don't set you up to make you feel like Ryan was really worth it. And then like in the end, he's asking the question, like, was I worth it? And you're like, well, I don't know if you stayed like you were like, maybe not, you know? And so, I don't know. It's just, that just even the ads to ads to that of like, I don't know, but like me, I'm like, even if somebody

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:55:24.566)
Yeah.

Eli (02:55:37.342)
didn't live the best life, they're still worth saving. But there is like the moral question we can get into that is like, is like the sacrificing of six potential sacrifice of six dudes worth this one kid's life or I don't know. It's a question that honestly, I don't know how to answer because like it's one of those questions that like you would ask.

At first thought you would think like, yeah, it's worth it. Like you don't want to go to the utilitarianism like route of like doing the math to figure out the morals and figuring out like, do the means justify the ends? Like I am not like a utilitarianism like backer. Like I don't think that moral ethic is a good moral ethic. but that's

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:56:12.942)
Right, yes.

Eli (02:56:31.826)
What you would think at first glance is like, it's all about the math, but that, but I don't think it is like it's, it is a very like hard question, to, answer. And. You you put yourself in the, like in the shoes of those guys and you're like, why are we going through all this trouble for one kid? We don't even know if he's alive for one thing. and we're like putting our lives at risk.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:56:40.824)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:56:59.312)
go save this one kid instead of like putting our lives at risk for the actual war effort. And really like at the end of the day they're not even like putting their lives at risk for the kid but for the kid's mother which I guess is more commendable in a way because it's like the people back home that we're trying to save and and like so there's a sense in which that makes it maybe a little bit more commendable if you

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:57:15.854)
Great.

Eli (02:57:29.214)
view it through that way but I don't know it's a tough moral quandary that I don't know that there is an answer to honestly

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:57:40.332)
And it doesn't pursue the dour approach of like, all quiet on the Western front, where like, it just completely buys into just like this meaninglessness of violence. actually that one probably has more connection with a Malik film than anything, because the people are so covered in dirt, they're basically earth. But like, yeah, this one wants to converse about like,

Eli (02:57:53.418)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:58:03.113)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:58:08.834)
the contrast of it's right, but dot dot dot. cause yeah, even the beginning of the film starts that way with these, generals just like talking or whoever they are just talking about like, is, this make sense or not? And then a case is made, about historical president, but yeah.

Eli (02:58:11.997)
Right.

Eli (02:58:24.265)
Yeah.

Eli (02:58:27.656)
with the Lincoln letter that apparently is not exactly like it is in the movie. Not completely historically accurate, compelling, I guess. Yeah, you know. All right, let's talk about some good stuff, some stuff we liked. I always like to talk about Spielberg distinctives, things that I've seen through like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:58:32.866)
Right, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:58:39.633)
Mm-hmm

Eli (02:58:55.272)
watching through his filmography that I think are like, when I see these, I'm like, that's so Spielberg, you know? So some of the shots that I think he just does in every movie, he always makes sure there's a silhouette in his movies. I don't think I've seen one movie of his where there wasn't a silhouette at some point. low angle shots. like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:59:02.328)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:59:19.64)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:59:22.492)
a shot of a person from a low angle, like he loves those shots and there's always those in his movies. and then like also like he loves to do a push in to a, to an extreme close up, you know, you get that at the very beginning of the film going into, the old Ryan's eyes. Like he just, he loves those shots. and then like dude knows how to throw in a wide shot transition to give you context. Like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (02:59:42.126)
Mmm.

Eli (02:59:53.362)
He does that so many times in this movie and you kind of get a context for where you are and you know what, what to expect, you know, or even like, I think two of like a wide shot to kind of throw you off a little bit. you know, there's the wide shot of them work walking through the flower field just before they find private Ryan. And it gives you a kind of like a serene more like you feel safer cause they're walking through a flower field, but then it's like.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:00:03.086)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:00:23.24)
the tank comes. So it's even like using wide shots to kind of like set you up with the wrong feeling. for the most, just very good. and like, I think, I think something that this movie shows, that like, he might not have even done as well as he does here since the Indiana Jones movies is just like having

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:00:30.734)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:00:51.746)
incredible sense of space and geography for action sequences where the audience doesn't feel lost like in the middle of it all. And even like the chaos of the D-Day sequence like you still are able to like track where you are and where you're going even somehow in the midst of all the chaos which is just incredibly impressive something that Spielberg just does so well.

all through that last battle sequence, like I kept thinking like, it's so incredible that I kind of can keep track of where everyone is and what buildings they're in. and like knowing like, Upham's diving down here and like up behind him. that's the bell tower where, Jackson is doing his sniping and over here is the building where, you know, Nellish is, you know, I don't know. I'm just like this dude is.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:01:31.822)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:01:49.846)
It's impressive.

Eli (03:01:51.258)
knows how to like keep the audience on track with the geography of a sequence. It's incredible, honestly.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:01:58.222)
I often describe it as if you can like draw a map of a setting in a movie, especially a complicated one, then you should thank the like pre-production and the editing. cause it is, yeah, Rimmel doesn't exist and I can draw it. Like I could draw those sections and like, yeah, yeah, it would, yeah.

Eli (03:02:03.636)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:02:10.664)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (03:02:16.072)
Yeah. Or at least get pretty close, you know? Yeah. Yeah. He, and like similarly, he just, dude knows how to block a shot. Like, nobody's business. and then of course the tension building. I love that. let's talk about, let's just kind of talk.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:02:31.446)
Yeah, my gosh.

Eli (03:02:46.278)
about some intriguing scenes or images that we liked. We've kind of hit on a lot of these, maybe something that maybe we haven't talked about yet that you just found very like intriguing, maybe in the visuals or even just in the way the scene plays out. Do you have any more that we haven't hit on that standout?

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:03:06.45)
I did like how, when the information of the, the Ryan brothers dying is shared with the mother that you can see a photo of the four brothers on the table, but there's an American flag covering the face of the fourth one. And so I thought that was clever. very, yeah, it's very, it's very good, like movie logic stuff, to, do that.

Eli (03:03:19.176)
Mmm, yeah.

Eli (03:03:24.062)
I didn't notice that. That's great. Yeah.

Eli (03:03:30.9)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:03:33.568)
And I think Spielberg does well to like understand not to do too much of that, but just enough to keep like, you know, engaging and interesting. so that was interesting. I liked that. I thought it was really, I thought Hanks's moment when Captain Miller that's after, when is it? Is it after Seam but Willie gets away that he, like takes a moment to like settle down?

Eli (03:03:39.551)
Right.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:04:02.462)
And he like goes privately and then he just starts weeping and the way he breaks down is so good in terms of like a man who is trying not to, who is continually putting off that, that particular emotional expression and like the team or even his own sensibilities from like the type of crying he has, the way he like

Eli (03:04:04.86)
yeah, he breaks down right there.

Eli (03:04:13.439)
Yeah.

Eli (03:04:20.04)
Yeah, for the sake of the team, you know.

Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:04:29.006)
covers his face the way he looks to see that no one's coming. Like I found that all just really powerful, especially as like someone who has cried that way before sometimes. So like, it's just really like, it's just a good moment to take place. And it's like during a time where like, we've already understood that Miller is like a vigilant, observant individual who takes like part of why he's the leader he is, is because he understands when to...

Eli (03:04:35.785)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:04:57.816)
do and when not to do. And here's a moment where his body has taken over his body and decided, no, you have to do this right now. And so I found that very, I thought that was a great moment.

Eli (03:04:59.325)
Yeah.

Eli (03:05:03.89)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's in that's actually in between I think when the medic way dies and before he lets the German go. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:05:16.43)
Yes, you're correct. Cause yeah, I think that they go back and that's when I'm up them is smoking with them. and then, I think that just the, the, the action here is just so good in terms of being like tactile, especially now in the, in the year of our Lord, 2024, where movies become less and less tactile. And I I'm almost positive. That's why the terrifying movies are so popular right now is because it's just practical effects of.

Eli (03:05:22.216)
Yeah.

Eli (03:05:38.136)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:05:45.718)
awful violence that makes you react. And I think like the fact that this movie is so visceral is so like part of why it's so good. And to then bring up Band of Brothers again, I always remember there's that one scene, I think it's when they're at Bastogne, is that what it's called? It's like snowing in the forest.

Eli (03:05:53.022)
Yeah.

Eli (03:06:09.521)
Yeah, something like that, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:06:11.446)
And the one guy gets shot, not like straight through his chest to his back, but from his left arm through his like, like torso out his right arm. And like, you just feel it when you see that happen. You're like, that is the worst way to get shot. And, like, I just appreciate when movies or storytelling or films or whatever, just have tactile violence because violence ought to be shocking and uncomfortable and tactile. so.

Eli (03:06:23.269)
Ugh, yeah.

Eli (03:06:39.452)
Yes, yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:06:40.278)
Yeah, those details to me are nice. I liked all that stuff.

Eli (03:06:43.9)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. another thing, one more thing that I thought of as you were talking was probably my favorite line in the movie is after Miller has that breakdown where he says, know, I think I wrote it down, every man I kill the farther away from home I feel. And I was like, man, what a great line.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:07:02.915)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:07:08.888)
So good. Super good.

Eli (03:07:09.79)
so just emphasize like the value of human life, you know, and how like taking human life, even in the context of war is like ripping pieces of your humanity off. Like, you know, even knowing like this as far as like anyone can tell this is a just war. we're, we're, we're, we're doing this for the good of the world, you know, of the entire world.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:07:24.344)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:07:39.4)
you know, actually, as far as we can tell, you know, this is a good moral thing that we're, that we're trying to do. But even in that context, taking another human life is like soul ripping. and I thought that was, that was probably my favorite, like line and in the movie for sure. yeah, I do think, I do think it's

It would be, we can dig into a little bit more that idea of like experiencing war and violence in films. because I do think like, there's so many like fine lines with that, you know, of like, when is it, when are you crossing the line? And when is it just like having too much fun with it? And when is it like important to like feel the, the

horror of it, you know? I think, and I think too, like, it's very subjective as well for each person. Each person kind of has to, like, know for themselves where those lines are for them. But yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. I did write down a few quotes from Spuylberg about kind of, like, some of his objectives with

having the audience experience war on this level. One of them, about the opening scene, he said, quote, here I wanted to bring the audience onto the stage with me and demand them to be participants with those kids who had never seen combat before in real life. And we get to the top of Omaha beach together, unquote. And I think that's, I think that's important to think about is that like Spielberg,

has been like doing all this research and inevitably in his research he finds out like these are a lot of these are like kids for one thing you know Pete they're they're men that today we would call kids like they're 17 they're 18 like they're kids and two like none of them knew what was about to happen

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:09:46.082)
Yes.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:09:52.75)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:10:02.206)
Like they're heading onto this beach. They don't know that they're getting it, what they're getting into because they all thought like, the bombers have like taken out most of the Germans. We're just going to land on the beach and, you know, figure out what our objective is next. know, but the, the bombs dropped, like we're not done correctly or something like that. don't remember the exact history of it, but like they miss their marks basically. so like they didn't take out.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:10:25.314)
Yeah.

Eli (03:10:32.182)
the Germans that were there and so they were basically just like walking into a slaughterhouse like Ambrose talked about how like some of those boats like nobody made it out of the boat not nobody even made it off of the stepped off of the boat they just got all mowed down so I do think there is some merit in like just like a filmmaker

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:10:47.854)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:11:01.194)
taking the swing of I am going to like, I want my audience to see how terrible this was and to experience that and not just like for not just like for the sake of that, but because like it's important to realize like what men that are in war go through and it's not just all like valor and heroism.

It's like landing on a beach, not knowing what in the world you're getting into, being confused, being scared, and trying to just survive. And yeah, it's really great. Another quote that I think is very telling is Spielberg said, quote, I think Vietnam pushed people from my generation to tell the truth about war without glorifying it, unquote.

And I thought that was good. and I think it's an example of like I was talking about earlier, wars that like, we feel like we're, we're justly taken, like that justly happened, to a certain degree. And then wars possibly like maybe Vietnam that maybe were unjustly involved with like, you know, it, and it's all very like,

There's a lot to it. There's a lot of nuance to all of that stuff. realize, but I think Spielberg here is just kind of saying, you know, Hey, this war in Vietnam, like in hindsight, like bad idea. so we need to maybe be a little bit more blunt about what roar, what war really is instead of like pretending that it's just like all valor and glory and heroism, you know, there's

There's brutality to it. There's evil in it. There's, you know, it's not something to be just played around with. It's not something that just like, say we're going to do this war, like, because it's there. It's like, no, you know, this is, this is not a toy. Yeah. This is the worst thing.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:13:17.048)
This is the worst thing, yeah.

Eli (03:13:23.124)
But yeah, and he did say in one of the interviews that, hey, war is hell and like nobody needs to learn that lesson. And so it, which was interesting to hear, cause he's kind of saying like, that's why I made this, I didn't make this movie to show people that war is hell because everybody already knows that. And so he really says,

One of the things he talked about several times was the theme of like trying to show these particular characters trying to find decency in the midst of that hell. Which I thought was is interesting to think about. I guess there are like just everyday life parallels because life in general can feel like hell sometimes.

depending on circumstances and trying to find decency within that is an interesting thought. But I don't know. Did you have any thoughts about anything else that was explored in the film or?

There's, there's a lot to all of that. War is a very sticky subject. Especially because it's like, I don't want to dishonor. I want to be able to talk about war and like the, the way I feel about it as a concept without like dishonoring men that have like served and died in wars, you know, cause I think those are separate things.

I don't think just soldiers that have died in war are bad because they took part in the war, obviously. And so it's hard to talk about because of that, I think.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:15:18.38)
Yeah, I think the movie kind of does a good job of understanding and displaying to the audience a mixture of like, how of the responsibility that's given to you out of like a chain of command, one's own involvement and how they're responsible for those decisions and also not responsible for those decisions. And then also kind of coming down to like the results of

Eli (03:15:34.783)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:15:47.968)
said decisions. Cause a lot of the moral quandaries are sometimes debates amongst characters about what you do and what you don't do. And then whether or not that will come down to your like consequence or it's a consequence of just following the order. and like, if the order is sound or sensible, then you're capable of at the very least leaning on something. if the, but if not, then, then

Eli (03:15:56.201)
Yeah.

Eli (03:16:05.137)
Right. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:16:17.222)
or at the very least, if you personally do not adhere to it, like that's when like a lot of the conflict starts to come out. mean, know, Caparzo dies because he doesn't listen to the order of like, we do, we do don't take kids. Like we're in an act of not just, we're not just in a warfare right now, but we're in an act of battle skirmish this moment. You cannot take that job. And like, so there there's a lot of like, moments that the film that,

Eli (03:16:24.403)
Yeah.

Eli (03:16:30.172)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:16:36.424)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:16:44.558)
push those details onto display. And I think what Spielberg does by, instead of just saying, you know, war is hell, which he doesn't really do. what he does is he shows the dynamics of how war completely disrupts the functions of human relationships and, ultimately kills it at times. and, yeah, obviously again, all these things are expounded upon in Banner Brothers further, but like they are fully on display here.

Eli (03:16:52.531)
Right.

Eli (03:17:13.897)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:17:15.787)
and the parts are coming together with a really great whole. So yeah, it's good stuff.

Eli (03:17:20.746)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really like that. That's that's I did. I did want to end with a final thought. And it was it was sparked by something that Spielberg's dad Arnold Spielberg said in one of the making of pieces. He says essentially that the more you talk about the horrors of war, the less likely you are to get involved in another. And my

question as a final thought is has history shown us that this is not true? Because I feel like I feel like history has shown us that like is not necessarily true that being aware of the horrors of war prevents you from getting into more because what keeps happening is we we keep getting into more and more wars.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:17:57.304)
Yeah

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:18:14.349)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, humanity has had more time in war than time not in war.

Eli (03:18:21.212)
Yeah. And so, yeah, everyone knows war is hell and yet it's still is happening. so I don't know. It, it makes you wonder too about like, okay, like what is the point of war movies then if, if it's not going to deter a war by raising awareness of how awful war is, then what is the point of a war movie? and I think that's something that maybe Spielberg does.

do well in this movie. If he really was saying, I'm not trying to say war is hell with this movie because everyone already knows it is, I'm more exploring these human elements and these moral questions and quandaries, then that's almost like even bigger props to Spielberg because, you know, they did have his dad saying that in the making of Doc, but that wasn't from Spielberg. That was from his dad. So

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:19:19.822)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:19:20.146)
yeah, I don't know. It's, one of those things that's like, okay, if being more aware of war doesn't necessarily prevent war, then what is the point of a war movie? I think that's an important question, like for filmmakers to ask when they're making a war movie. what is the, why am I making this? and is it going to do more harm than good or

You know, I think that's an important question to ask when, you know, when making this movie or even like people can get really obsessed with the history of war. and it is fascinating. but y'all, think it is an important question to ask too. Like, why am I so fascinated with this? You know, am I, what am I taking away from this? but yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:20:02.542)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:20:15.64)
Yeah. mean, I think Arnold Spielberg's like quote is definitely part a part of the film, but it's not what the film is about. And that's very clear. Like Spielberg obviously saying like, I'm not making an like, you know, war is hell movie. I think what Spielberg is then doing with the film is using the history is fictionalized, you know, version of the history to then, say something about what

Eli (03:20:20.328)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:20:24.219)
Yeah.

Eli (03:20:37.972)
version of it.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:20:45.702)
by the reality of war, what war has. in some cases that is when honorable, when people put their lives on the line, what does that cost? like turning it, know, earn it, like turning it to the audience and saying, are you worth it? And like, what are you doing to make it worth it? And so in that regard, like I think,

Eli (03:20:51.359)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:21:08.297)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:21:13.294)
on this film alone, like it's not probably what if Arnold Spielberg has the father watching the film being made is, is hoping like, I don't think the film goes that direction. I mean, I think if anything, that would be what like, all quiet on the Western front actually is, but it that's existed for longer than saving private Ryan and there's been more since then. So,

Eli (03:21:22.589)
Yeah.

Eli (03:21:33.619)
Yeah, sure.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:21:40.782)
And that's about World War I, so not even two. So yeah, in response to your main kind of observation of war films, the ethic of it, possibly preventing war, I think it really just comes down to maybe a misunderstanding of the desperate sickness of the human heart and the fact that because of greed and pride and jealousies and lust,

Eli (03:21:42.228)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:22:09.812)
wars happen. mean, just the fact that like, like, it's coming to mind, like, pride and greed, obviously start wars, but then you have like, Absalom, having this hatred for his father, David, in the Old Testament, because of the rape of Tamar, and the fact that David doesn't respond to it appropriately. So now lust has caused war. And so, and so there is so much

Eli (03:22:11.178)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:22:32.81)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:22:39.854)
more to it. And I think it showcases the like two things, one that there's a lot of power that God has permitted man to have. And then two that that power has the effect of causing war, going from maybe a particular intimate desire that one person has, that then can spiral and develop into so much more damaging material.

Eli (03:22:41.288)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:23:06.242)
I mean, obviously, you know, like World War One with Franz Ferdinand. so like, yeah, it's a it's, it's an interesting thought to have, because I do think like, maybe one would be reticent to like, I want to still be greedy, but I want to try not to cause a war. So I'll just be greedy with with no war ethic in mind. But like, you can't prevent that because sin is a lack of control of the self. And then when you sin, you cause a lack of control of beyond yourself. So

Eli (03:23:09.738)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:23:15.37)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:23:35.464)
Yeah. Yeah. And this, yeah, and this isn't something that this film really explores at all, but like just to the idea that like our, our flaws seep into the systems and the wars eventually like sprawl out of like the flaws in those systems and the flaws in the way that our system conflicts with someone else's system.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:23:36.192)
and can spiral into war. It's an interesting thought, but I think it's a little naive.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:23:45.006)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:23:59.564)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (03:24:05.022)
you know, when our way of life conflicts with someone else's way of life, and how like it all, yeah, it all like, it's like a bottom up kind of problem, in a way. but yeah, that's not really exploring this, but yeah, I guess like the question, I just had that question because like, I feel like in the past, I've always felt like, the

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:24:05.486)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:24:33.598)
The best way to do war movies is to like really make people feel like war is hell because you know, that's how we should feel about war. And I think there is still merit to that. like I think the, even like the most recent version of all quiet on the Western front was like really well made and like kind of gets that point across. like, yeah. but like, I think to like,

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:24:57.134)
Gnarly movie.

Eli (03:25:03.998)
That shouldn't, maybe that shouldn't ultimately be the goal of a war movie because it doesn't really work. So like, maybe we should be doing other things with these movies. I don't know, just kind of a challenge I was thinking about because of the way I've thought about war movies in the past. but yeah, the, the other question we should close with is, is this the greatest modern war movie?

I think like objectively, probably so. I don't think it would be my favorite necessarily, but it's, I think I would still consider this a modern movie. even though it's how old would that be now? Like, 26, 25, 26 years old. So still a modern movie. I would say in movie history and.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:25:50.643)
yeah, 98, yeah, that's moderate.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:25:55.918)
25 years.

Eli (03:26:06.282)
Yeah, I don't know. have like, I think I like the thin red line more just in as a movie, but, but objectively, yeah, this probably is the greatest, like taking my personal preference out of it as much as I can. Yeah. I don't know. Can you think of anything else like that would, that you would say like tops this as far as like the.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:26:27.672)
Yeah.

Eli (03:26:35.134)
great war movie that like is revered by culture and yeah I don't know I can't think of one.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:26:41.592)
Well, sticking to just movies, because in terms of like war narrative on film, think Band of Brothers is like, just can't go without mentioning it again, but just it is leagues ahead of even this. But I do think the latest All Quiet film does come close. There is one moment in that film that has just such bad editing that I really can't stand.

Eli (03:26:48.808)
Yeah, that's fair.

Eli (03:27:05.972)
That's fair, yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:27:10.282)
towards the end of the film, but otherwise the material itself, think reaches that category. And I think it's more art housey than people probably expected it to be. I mentioned the dirt, like what I found so like when it was nominated for everything, including like, you know, makeup and costumes and stuff, I was like, well, it's, I can't remember if it won, but I felt like it was going to win just because I was like, you know, these people are covered in dirt.

Eli (03:27:10.568)
Ha ha.

Eli (03:27:16.5)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:27:21.097)
Yes.

Eli (03:27:31.475)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:27:40.064)
And like, there is no way this film is not evoking the imagery of like, you know, from dust you came and dust you return. And like these men are, are turning into the dirt being suffocated into the dirt kiln. So like all of the arthousey kind of bizarre violence of the film, I think was definitely up there. so that one is close. There, there are some other admirable temps. Like I know there's like saints and soldiers. And then I know there's also a documentary called

Restrepo that is supposed to be just like, and it's a, it's a modern documentary about like, I think either desert storm or, or at the very least like mid two thousands. and it's this really like, I listened to an interview about it and I, I've been meaning to watch it soon, but, the interview talks about like how it's this, this really fascinating depiction of these military men, not depiction. It's just actual footage.

who are defending like a post from like borderline daily attacks, and how like most of the men miss it. And like, why and it explores that like, there's an honesty, there is a breaking down of, like ego that took place, that like, they all felt so much more of an intimacy amongst their connections and how they cared for one another, and how they sacrifice for one another, that like it became

complicated for them as a moment in their life. in that way, think that itself could perhaps in a different genre combat the quality of Sitting Prior to Ryan. But I think you're right. Right. Because it's such a different way of engaging material. And you know, it's nonfiction. here, it is quintessential. If you are someone who wants to engage like war,

Eli (03:29:17.119)
Yeah.

Eli (03:29:20.626)
Yeah, it's hard to compare a documentary though to fiction. yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Eli (03:29:34.804)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:29:37.378)
films as a way of like, like, I would almost say like the healthiest ways poetry to understand it, like Saving Private Ryan is peak it's up there.

Eli (03:29:44.2)
Yeah, that's why the that's why Thin Red Line I think is so good. Because that's that's that's Malick's like a main mode of speaking as poet, like visual poetry. So yeah, the only the only other one I can think so I think I think Thin Red Line is up there for me as far as like modern horror movies and then Dunkirk I think is Dunkirk is like an incredible film.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:29:51.222)
Yeah, that goes full poetry.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:29:56.968)
Borderline prayer. Just the whole film.

Eli (03:30:15.302)
It doesn't like, it's not quite as brutal as Saving Private Ryan is. It's a little cleaner as far as that goes. but was it, what was, was it rated PG-13? I'm looking it up. Yes. So it's, it's PG-13. So it's, it's nowhere near as like violently brutal, but, but still a very like disconcerting film.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:30:30.882)
I can't remember. I'll find out right now. It was?

Eli (03:30:43.898)
in many ways because of the way that Nolan uses tension and, yeah, I would probably put those three up there as like, far as modern war movies. I really enjoyed, I did really enjoy Hacksaw Ridge. it, yeah. I'm not like the hugest fan of 1917. I thought it was like a good movie. Not, not too, not great.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:31:01.772)
Yeah, that was okay. It was a good one.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:31:12.866)
fun in theaters and it was a roller coaster ride. That was kind of it. yeah.

Eli (03:31:13.908)
Felt yeah, felt a bit gimmicky to me. so, but yeah, I would probably put the, my, my three, like modern war movies that I would be like, these are the, the three would probably be this movie saving private Ryan alongside the thin red line and Dunkirk, I would say. but yeah, those are, there's also probably plenty that I haven't seen. So maybe you're listening and you're like, no, this one too, or

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:31:34.379)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:31:44.056)
Ha ha.

Eli (03:31:44.262)
yeah, please. You can email me at establishing shot pod at gmail.com and let me know. feel free to do that. But yeah, the other, just the very, very last thing about this movie is I think this is probably like Spielberg's last iconic movie. Like he has great, really great movies after this, but like

I'm not sure that he makes necessarily another like this was an iconic movie for him and in many ways and I don't know I'm struggling to think of like a film since this one that like you could say is iconic for him.

Eli (03:32:34.598)
that like has kind of stuck as like a Spielberg like you know Mount Rushmore sort of that you can make an argument like this should be on his Mount Rushmore but yeah I think the Fableman's is really really good and underseen and underrated maybe not underrated by those who've seen it but maybe just underseen but yeah I don't know

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:32:49.228)
Yeah, yeah, I get you.

Eli (03:33:04.339)
He has great ones like I've The run that he goes on after this of ai minority report catch me if you can like three really great movies but none of them necessarily like iconic of like This belongs on this. This might belong on the spillberg like mount rushmore, you know

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:33:25.838)
It's interesting because Catch Me If You Can is like based on popularity on letterbox is his number one listed movie and then Jurassic Park's behind it, which is crazy. Cause I didn't even, I didn't even know he did Catch Me If You Can. So like, that's how like,

Eli (03:33:34.514)
It is interesting that it is, but yeah.

Eli (03:33:43.496)
Yeah. That popularity thing changes like month to month though on letterbox. So it's just kind of like, it might just be sometimes that's just based on like what's on Netflix, you know? Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:33:49.806)
It does. That's 100 % true.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:33:55.544)
probably true. Yeah, I do know there was some people who just absolutely adored his West Side story.

Eli (03:34:01.436)
I did enjoy it. I liked it more than the original, to be honest.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:34:05.142)
And even Tintin, I know people just like exploded with joy over Tintin, but otherwise like, yeah, there aren't. Right. There hasn't seemed to be that. Right. Exactly. They, nothing's has quite captured like, you know, Raiders, ET, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan. If anything, like

Eli (03:34:08.19)
haven't seen it.

Eli (03:34:13.554)
But like iconic, like, cause great and iconic is different, you know?

Eli (03:34:25.468)
Right. Yeah, Jaws, Raiders, ET.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:34:32.554)
Ready Player One's iconic for being like embarrassing. it's, it's like the opposite and even Close Encounters, which is like less seen is still like considered iconic for many. And I mean, I, I take, didn't even like that one. like, yeah, it's, so like, yeah, it's a, yeah, it's super in, yeah. I don't know what his next like big one would be. War Horse isn't it? That's not, no way.

Eli (03:34:35.998)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (03:34:42.782)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (03:34:47.252)
That is a hot take. do like that movie.

Eli (03:34:58.1)
Yeah.

Eli (03:35:02.504)
Yeah, but yeah, just an interesting thought like this might be his last iconic movie I think the fabled men should be probably considered in that I think it's a really really great film that like is so like Uniquely Spielberg and not just like the way it's made but obviously like the subject matter. It's like basically a quasi autobiography but yeah, I don't know for me this is like

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:35:02.607)
yeah, so bizarre.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:35:08.674)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:35:27.79)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (03:35:34.142)
This is prob- this probably is a hot take, but this movie in like my rankings I have like just outside of the top 10. So that probably is a hot take. Most people would probably say like, Saving Private Ryan should be in the top 10 Spielberg movies. Maybe even like in the top five, maybe. But yeah, not for me. It's like just outside of the top 10. So I don't know.

But I have like, I'm a letterbox list junkie. I don't know if you are or not, but

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:36:09.864)
At the very least I do the yearlies that's for sure

Eli (03:36:12.008)
Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. I don't know. Where would you put this? Would you probably make, make this in your top Spielberg movies? Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:36:22.578)
yeah, definitely. think it captures, I think, what I would want from a Spielberg movie. That's like a quote unquote adult version of what he does. And it feels like a Spielberg movie too. I think that's important as well.

Eli (03:36:34.794)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yes. Yeah.

Eli (03:36:44.554)
It does.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:36:47.342)
He has his staples. talked about some of them and I'm always just fascinated by how he's comfortable directing various characters to just talk over each other and you can just keep up. mean, as far back as Jaws, like everyone talks over each other in Jaws. And yeah, he finds a way to go into like a different type of film that is far more serious than his material usually had been.

Eli (03:37:00.746)
You

Eli (03:37:09.066)
Mm-hmm.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:37:15.958)
It comes out great and it feels like his movie and, and yeah. So I think it's absolutely up there with me. there's still a fair amount of blind spots that, of his that I haven't seen. and unfortunately, honestly, yeah. And so like, there are definitely like probably attempts for other ones to like supersede it. but yeah, like it's, it's, it's up there. It's, it's great.

Eli (03:37:27.284)
Yep, I'm working through mine.

Eli (03:37:44.968)
Yeah, I've had some blind spots that I've filled in that like, I really, really like. you know, like I have, I gave Private Ryan like a solid, I mean, really good, really great movie, like four stars, you know, eight out of 10. but yeah, I have a big tier of like Spielberg for me, like basically like the top half of his filmography is eight out of 10, you know,

or higher. So it's like, it's hard to find like a bad, it's hard to find a really bad Spielberg movie. They're out there. I've watched them, but they're hard to find. Yeah, I have down at number 36 in my rankings at the very bottom, a movie that we, that might also deal with this war in a way.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:38:15.616)
Yeah, yeah, he knows what he's doing. Yeah.

Eli (03:38:44.948)
You know, whatever well, I'm not gonna mention its name again Yeah Yeah, that that's really like I mean there's we could probably go on for another hour, but we're not going to on this movie Yeah, Melvin, why don't you share? quickly where people can follow you they're interested in and

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:38:53.262)
Voldemort of Spielberg films.

Eli (03:39:14.63)
and what you're doing with cinematic doctrine, how can they find, what's the best place for them to follow you, I guess.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:39:22.19)
Yeah. Well, first off, thanks for inviting me back on. This is a lot of fun. saving program was just really fun to revisit and it was about time I got back to it. Anyway. yeah. So cinema doctrines on pretty much every podcast app, Spotify. I don't think it's even called iTunes anymore. Apple podcasts, I think is what it's called. and just pretty much everything else that you can find under the sun. I'm probably on it. yeah. And if you're a fan of movie discussions, you're going to enjoy it. If you're a fan of comedic.

Eli (03:39:28.458)
Mm.

Eli (03:39:38.248)
Yeah,

Eli (03:39:44.933)
Yeah.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:39:51.278)
from beginning to end discussions, you're gonna enjoy the party pleasers. And then if you're a fan of just general topical stuff, check out those Let's Talk episodes. And yeah, we're on Instagram, so you can check out some stuff there. You'll get good teasers for a couple episodes that have gone up, just reminders that like, you know, they exist. And then you also can go to threads and we're also on there too, Cinebac Doctrine as well.

Eli (03:40:09.694)
Yeah.

Eli (03:40:13.876)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where I see you the most is, it's on threads and Instagram. So those are probably the good places. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'll make sure to link, link all that stuff in the episode description too. So, but yeah, next week, Melvin is joining me again. We're gonna, since it's the beginning of the year, it's not now as we're recording this, but

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:40:22.528)
I think there's TikTok too. Yeah, there definitely is, but it's mostly just the same reels that are posted on on a Insta. Fo show.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:40:42.318)
hehe

Eli (03:40:42.824)
Well, you're listening. will be, we're going to talk about, like, we're going to give a top five each. We're each going to give our own top five, inspirational movies to start the year. So we're trying to give you guys some extra oomph to, to hopefully get those resolutions going, you know, get inspired to start off 2025. We're, you know, we're all going to need some inspiration to start off next year. think, I have a.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:41:11.654)
yeah.

Eli (03:41:12.36)
have a strange feeling. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, then, yeah, the week after that, obviously we'll keep going with Spielberg with AI. I already recorded that episode. It's good episode. yeah. So yeah, join us next week again for top five inspirational movies. yeah, until then, I've been Eli Price from Melvin Benson. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:41:14.136)
Need inspiration tomorrow morning.

Melvin (Cinematic Doctrine) (03:41:27.458)
nice.

Eli (03:41:41.864)
We'll see you next time.