One of Hollywood’s biggest hits, as well as award-winning director Steven Spielberg, Save Private Ryan It is still talked about today for the precision with which the bloodiest battles of the Second World War were recreated.
From the reconstruction of D-Day to the final battle set in France, the 1998 film is a standout point of reference among current war films. The work that Spielberg and his team did to give the public the most realistic representation of the war was, for the actors involved, something they had never experienced.
The training camp led by veteran Dale Dye – already involved in previous years with the cast of Oliver Stone’s Platoon – who for days pushed the film’s protagonists to the limit, it was the reason why the project risked derailing at a certain point. The conditions the actors were enduring pushed them to carry out a sort of mutiny. An exceptional cast which included a – then in his infancy – Matt Damon chosen by Spielgberg to play Ryan for a specific reason. Captain Dale Dye, called upon by the director to lend his enormous experience on the battlefield, pushed the cast, led by movie star Tom Hanks, to the limit in what we could define as a true military training simulation.
Some of the faces featured in the film defined the training as “the worst experience of my life“. “It’s 30 degrees at night and you’re in a soaking wet tent, with a soaking wet uniform, with a soaking wet blanket wrapped around you” the words of Edward Burns. In short, a common feeling that brought the cast to the brink of giving up; it was then that Tom Hanks entered the scene, who, calling Steven Spielberg, said “We have a little problem, what do you want to do?“. The decision whether to continue or stop everything it therefore fell to the protagonist of the filmleader, in this case, not only in front of the camera.
“We were all exhausted, we all wanted to leave and here was this guy who was a superstar, who shouldn’t be here, voting to stay“, the words of a very young Vin Diesel, who recalls Tom Hanks’ intervention to convince the cast to stay. The guidance, thoughtfulness and leadership of the character they went further and pushed the actors to finish the training and then to complete the filming of what is hailed as an undisputed masterpiece of cinema. In this regard, here you can learn more about 5 curiosities related to Saving Private Ryan that perhaps you don’t know.
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