SAVING PRIVATE RYAN endures as one of the great anti-war films. Sometimes seen as overly jingoistic, Spielberg made a spirit-shattering epic that questions & dismantles the shaky moral logic of war & the people who wage it. Every second is a visceral nightmare. I love this movie

I only watch SAVING PRIVATE RYAN every 5 years. I get upset for days. It's not just frighteningly realistic warzones or how indifferently they destroy the body. It's that soldiers know this hell means nothing. There's no heroism, nobility, honor. Just utter senselessness. Waste.

I've been told by professors and friends that Captain Miller's famous "EARN THIS" is a metaphor for the founding fathers, or America or what the soldiers did. Every single one of them was wrong. "EARN THIS" is Miller's tragic prayer for Ryan to give meaning to the meaningless.

Minutes before the climax, Frank tells Miller:

"We might look back on this and decide that saving Private Ryan was the one decent thing we were able to pull out of this whole godawful, shitty mess."

These are not the words of men who believe in any implicit meaning in any war.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is one of those movies like TITANIC or MAD MAX: FURY ROAD where I am in constant awe the technical achievement. Spielberg uses a series of mini-oners to guide the audience through the terrifying chaos of a warzone. It is one of the best directed movies ever.