Steven Spielberg names the biggest influences behind ‘Saving Private Ryan’: “Pictures that inspired me the most”
Steven Spielberg knew he wanted to make a war movie unlike anything cinema had ever seen, which is exactly what he did when Saving Private Ryan was released to instant classic status in 1998.
From the first frame, audiences knew they were amidst something special. The Omaha Beach introduction is one of the most staggering opening scenes ever committed to celluloid, dropping the viewer into the heat of battle with a relentless and visceral realism that left them as shell-shocked as the soldiers onscreen.
He may have been the biggest director in the business, but Spielberg made a point of stepping outside his comfort zone. The legendary filmmaker adopted a looser and more improvisational approach to shooting the film, which boggles the mind considering the scope and scale he was working with.
It was a surprisingly collaborative experience, too, with cast and crew members making suggestions that ultimately improved Saving Private Ryan, and Spielberg wasn’t above looking towards the past either. It may have been a one-of-a-kind World War II epic, but the director nonetheless channelled his most vivid and cherished memories of on-camera warfare.
“In terms of features, the World War II pictures that inspired me the most were William Wellman’s Battleground, Sam Fuller’s The Steel Helmet, and Don Siegel’s Hell Is for Heroes,” he told the American Society of Cinematographers. “They made a big impression on me while I was growing up in Arizona and watching a lot of TV.”
While Spielberg clarified that he hadn’t studied World War II films specifically leading up to Saving Private Ryan‘s shoot, he remained “very familiar with them because they were a part of my formative years.” In fact, that knowledge of the genre ensured that he “tried to take the opposite approach of nearly every one” of his favourites.
The movies he mentioned were more patriotic, jingoistic, and action-packed, whereas Spielberg intentionally pitched Saving Private Ryan at the opposite end of the spectrum. “Those were the themes, which also were designed to help sell war bonds,” he said. “I love those movies, but I think Vietnam pushed people from my generation to tell the truth about war without glorifying it.”
Instead, Spielberg turned to the documentaries made by John Ford and John Huston, two of his towering influences as an auteur who dabbled in documentaries during the conflict. Combining his familiarity with World War II flicks with two industry titans who’d influenced his career, the director settled on what would become recognised as Saving Private Ryan‘s signature aesthetic.
It was an epic war movie, sure, but that boots-on-the-ground sensibility and desire to make everything feel as real as possible was clear from the opening minute and were grounded more in verite than Hollywood. Saving Private Ryan was very much its own beast, but it wouldn’t have turned out that way had Spielberg both embraced and subverted the movies that inspired it.
