Saving Private Ryan (1998)
(Steven Spielberg, US 1998, 169 min., 35mm)
War, Myth, Desire | Independence Day | 20th Anniversary. A US Army captain (Tom Hanks) leads a mission to rescue a GI trapped behind enemy lines in France on D-Day after all three of the soldier’s brothers are killed in action. As the search commences, the close-knit squad sets out through areas still thick with Nazis. This revolutionary picture raised a bar in depicting savagery of war and established itself as a modern classic within days after its release in July 1998, with critics praising it as “searing, heartbreaking, so intense it turns your body into a single tube of clenched muscle, this is simply the greatest war movie ever made, and one of the great American movies” (Washington Post), a “soberly magnificent . . . ultimate devastating letter home” (New York Times) and “a harrowing World War II epic about the struggle to uphold decency in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, the visual masterwork finds Spielberg atop his craft, weaving heart-pounding action and gut-wrenching emotion—often during the same sequence—that will leave viewers silently shaken” (The Hollywood Reporter).
Also showing: Tuesday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.