Upham and Scot

Exploring The Idea of Cowardice Through Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’

“Does it really hold up once you get past the D-Day scene?” my friend asks me when I tell him I recently re-watched 1998’s Saving Private Ryan in its entirety for the first time in years. I reassure him Steven Spielberg's World War II masterpiece does indeed “hold up.” In fact, it does much more than I ever thought when my heart was first captured by what remains one of the greatest representations of the American WWII experience in contemporary cinema. It does more because it shows what many of its counterparts do not: Fear.

Tom Hanks’s Captain Miller, the subtly mysterious, wizened leader of the band of brothers sent into France to find Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) suffers from a physical trauma. The group’s sniper, Private Jackson (Barry Pepper), is seen kissing his crucifix as he dodges fire on the beaches of Normandy, where armoured men scream for their mothers. Jewish soldier Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) breaks down after the Allies take the beach, crumpling to his knees when he’s shown a Hitler Youth knife, and finally coming face to face with the evil that has likely wiped out his family left behind in Europe. “…and now it’s a Shabbat Challah cutter, right?” he jokes through tears.