Spielberg: Saving Private Ryan part 2
In all the excitement of Act I of Saving Private Ryan, I forgot to ask the all-important question: What does the protagonist want?
In Act I, of course, Capt Miller "wants" nothing more than "to take out that pillbox." To do this, he must risk his own life and the lives of dozens of his men, his metaphorical brothers and sons. It’s a first act not unlike the first acts of the Indiana Jones movies, a brilliantly-staged succession of purely physical actions — how does one retrieve a golden idol from a booby-trapped temple, how does one get from a Shanghai nightclub to an Indian village overnight, how does one take out a heavily-fortified pillbox from an inferior position.
This may be why some people dislike the opening of Ryan — narratively, all the 25-minute battle sequence does is show how Capt Miller took that pillbox. It could have been disposed of in a five-minute title sequence. Miller could then get his marching orders regarding Ryan by minute 10, the movie could have been an act, and a good half-hour, shorter. If it is not advancing the story of the saving of Private Ryan, what is that superlative opening sequence doing there?