Steven Spielberg was sure about one thing when filming Saving Private Ryan, no one could disrespect the soldiers. Both Tom Hanks and Matt Damon gave their best for the film and they were much so loved for it. The movie tackled quite a lot of concerning matters when it came to soldiers at war and the families who wait for them. The story of the film also saw a similar premise.
There was a lot that went into the making of the movie and that included a massive respect for everyone involved in war. The director put in a lot of effort to make the movie a masterpiece. No matter how difficult it was going to be, his idea was going to manifest in the best possible way.
Steven Spielberg Put The Cast Of Saving Private Ryan Through A Boot Camp
Steven Spielberg was adamant about making Saving Private Ryan a great movie depicting the ups and downs of war. He was sure that if the movie was being made, it would become an accurate outlook of just how complicated things can get in the midst of war. His casting of Tom Hanks and Matt Damon hence became even more meaningful.
“I didn’t do the boot camp but they had to. It was, but much shorter. A regular soldier does four months of boot camp and these guys did six days. But I wanted to put them through boot camp not just to familiarize them with how to hold a weapon and how to clean and fire it – but because I wanted them to respect what it was like to be a soldier.”
Spielberg admitted that while a normal boot camp would stretch up to four months, the one his cast had to go through only lasted six days. He made this training necessary so as to make sure that the actors understood how to walk, talk, and move like soldiers. More so, he wanted to make sure they could properly hold a gun. The most important reason why they were forced to attend this boot camp was because then they would learn to respect soldiers even more than they already did.
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Steven Spielberg Shot Saving Private Ryan Continuously
War ages people and it takes out the best and worse of the soldiers. A person going to war at the mere age of seventeen could return only a few months later looking like they are forty. The things that the soldiers go through become visible on their faces over time. This was something Steven Spielberg wanted to show through his movie.
“I did that again in this picture but I didn’t realize how devastating that was going to be for the whole cast to actually start off with Omaha Beach and survive that as a film team, and then move into the hedgerows, move into the next town, as we all began to get whittled down by the storytelling.”
He shot the film continuously so that everyone would go through the same excruciating process without exceptions. He wanted his entire team to understand what was going on and the intensity of the movie they were filming.
Source: Rogertbert
