SAVING PRIVATE RYAN made, released earlier

[Melvin Loh]

How would cinematic hist have been affected had SAVING PRIVATE RYAN been made and released at some earlier point than 1998, say sometime in the 1980s or around 1994, just around the same time as SCHINDLER'S LIST ? A mate of mine whom I spoke to after SPR had come out at the cinema stated that had the movie been made in the mid-60s, it would've either have compelled the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, or been completely banned from release at all.

 

[Michael]

Isn't this the time of all those films like apocalypse now and full metal jacket?

 

[David S Poepoe]

How would cinematic hist have been affected had SAVING PRIVATE RYAN been made and released at some earlier point than 1998, say sometime in the 1980s or around 1994, just around the same time as SCHINDLER'S LIST ? A mate of mine whom I spoke to after SPR had come out at the cinema stated that had the movie been made in the mid-60s, it would've either have compelled the withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam, or been completely banned from release at all.

I don't think your mate knows what he's talking about. In generalities considering the 60s, I don't see SPR as an anti-war film, tho it would have been a hard sell will Hanks' character dying in the end. It probably wouldn't have been banned from release, partly since if it was really controversial the film company wouldn't have produced it and the US hasn't censored films in a while. It is very much a 'brother in arms' film.

I think any time before 1995, the 50th anniversary of the ending of World War II, it probably would have been pretty hard to sell a WWII combat movie. The audiences weren't really there yet. Stephen Ambrose and those other historians haven't really had an impact yet - at least in the scope that the studios would consider making a movie.

 

[Flakktrooper]

Isn't this the time of all those films like apocalypse now and full metal jacket?

Apocalypse Now was released in 1979 and Full Metal Jacket in 1987.

I might be missreading what you wrote too, so if I did I appologize