'Saving Private Ryan', partly shot on location in Co. Wexford opened in 2,700 screens across America last week and has gone straight to the number one slot in the American top 30 film chart, knocking 'The Mask of Zorro' off the top slot into number two. The film has taken US $30m in ticket sales with 'The Mask of Zorro' taking US $13.2m in it's second week. The film has attracted a broad range of viewers despite its strong depiction of war. Early reviews have hailed it as a masterpiece and there are already predictions of an Oscar sweep.
Steven Speilberg's 3 hour film of a World War II mission to find and bring home a soldier whose three brothers have died in combat was eagerly awaited as the teaming of Speilberg with the superstar Tom Hanks. Hanks plays the captain of a US squad, made up of Sizemore, Burns, Pepper, Goldberg, Diesel, Ribisi and Davies, which arrives in France as part of the D-Day landings and is subsequently sent on a mission to find a young private, played by Damon, whose three brothers have been killed in action.
The opening 24 minute sequence of the D-Day landings on Omaha beach, which were filmed with the Reserve Irish Army FCA corp. on the beaches in Co. Wexford, are described as being some of the most harrowing combat scenes in cinema history. Speilberg foresaw a shocked reaction to the movie and undertook the first publicity tour for a movie in 17 years warning audiences and defending the film use of violent images. In this he has enlisted the help top historian Stephen Damon, also buying the rights to his account of this period of World War II even though the script was not based upon it directly he wishes to avoid any legal entanglements after his last picture.
The film has been granted a R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America which said 'Saving Private Ryan "Includes intense, prolonged, realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and language".
'Saving Private Ryan' is set to be the first major hit for DreamWorks SKG, the entertainment company Speilberg co-founded with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994. Screen International reports DreamWorks SKG is releasing the film domestically; it co-financed the US $67 m film with Paramount Pictures, home to Mutual Film Co., which had been developing the script when Speilberg became interested. Paramount which has foreign rights, will release the picture internationally from September 11 eight days after it opens the Venice Film Festival on September 3. Speilberg will extend his tour to the UK and Germany.
Michael McMahon 30/7/98
