When the Going Got Tough

There’ a war going on outside, but Steven Spielberg doesn’t notice.

Hunkered down in a tiny, tent-like dwelling, covered with hanging canvas on three sides, and with large boards leaning against its frame to afford protection from explosions, stray gunfire and flying rubble, Spielberg peers intently at four monitors.

Each monitor bears a label above its screen with a cameraman’s name: David, Shay, Mitch, Chris. After Spielberg yells “Action!” one sees on the largest screen a World War II-era German Panzer tank rumbling forward before taking a hit from a bazooka rocket and exploding.

On the other screens are American soldiers in hand-to-hand combat with Germans; one, a sergeant, shoots his rival after his pistol initially jams, but also takes a bullet in his side, and curses loudly.

There’s so much action on the screens, the untrained eye hardly knows where to look first. But Spielberg pinpoints a problem. “We’re fine on three cameras,” he says. “But Tom,” and he indicates Tom Sizemore, the actor playing the injured sergeant, “needs to try to fire his gun more times when it jams.”

Those standing around Spielberg in the tiny bunker nod sagely, but the unspoken thought circulates: How does anyone absorb so much visual information, then make a snap judgment about it, as Spielberg just did?

He shrugs: “You just look at all four monitors, that’s all. We’re shooting this scene in real time, with three pockets of drama, separate incidents going on around the Panzer. It’s like combat camera work.”

Spielberg swings back to the bank of monitors. “Maybe I should try my hand at live TV work when this movie is over.” He grins. “Think of this as a Carol Burnett special.”

Step outside and a Carol Burnett special is hardly what springs to mind. On this huge expanse of open space 20 miles north of London--in reality a former plane-making facility with its own airstrip--an ingenious production design team has created a war-torn French village straight out of 1944, the year of D-day and the heroic Allied landings in Normandy.

This fictional village, called Ramelle, has a church ravaged by bomb damage. Its streets are littered with burned-out tanks, its telegraph poles lean at crazy angles, and its shops stand largely destroyed. Rubble is strewn everywhere. Entire walls of residential buildings have been blown away, exposing wallpaper, furniture, pictures on walls. It is a chilling sight.

Actors and dozens of extras playing American and German soldiers mingle indistinguishably on the set, dressed in khaki or olive drabs. Their faces are dirty; some have fake blood daubed on their skin. On this hot August day, many look truly fatigued.

The D-day landing on Omaha Beach marks the historical backdrop to Spielberg’s new $65-million film “Saving Private Ryan,” opening July 24. Tom Hanks is Capt. John Miller, leader of an eight-man squad on a perilous mission; they must go behind enemy lines in France to save one paratrooper, Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon), whose three brothers have been killed in combat.

“The way we’re telling the story cannot be called true,” Spielberg notes. “But it’s based on a true event.”

After five brothers named Sullivan all perished at sea on the same ship in 1943, the War Department passed a law that siblings could not serve in the same unit. Then three of four brothers from another family were killed within 72 hours the following year, one fighting the Japanese and two more separately fighting the Axis powers in Europe.

“So they sent out a squad to find the fourth brother, a private, and send him home,” adds Spielberg. “That’s the kernel of truth around which this morality play has been fictionalized.”

Morality play? Indeed it is. The script, by Robert Rodat and Frank Darabont, questions the very nature of Miller’s mission. “The controversy is, what price freedom?” Spielberg says. “Is saving Ryan going to end the war any sooner? Or will it simply be a morale booster for the home front on the front page of Stars and Stripes? How does Capt. Miller’s squad feel about this? Will they be giving their lives in vain, to save one man? All that was compelling.”

Because of this, Hanks argues, the film’s leading characters do not need to be psychologically complex: “One thing we talked about from the beginning was the concept of a citizen soldier--not a professional fighting man, but [someone who responds to] the demands of the time. Capt. Miller’s that quintessential guy who finds himself in charge, but just wants to win the war and go home. He doesn’t particularly excel in anything.”

Actor Edward Burns says much the same: “I play Reiben, a wise-ass New Yorker, and I’m the guy trying to convince everyone in the crew that it’s not worth it, we’re wasting our time trying to save Ryan. And in fact I’m not sure how I’d feel myself, if I was in a group and risking my friends’ lives to save a stranger. Even if his three brothers did die.”

Damon also admits his Pvt. Ryan is essentially symbolic: “He stands for everybody’s brother, for everyone getting a chance to go home. His character is more important than his characteristics.”

Casting Damon, of course, has been quite a coup for “Saving Private Ryan.” During filming, he was known as a promising young actor, but has since emerged as a major star through “Good Will Hunting” and “The Rainmaker.”

“It’s been fortuitous,” said Spielberg last month. “And I’m proud of Matt for handling [stardom] like such a gentleman. He’s one of the shining examples of how nice guys can finish first.”

One suspects that the attraction for many of the cast was a chance to watch Spielberg in action. Five actors in “Saving Private Ryan” have written for the screen and four have also directed. There’s Hanks, writer-director of “That Thing You Do”; Burns, who scripted, directed and starred in three films; multi-hyphenates Adam Goldberg and Vin Diesel; and of course Damon, an Oscar winner for co-writing “Good Will Hunting.”

“A lot of the guys who have dared claim to be directors can’t believe how fast Steven works,” says Hanks ruefully. “A number of us just did this so we could see how Steven made a movie. It’s probably the best film school you could enroll in. We’ve had a wonderful summer vacation, liberating France.”

Damon has been impressed by how much information Spielberg carries in his head. “To be shooting a movie of this scale and cutting it as he goes along,” he says, shaking his head in wonderment. “And the ratio of film he uses is very, very low. When I worked with Francis Ford Coppola [on “The Rainmaker”], it was the exact opposite. His ratio must have been 58 to 1.”

“The ratio on this movie is about 4 to 1,” Spielberg estimates. “It’s my lowest in a decade. That’s because of all the physical effects--the explosions, the gunfire, the possibility of guns jamming. If it’s even 70% there on the first take, I’ll walk away from it, knowing I have other angles to make up for anything I didn’t like in the master.” He talked shortly after cast and crew broke for lunch, during which time he had cut the scenes shot that morning along with editor Michael Kahn, an ever-present figure on Spielberg films. “I always do it that way,” Spielberg notes. “It gives me a chance to make any improvements necessary before they strike the set.

“For this film, I wanted to bring myself to the experience with the fresh eye of a combat cameraman, not as someone who had preconceived notions of what combat was like. I think it’s helped the authenticity a lot.”

Spielberg is using Janusz Kaminski, the cinematographer who won an Oscar for his work on “Schindler’s List.” As in that film, Spielberg has ordered extensive use of hand-held cameras.

“About half is hand-held,” he says. “Again, I’m trying to re-create combat footage, and hand-held really heightens the drama. We’ve even gone so far as to throw the camera upside down sometimes, to convey a moment when the cameraman would have dropped it before he got the courage to come out of his foxhole and pick it up.”

Will the public respond to “Saving Private Ryan”? Spielberg pondered this point last month, having seen the completed film. “I’m optimistic,” he said guardedly. “Put it this way, I’m as pleased as I’ve ever allowed myself to be.”

He admitted to being disappointed by the reception to “Amistad” and the controversy surrounding it: “The news of the lawsuit over ‘Amistad’ was received as well as the film itself,” he said bluntly. “It was a shame such an important subject [slavery] was so easily sidetracked by a lawsuit--which was only one of a dozen I’ve had during my career.”

“Saving Private Ryan” is the fourth time Spielberg has tackled the theme of war. “1941,” “Empire of the Sun” and “Schindler’s List” are all, in their different ways, war movies. “Yeah, well, there’s nothing more dramatic than love or war,” he says. “The chaotic heights of a love story, the similar heights of a war story, that’s as good as it gets.”

He does not envisage his film as a homage to previous war movies but cites a handful that he “adores.” These include William Wellman’s “Battleground” (1949), and a trio by Lewis Milestone--”All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930), “A Walk in the Sun” (1945) and “Pork Chop Hill” (1959). “Lewis Milestone made three of the great war films of all time,” Spielberg says. “I’m a huge fan.”

This offers clues to how the film may turn out; Milestone was known for his fluid, roving camera style, and the power, poignancy and authenticity of his stories about men in war. “Saving Private Ryan” features an opening 25-minute D-day landing sequence more harrowing than the event has been depicted on film before.

“I knew I didn’t want to make a slick World War II movie,” says Spielberg. “War is horror, and some of the carnage and chaos at Omaha Beach were captured by combat cameramen. That 25 minutes is my attempt to portray the landing as honestly as I knew how.

“During World War II, Hollywood made war films not to distress the home front but to reinvigorate it. It tried to show no sacrifice was in vain, and created John Waynes out of secondary characters in order to sell war bonds. Those pictures were not allowed to honestly portray combat.”

“It’s such a massive life experience, going to war,” muses Hanks, dirty-faced, caked in mud, with a blood smear on his forehead. “It’s probably no wonder a lot of that World War II generation can’t talk about it. I mean, how can the human psyche undergo such stress? It’s not only what you’ve seen, but what you have to do. My character, Miller, talks about how many people he’s lost under his command, and that’s got to be a horrible thing--but in his mind he may be counting the people he’s killed too, knowing a lot of them are kids of 18 or 19.”

Back on set, Spielberg needs a third take for the scene in which the Panzer tank is hit by a bazooka. Sizemore has played his part perfectly, being hit by a German bullet and spinning around in agony, cussing repeatedly, but an explosive fixed to the tank has failed to detonate.

“Tom, you were great, man, but we didn’t get an explosion,” says Spielberg as Sizemore trudges in to watch the scene replayed on the monitors. “We need to go again.” Sizemore nods mutely and starts to return to his original position.

“Is all this intense enough for you?” Spielberg shouts after him. A grin flashes through Sizemore’s dirt-spattered face. “Oh, sure, I like it,” he says. “This whole movie’s been like a romantic comedy.”

It hasn’t, of course. The detailed preparations and logistical problems surrounding “Saving Private Ryan” have resembled nothing so much as, well, a large-scale military operation.

The first problem was where to shoot. Line producer Ian Bryce scouted locations in England and France before zeroing in on England, where the disused aviation factory adapted perfectly to a makeshift studio. After its owner, British Aerospace, showed reluctance, Bryce convinced Britain’s Ministry of Defence that the production would bring needed revenue into the Hatfield area, depressed by the facility’s closure.

The one problem with Britain was that no beaches were entirely suitable for the D-day landing sequence. “You’d find a great-looking beach,” recalls production designer Tom Sanders, “and there’d be no access by roads. Or the nearest harbor for landing craft would be 15 miles away.”

Eventually the producers compromised, filming the landings in Ireland--at a beach in County Wexford, south of Dublin. Their decision was helped by the Irish government providing several hundred reserve soldiers as extras.

Ireland also had climate in its favor. D-day--June 6, 1944--was overcast, and, says Sanders, “I thought we should definitely have cloudiness. Sunshine would make it look like a picnic. Ireland offered the best chance of cloudy days. As it turned out, we had way enough.”

Yet a storm that blew in a week before shooting started destroyed two-thirds of the production’s beach dressings. The crew had buried enormous logs in the sand, like those to which the Germans at Normandy had attached mines. But the storm ripped them from their concrete moorings and they had to be reset twice as securely.

Apart from the extras, who were housed under canvas on the grounds of a Wexford college, a total of 500 cast and crew worked on the film, taking up almost all available accommodation for miles around.

Crowd control involved in supervising such huge numbers was remarkably complex. “In the morning, these guys would go through what we called the sausage machine,” says Bryce. “First day on set, they’d have a haircut, go through makeup, wardrobe, props, be issued weapons and undergo training. And we could get 750 men through that process and on to the set in two hours.”

“I felt just like an Army quartermaster,” remembers costume designer Joanna Johnston. “The men would line up, I’d have a pile of uniforms, and I’d say, OK, you look like a 44, take this, next! Luckily no one complained I got it wrong.”

Military equipment was relatively easy to come by, though much German hardware was melted down after the war. “We got authentic German pieces from private collectors,” Bryce notes. “We mostly bought it--it’s easier to buy and sell rather than lease.”

Simon Atherton, the production’s armorer, had to find 500 pieces of weaponry, from small pistols to heavy machine guns. He also made the film’s bazooka rocket launchers, having failed to track down real ones down.

He had problems bringing ammunition from America, because Britain has restricted small-arms imports since the massacre in Dunblane, Scotland, in which 15 schoolchildren were shot dead by a deranged gunman. The chronic political unrest in Northern Ireland also made it hard for Atherton to bring weaponry to Wexford.

“Documents and permissions would arrive only at the last minute just as we were going through the docks,” he said. “As it is, we’re pretty authentic. This will be one of the first World War II films, for example, where we use the right M-1 carbine. Most war films are 60% right. We’re about 90%--not bad, if you consider the stuff’s 50 or 60 years old now.”

Johnston had the same problem on a larger scale. When embarking upon the film, she assumed that the uniforms required would be available from costume houses. “But they weren’t,” she says. “No German uniforms, none of the paratroopers, and only a proportion of the infantry soldiers’. So we ended up making 75% of 3,500 uniforms.”

She managed to trace a Midwest company that had manufactured all boots for GIs in World War II. The company still had the original patterns for the boots, with the comfortable rubber soles favored by American soldiers--and produced 1,700 pairs for her in two months.

“I had no idea how technical this would be,” Johnston reflects. ‘It’s been like a three-year degree course in military uniforms in two weeks. People are incredibly knowledgeable and ready to criticize, so I wanted the uniforms to be the best they could be. War veterans on set have already said they look good. It’s a relief, because they think that as a woman you couldn’t possibly understand.”

Tom Sanders (who built Never-Never Land for Spielberg on “Hook”) was equally assiduous in creating the village of Ramelle. “I went all over France and did a ‘best of’ architecturally,” he says. He spent five weeks constructing a 20-by-10-foot model of the village, with all its buildings intact. “Then I ‘bombed’ it--which means basically I ran at it with knives.”

Sanders decided to show the insides of houses exposed by bombing: “Sometimes Americans are naive about what war entails. It’s absolutely terrible. And I think seeing people’s possessions exposed like this brings that home.”

Someone also had to insure the actors were credible as soldiers. Step forward Dale Dye, captain, U.S. Marine Corps (ret.). After 22 years’ service, Dye has made a career of training actors to talk and behave like military men; he first did it on Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” and never looked back.

Hanks and the actors playing the men in Miller’s squad were turned over to Dye for six days in the field, sleeping under canvas and undergoing a grueling training regimen.

“I won’t let them be called by their real names,” says Dye, a tall, tanned man with a brisk manner. “They’re called by their cast names, because I want their mind to be where it needs to be. I don’t give a [damn] who their agents are or what their credits are. The more they’re indulged and the more they become blow-dryer mentality camper-dwellers, the worse it is on me.”

Dye admits being physical and abusive with actors to “reduce them to the lowest common denominator. Then they learn they’re no longer who they thought they were. Now they’re Rudy in the rear rank with a rusty rifle.

“It was much more rugged physically than any of them expected. They thought they’d go out, sleep in a tent, watch the birds and bees, fire a few weapons and that’s it. Wrong. Each day at dawn they were up, running three to five miles. Then I kept abusing ‘em continuously while they tried to learn what I was teaching them.”

Dye believes actors need to experience the reality of military discipline: “You can’t know it unless you live it, and you can’t portray it unless you know it. If you don’t know it, it looks ridiculous [on screen]--and I won’t have that in any film I’m associated with. It’s a dishonor to the real people who fought.”

Hanks has already been through the Dale Dye experience, for the Vietnam scenes in “Forrest Gump.” (“Tom knows when I’ll kick his butt and when I won’t,” says Dye succinctly.)

“We were playing guys who were tired, cold, miserable and wanted to go home,” says Hanks. “And I can guarantee you in those six days [with Dye] we were tired, cold, miserable and wanted to go home. The actual filming has been easier than the training session. It translates, I think--in the smallest way, but it translates. Now all of us know how to lie down and nod off for 20 minutes.”

One person emphatically not nodding off on set is Spielberg. Not that he wouldn’t be entitled. He is directing his third film back to back after “Lost World” and “Amistad.” After shooting “Saving Private Ryan” in the daytime (editing scenes as he goes,) Spielberg would turn his mind to post-production of “Amistad” in the evenings.

Burns reports that Matt Damon, fit and in his 20s, set himself the task of shadowing Spielberg on the set for an entire day. By lunchtime, Damon had retired exhausted.

Spielberg beams boyishly at all this. “I think I like being squeezed,” he says. “There must be something wrong with me.” But he staunchly defends his penchant for working on several fronts simultaneously.

“The process gets easier with time, and it’s something I feel comfortable with. It’s not unlike the way a lot of the old directors must have felt when the industry was a boomtown, and directors like John Ford were making four films a year.”

“I just know the guy, I didn’t know how he made movies,” says Hanks, who has been Spielberg’s friend for several years. “But it turns out he works with people who furnish Steve with this arena where he can do any damn thing he wants to.

“And what he wants, his philosophy of this story, is to shoot fast. So the vast majority of this movie is shot in two or three takes.”

Impossible to imagine what “Saving Private Ryan” will look like, then. “Sure,” shrugs Hanks. “Although, you know, it’s a war movie, and whichever way we approach it, whatever back door we go into, most generations have seen it ad infinitum.

“One thing I do know, though--we’re going to be the biggest damn war movie you ever saw.