I watched it last night —again— after watching "The Thin Red Line" and both films got me thinking...
The harshness of combat has never been portrayed in such excellent and real way on a screen as in "Saving Private Ryan". Mr. Spielberg caught the very esence of combat. It remains absolutely amazing!
"Saving Private Ryan"'s photography and cinematography are
supperb because Spielberg chose to make the shots in a war-photographer style —with the camera moving at ground level— and grey coloured. Not to mention the music by John Williams...
But compared to "The Thin Red Line" is quite disgraceful. This film's cinematography is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. If you freeze every second of the film you get an amazingly beautiful photography. The takes are in one word:
perfect. The music is also immensely beautiful, it's original and heart-breakening. The action scenes are very, very good too.
What fails in the comparisson is that "SPR" is a Hollywood-like film and "TRL" is not. "SPR" is a war film and "TRL" is not. Spielberg is a wonderful director and knows how to tell a story, but Terrence Mallick is a philosopher, a supperb director and photographer and a true artist.