Spielberg, and one for cinematographer Janusz Kamiński.

Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan actor Ribisi could not have been surprised that the director won Oscar gold for the film, as he witnessed first-hand what a virtuoso the filmmaker is, noting recently a particularly impressive directorial feat Spielberg pulled off when shooting the 1998 movie. Speaking to the ReelBlend Podcast for his new movie Strange Darling, Ribisi gushed about Spielberg’s ability to stay well ahead of schedule even though he was working on his third film in a brutally short time period:

What I was blown away by was the fact that, that was the third movie that Steven Spielberg had made within a 12 month period, I believe. There was a Jurassic Park and then Amistad before that and...I think he had just turned 50 or 51 years old and he was just on fire, and so was Janusz [Kaminski]. They still are.

But at one point, there's a whole opening battle sequence with Saving Private Ryan that's 27-and-a-half minutes long or something like that. In the script it read seven and a half pages. But at one point we were two weeks ahead of schedule on that sequence, which is mind-blowing in the context of everybody else being two months behind schedule. He just came prepared and he's such a virtuoso.

What This Means For Saving Private Ryan’s Legacy

Spielberg's War Epic Is One Of His Most Acclaimed Films

Spielberg famously shot The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan back-to-back-to-back, the first two films releasing in 1997 and the last in 1998. That non-stop schedule did impact Saving Private Ryan’s pre-production, limiting the amount of time Spielberg could spend on prepping the film. But it doesn’t show in the finished product, a masterclass in direction. As seen in the chart below, the film succeeded on essentially every level with audiences and with critics.

Spielberg’s stirring WW2 epic indeed already had a reputation as one of the best war movies of the latter part of the 20th century. Ribisi’s story of Spielberg and cinematographer Kamiński’s superhuman filming efficiency only adds to the movie’s legacy as a masterpiece. That they were able to stay so far ahead of schedule, despite limited pre-production time, only becomes more impressive when considering the movie’s scale, in particular its opening D-Day landing sequence, one of the most renowned battle scenes ever filmed.

Saving Private Ryan Is More Than Just A Filmmaking Marvel

Spielberg's WWII Movie Was Shockingly Realistic

Saving Private Ryan is loosely based on the true story of the Niland brothers. The film differs from what happened with the Niland brothers fairly substantially and is most fictional beyond this broad premise. Fritz Niland, for example, who was believed to be the last surviving of the four Niland brothers, was ordered home rather than rescued, and his brother, Edward, was eventually discovered alive in a Japanese POW camp. These departures from the true story don't mean, however, that the film doesn't present an authentic portrayal of World War II combat.

Though some details are wrong, the film excels because it captures the chaos and horrors of World War II combat through a soldier's perspective.

Saving Private Ryan's D-Day scene, for example, isn't just hailed as a stunning way to start a movie, but as one of the most realistic and harrowing depictions of combat ever put to the screen. The film's portrayal of the landing at Omaha Beach was so realistic, in fact, that it prompted the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to open up a hotline for Veterans who experienced PTSD as a result of the film.

That's not to say that Spielberg's movie doesn't take artistic liberties. Historians have pointed out, for example, that the film's portrayal of the 101st Airborne at the town of Neuville-au-Plain isn't accurate and that it was actually the 82nd Airborne Division. Similarly, the P-51 Mustang planes that appear during Saving Private Ryan's ending scene are dubbed "tank-busters" by one of the characters when the P-47 Thunderbolts were better suited to such a term. Though some details are wrong, the film excels because it captures the chaos and horrors of World War II combat through a soldier's perspective.

Our Take On Spielberg’s Virtuoso Directing Feat

He Was Already In The GOAT Discussion

Spielberg’s decision to make three big movies in rapid succession may have seemed like folly at the time, but the results speak for themselves. Jurassic Park: The Lost World is a solid sequel to the original dino-blockbuster, while Amistad is an above-average courtroom drama. Saving Private Ryan is the true gem though. By all s, Spielberg deserved the Oscar he won for helming the war drama. He proved his directorial prowess in a concrete way by keeping the massive production ahead of schedule, despite the many obstacles such a project inevitably faces.

The somewhat forgotten Shakespeare in Love beating out Private Ryan for Best Picture is widely regarded as one of the Oscars’ biggest mistakes.

The number of challenges posed by a film on the scale of Saving Private Ryan indeed would have been enough to crush a lesser director. To hear Ribisi tell it, Spielberg not only weathered the difficulties faced during filming, he breezed through without breaking a sweat. Each BTS like Ribisi’s only adds to Spielberg’s reputation as one of the great Hollywood filmmakers.

Source: ReelBlend Podcast