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| ‘Saving Private Ryan’ Got My Dad to Finally Talk About the War | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| The stoicism of World War II veterans, their reluctance to share their war stories, even with those closest to them, has long been something of a cliché. Members of the “greatest generation,” as we call it, have always been terse about the seminal moments that earned them the title. | |
| My father, Frank Mankiewicz, was a case in point. He died in 2014, but before that, he was a statesman in public life. He’d been the Latin American director of the Peace Corps, press secretary for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, political director of Senator George McGovern’s and the president of National Public Radio. He wrote a book on Fidel Castro and proudly found himself on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Before all that, he was an entertainment lawyer, once getting Steve McQueen acquitted of two (driving-related) charges in a single day. He was a dynamic storyteller, and he relished telling them — unless they had to do with his service with the 69th Infantry Division during World War II. | My father, Frank Mankiewicz, was a case in point. He died in 2014, but before that, he was a statesman in public life. He’d been the Latin American director of the Peace Corps, press secretary for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, political director of Senator George McGovern’s and the president of National Public Radio. He wrote a book on Fidel Castro and proudly found himself on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Before all that, he was an entertainment lawyer, once getting Steve McQueen acquitted of two (driving-related) charges in a single day. He was a dynamic storyteller, and he relished telling them — unless they had to do with his service with the 69th Infantry Division during World War II. |
| So what did get my father to open about the war, if not his friends or family? Film. 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan,” to be particular. My father didn’t land on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 with the men represented by Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel and the rest of that ensemble cast, but he saw considerable action. He fought with the 69th from France to Belgium and into Germany — his infantry was the American unit that met the Soviets near Torgau in northwest Germany, where the eastern and western fronts came together. | So what did get my father to open about the war, if not his friends or family? Film. 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan,” to be particular. My father didn’t land on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944 with the men represented by Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel and the rest of that ensemble cast, but he saw considerable action. He fought with the 69th from France to Belgium and into Germany — his infantry was the American unit that met the Soviets near Torgau in northwest Germany, where the eastern and western fronts came together. |
| The dramatic opening sequence of “Saving Private Ryan,” a wrenching 24 minutes long, starkly depicts both the random brutality of combat and how teams of men, despite best laid plans, were forced to think on their feet in order to somehow navigate across beaches and up rocky cliffs, under enemy fire. Its realist approach personalized the war for audiences and hit an old nerve with veterans like my father. The summer of its release The Associated Press reported on how the Department of Veterans Affairs had “set up a national hotline for veterans or their family members” who needed help after viewing the film. People called. That evocativeness, more so than its Steven Spielberg budget, made the film what it is: a creative artifact with as much weight as some of the best reporting. | The dramatic opening sequence of “Saving Private Ryan,” a wrenching 24 minutes long, starkly depicts both the random brutality of combat and how teams of men, despite best laid plans, were forced to think on their feet in order to somehow navigate across beaches and up rocky cliffs, under enemy fire. Its realist approach personalized the war for audiences and hit an old nerve with veterans like my father. The summer of its release The Associated Press reported on how the Department of Veterans Affairs had “set up a national hotline for veterans or their family members” who needed help after viewing the film. People called. That evocativeness, more so than its Steven Spielberg budget, made the film what it is: a creative artifact with as much weight as some of the best reporting. |
| “Only truly accurate depiction of combat I’ve ever seen in a movie,” my dad told me. Shortly after, wound up by watching, he recounted the best war story he ever told: During the bitter cold European winter of 1944-45, entrenched in the slog of the Battle of the Bulge, he along with other Jeep drivers in his unit would wake up and urinate on their tires. My father was not the kind of man to randomly relieve himself on auto parts — it was that the tires were caked in ice, frozen. Making the best of a lousy situation, they improvised, with the sort of problem solving that can’t be captured in a textbook or embedded in official histories. | “Only truly accurate depiction of combat I’ve ever seen in a movie,” my dad told me. Shortly after, wound up by watching, he recounted the best war story he ever told: During the bitter cold European winter of 1944-45, entrenched in the slog of the Battle of the Bulge, he along with other Jeep drivers in his unit would wake up and urinate on their tires. My father was not the kind of man to randomly relieve himself on auto parts — it was that the tires were caked in ice, frozen. Making the best of a lousy situation, they improvised, with the sort of problem solving that can’t be captured in a textbook or embedded in official histories. |
| Similarly, although Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Allied command invested months of planning, much of D-Day’s success was borne of clever improvisation and luck, as “Saving Private Ryan” brought to life. It was his favorite war picture, and other veterans had theirs: You’ll often hear praise for 1981’s “Das Boot” (despite its sympathetic depiction of the life of German sailors in a U-boat), as well as for “Rome, Open City,” made in the last year of the war. | |
| While many of the greatest films dealing with World War II (including series like HBO’s “Band of Brothers”) are inflected by the higher goal of “the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe,” as General Eisenhower told his troops that June 75 years ago, they are foremost anchored by gut-wrenching, up-close stories of self-sacrifice and heroism. | While many of the greatest films dealing with World War II (including series like HBO’s “Band of Brothers”) are inflected by the higher goal of “the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe,” as General Eisenhower told his troops that June 75 years ago, they are foremost anchored by gut-wrenching, up-close stories of self-sacrifice and heroism. |
| Although it’s impossible to put a number to it, I have no doubt “Private Ryan” spurred countless other veterans like my father to open up and share their war stories. I experienced it first hand the weekend of the film’s release in 1998. I was working as a reporter in Miami. My editors and I arranged for me to watch the movie with two veterans who’d never met, one from World War II, the other from Vietnam. Both saw extensive combat. | Although it’s impossible to put a number to it, I have no doubt “Private Ryan” spurred countless other veterans like my father to open up and share their war stories. I experienced it first hand the weekend of the film’s release in 1998. I was working as a reporter in Miami. My editors and I arranged for me to watch the movie with two veterans who’d never met, one from World War II, the other from Vietnam. Both saw extensive combat. |
| After the movie, as I interviewed the two men together, the World War II veteran, an American Jew, told a story he’d hardly shared before. He’d been captured by the Germans twice, escaping each time. After the first, still behind enemy lines, he swapped dog tags with a dead American to give himself a less identifiably Jewish name. The second time he escaped, he took advantage of a German guard who’d fallen asleep, grabbing a brick and cracking it across his head. He always presumed the guard didn’t survive. | After the movie, as I interviewed the two men together, the World War II veteran, an American Jew, told a story he’d hardly shared before. He’d been captured by the Germans twice, escaping each time. After the first, still behind enemy lines, he swapped dog tags with a dead American to give himself a less identifiably Jewish name. The second time he escaped, he took advantage of a German guard who’d fallen asleep, grabbing a brick and cracking it across his head. He always presumed the guard didn’t survive. |
| That led the Vietnam vet to share his experience, also harrowing, of trying to balance the twin burdens of risking his life for his country and killing for his country. When they were done, these strangers wept and hugged. The Vietnam vet left vowing to go home and share his stories with his teenage daughters, with whom he’d never spoken about the war. Even if he didn’t in the end (I can never know), it was a stunning impact to witness. | That led the Vietnam vet to share his experience, also harrowing, of trying to balance the twin burdens of risking his life for his country and killing for his country. When they were done, these strangers wept and hugged. The Vietnam vet left vowing to go home and share his stories with his teenage daughters, with whom he’d never spoken about the war. Even if he didn’t in the end (I can never know), it was a stunning impact to witness. |
| Now, on this 75th anniversary of D-Day, two movies I’ll be sharing with audiences — this time at the National WWII Museum — also come to my mind whenever I think of the Normandy landings and the G. I.s in Nazi Europe. Each is deeply affecting, though done at different cadences. | Now, on this 75th anniversary of D-Day, two movies I’ll be sharing with audiences — this time at the National WWII Museum — also come to my mind whenever I think of the Normandy landings and the G. I.s in Nazi Europe. Each is deeply affecting, though done at different cadences. |
| One of them, “The Longest Day” (1962), is Darryl F. Zanuck’s ambitious epic, a three-hour, blow-by-blow account of D-Day, for which Zanuck recruited the biggest stars in Hollywood — including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery and Henry Fonda. Funnily, or perhaps fittingly, the movie’s most memorable scene is short and doesn’t include a star: Hans Christian Blech, a German actor, is commanding a pillbox on the Normandy coast. He’s been up all night and is desperate to be relieved. Before he leaves, he looks through his binoculars one final time. | One of them, “The Longest Day” (1962), is Darryl F. Zanuck’s ambitious epic, a three-hour, blow-by-blow account of D-Day, for which Zanuck recruited the biggest stars in Hollywood — including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery and Henry Fonda. Funnily, or perhaps fittingly, the movie’s most memorable scene is short and doesn’t include a star: Hans Christian Blech, a German actor, is commanding a pillbox on the Normandy coast. He’s been up all night and is desperate to be relieved. Before he leaves, he looks through his binoculars one final time. |
| “Mein Gott,” he says, as a massive flotilla of ships appears, emerging from the morning fog. He turns to his men and gasps, “In-Vah-Shon!” (turns out the German word for invasion is, well, invasion). In a brilliant bit of authentic history, Blech had actually served in the German army during the war, fighting the Soviets on the eastern front. | “Mein Gott,” he says, as a massive flotilla of ships appears, emerging from the morning fog. He turns to his men and gasps, “In-Vah-Shon!” (turns out the German word for invasion is, well, invasion). In a brilliant bit of authentic history, Blech had actually served in the German army during the war, fighting the Soviets on the eastern front. |
| The other film is “Overlord” (1975), a temperamental antidote to “The Longest Day.” Sparse in every way, just 84 minutes long, “Overlord” closely follows a 20-year-old English soldier from his call-up, through training, and on to D-Day. It’s a lonely picture, full of the fear, desperation and fatalism that still occurs in war even before exposure to enemy fire. And it feels fully self-aware that its protagonist was just one among the roughly 19 million Americans and Britons who served in the armed forces during the war. | The other film is “Overlord” (1975), a temperamental antidote to “The Longest Day.” Sparse in every way, just 84 minutes long, “Overlord” closely follows a 20-year-old English soldier from his call-up, through training, and on to D-Day. It’s a lonely picture, full of the fear, desperation and fatalism that still occurs in war even before exposure to enemy fire. And it feels fully self-aware that its protagonist was just one among the roughly 19 million Americans and Britons who served in the armed forces during the war. |
| It’s telling that both “Overlord” and “The Longest Day” were shot in black-and-white, even though color was readily available. Black-and-white films were consistent with the newsreel footage that brought details of the war to American and British audiences — and where then did they see the newsreels? In a theater, before a movie. | It’s telling that both “Overlord” and “The Longest Day” were shot in black-and-white, even though color was readily available. Black-and-white films were consistent with the newsreel footage that brought details of the war to American and British audiences — and where then did they see the newsreels? In a theater, before a movie. |
| Today, when I think of my father driving through those cold, wet mornings on the Allied front, I see him only in black-and-white. And I can’t quite find his face in my daydreams. Instead, the faces from some of the best World War II combat movies blur in with his: a bit of Richard Conte or Norman Lloyd from “A Walk in the Sun,” or maybe a mix of John Hodiak and James Whitmore from “Battleground.” | Today, when I think of my father driving through those cold, wet mornings on the Allied front, I see him only in black-and-white. And I can’t quite find his face in my daydreams. Instead, the faces from some of the best World War II combat movies blur in with his: a bit of Richard Conte or Norman Lloyd from “A Walk in the Sun,” or maybe a mix of John Hodiak and James Whitmore from “Battleground.” |
| These war films — and there are so many powerful ones — help us to collectively remember the war. They’re conduits that allow us to celebrate its victory, mourn its losses and mull its effects. The best of them, those imprinted on our cultural psyche, are informed and circumspect with their creative license, some even enlisting advisers (the National WWII Museum’s co-founder, Stephen Ambrose, served as one for “Saving Private Ryan”). They tell their stories with an awareness that a well-studied audience will readily call out anything that doesn’t ring true. | These war films — and there are so many powerful ones — help us to collectively remember the war. They’re conduits that allow us to celebrate its victory, mourn its losses and mull its effects. The best of them, those imprinted on our cultural psyche, are informed and circumspect with their creative license, some even enlisting advisers (the National WWII Museum’s co-founder, Stephen Ambrose, served as one for “Saving Private Ryan”). They tell their stories with an awareness that a well-studied audience will readily call out anything that doesn’t ring true. |
| It’s crucial to wrestle with the fact that some of the best, most watchable war movies also served primarily as jingoistic propaganda. Documentarians have since provided the historical revisions to them our discourse needs, especially for wars less “good” than World War II. | It’s crucial to wrestle with the fact that some of the best, most watchable war movies also served primarily as jingoistic propaganda. Documentarians have since provided the historical revisions to them our discourse needs, especially for wars less “good” than World War II. |
| But on days like D-Day, the most consequential date of the twentieth century, we naturally call to mind all that was at stake, all the men who gave their lives for it, as well as the survivors who’ve since died and those few who gracefully are still with us. As we honor a rare day’s worth of national unity and personal sacrifice, we can’t help but gather around the more grand and, simultaneously, more granular stories of the movies. The pictures that may have only been “based on a true story,” but did justice to the essential truth of what happened on the ground — the ones that got guys like my dad to finally talk. | |
| Ben Mankiewicz is a broadcast journalist and the prime-time host of Turner Classic Movies. | Ben Mankiewicz is a broadcast journalist and the prime-time host of Turner Classic Movies. |
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