More than action and adventure, Tom Hanks is best known for his capabilities in dramatics. He specializes in acting out complex character arcs that have an impact on audiences, rather than physically fighting antagonists. Such a reputation has followed him for the majority of his career. Even when he was a part of movies that covered conventionally violent topics, the projects focused more on the characters and their states of mind than complex action sequences.
The perfect example of such a film would be Saving Private Ryan, directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is known for eliciting a very emotional reaction from its audience and is regarded as one of the greatest war films of all time. It would seem that viewers weren’t the only ones affected by Spielberg’s excellent storytelling.
Tom Hanks revealed during an interview that the first time he saw a specific part of the movie, he was unable to hold his tears back.
Tom Hanks Fell Under Steven Spielberg’s Spell
Even though Saving Private Ryan is set during the Second World War, it does not revel in its violence. There is one exception in the film, however, where both action and drama meet; the Omaha Beach sequence. Even though the scene depicts extreme graphic violence, with bodies decorating the sand and the water dyed bloody, the movie focuses on how the violence affects the characters.
It shows the light leaving the soldiers’ eyes, and the PTSD forming in their minds. It is safe to say that the scene stood out for many viewers and elicited a lot of emotional reactions.
It would seem that audience members weren’t the only ones to get moved by the scene, as Tom Hanks revealed that the scene had a lasting effect on him. Speaking with Vanity Fair, the actor revealed that when he first saw the final cut of the full altercation, he could not hold back his tears.
“When I first saw the completed sequence, I wept,” Hanks said. “The landing, from the boats to the top of the bluff, was just too horrible to watch without becoming undone. People see that landing sequence as a seminal 20 minutes, not just in the history of war movies, but in all of cinema”
The implications of the violence and how both sides were simply doing what they were ordered to, made the actor very emotional. With how grotesque and traumatic the battle was, Hanks thought it impossible for someone to watch without crying. He even went as far as to call it one of the most impactful openings in all of cinema, and he is not alone in this belief.
Steven Spielberg Had a Specific Vision for Saving Private Ryan
Tom Hanks then went on to talk about what it was like for him to film Saving Private Ryan. It would seem that Steven Spielberg had a very specific vision when he was making the film; he did not want actors to plan out their reactions. He wanted authenticity and wanted the cast to react to the situations, in the moment, rather than read the character’s reaction in the script and try to imitate that.
“He said no combat movie would have ever been like it. I knew immediately that our job as actors would be to behave and react in the actual physical moment, that we would be trained accordingly over time, and that anything that happened on-screen would be as it should.”
He wished for the movie to stand out in front of other war movies, and this seemed to be his approach to achieving his goal. So, over time, Hanks and the other cast members had to learn to rely on their instincts and react to the situation at hand. All so that the filmmaker would be able to capture their real reactions.
Saving Private Ryan is available for streaming on Apple TV+.
