Saving Private Ryan vs. Blade Runner

With Veteran's Day (and Memorial Day) comes the Battle of the War Movies, fought on the ever-expanding battlefield of cable and satellite TV. I'm not complaining. As a child growing up in the Cold War era, I was fascinated by everything to do with the hot war that was WWII. There was a time when I knew every episode of the series "Combat." I remember "Von Ryan's Express" at the drive-in; the bug-smeared windshield fading away before harrowing train chases. "The Longest Day" and "Patton," both seen with my grandfather at the decrepit Edison Theater in Ft. Myers. When Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks revived the epic war movie with "Saving Private Ryan," I was in the line to be among the first to see it, and I continue to subscribe to HBO in tribute and gratitude for "Band Of Brothers" (and a different type of war series, "The Wire").

Thus, when a friend of mine who had never seen "Saving Private Ryan" happened to be sitting beside me on Monday evening when the channel-surfing lottery wheel stopped on TNT and found Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) and his squad coming upon a German artillery outpost, I was unrestrained in my enthusiastic endorsement: "You have got to watch this!"

Of course, the problem with commercial television is that they show commercials. Inevitably, one eventually arrived, and we were off surfing again for something to entertain us during that 240 or so seconds of advertising. We found another film in mid-stream that my friend had never seen all the way through, "Blade Runner: The Final Cut."

Now we had a dilemma. How to choose which war to follow? Ultimately we melded the two into one odd viewing experience, and my friend has still not seen either film in its entirety. But that's probably okay . . . it's a little like dipping into a book of poems where you find a number of pieces that you enjoy, but you don't ever get around to reading through the collection front to back in its entirety.

Beyond the example we represented of the modern television viewer's incessant impatience, watching pieces of these two movies made me wonder at my fascination with cinematic representations of war. It may be a gender bias . . . something primal to do with testosterone and territoriality. In fact, that seems most likely. I can see myself much more as the terrified interpreter, Upham, in "Saving Private Ryan" than any of the Mamet-type manly warriors who fought brutally and bravely against their German counterparts.

Though it occurs to me that humans of both genders (and our animal colleagues) have this fighting instinct deeply wired into our essential selves. Darwin defined the game's setup. Each generation that comes along simply takes up its position somewhere on the game board, and then fights like hell to defend it. We want to win. Why?

The answer to that has to be a subject for another entry (or two). But it's a really interesting question, and its answer depends a lot on how one defines winning. What's it mean to win, when we all eventually die . . . both winners and losers? Winning may be mostly about postponing dying, and ensuring that extra time is spent with greater allocations of pleasurable experiences than the losers get. Or maybe the game is being fought in shadow lands (to borrow from C. S. Lewis) or in shadows against a cave wall (thanks Plato). No matter, we sure seem to be fascinated by playing, and watching . . . especially when we can step back and watch great actors and cinematographers show us replays!