By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(July 24, 1998) -- Saving Private Ryan is set in World War II -- but Steven Spielberg says the decision to make it painfully violent is a product of another era.

"If it weren't for Vietnam, I wouldn't have made Private Ryan as graphically realistic as I did," he says.

"I began to resent the misconception among Americans that Vietnam was the most painful war, simply because we saw it regularly in color and on TV.

"So people think Vietnam was a cruel, blatantly horrific war, while World War II was that black and white war, starring John Wayne.

"In fact, a war is a war, and World War II and Korea and the First World War and Vietnam were all chambers of horrors. I never felt the World War II veteran had his story told the way it happened to them."

And as a youngster, Spielberg had heard stories from at least one veteran. His father, now 81, had served in Burma in World War II.

We're talking in a hotel in Washington, D.C., a week before the film is to open. After a half-hour with Spielberg, I'll move down the hall for another conversation with his star, Tom Hanks.

Though it's a hot summer day, Spielberg is wearing a sweater vest over his open-collar shirt, and under a tweed sportscoat. The one-time wunderkind of Hollywood now sports graying hair, and is looking more and more professorial as he moves through his 50s.

And with age, Spielberg says he's become more interested in serious topics, which may explain why the one-time champion of childhood fantasies has lately pursued the holocaust horrors of Schindler's List and the searing slavery of Amistad.

With Saving Private Ryan, that dark odyssey continues.

"It was different when I was in my forties. I was still hanging on to Peter Pan," he says. "And I still have Peter Pan."

But today he thinks more of his seven children than of the child within himself.

"Now, when I make a picture, I want it to be of value for them. If not now, because they're too young, then in their future.

"Part of why I decide to tell a story is because I want to leave it behind for them.

"Certainly, I want to leave behind E.T. and some of the lighter films, but there are also things I want them to know that are tougher."

And, with Saving Private Ryan, it's the legacy of the everyday heroes of World War II.

"The most important thing about this picture is that I got to make a movie about a time that my Dad flourished in, about a time when he did something important and was proud of.

"He never waved the flag in front of me," Spielberg adds, "but he's always been so proud of being an American.

"When Vietnam came along, and I was in college, I resented people who said they were proud to be American, because I felt the government was doing to the soldiers in that war was criminal.

"Only when I became older did I began to understand my Dad's generation, and how they allowed the baby-boomer generation to even occur, and that generation allowed Generation X to happen.

"I went from resenting the American flag to thanking it," Spielberg adds.

"In a sense, this movie is a memorial to those combat veterans of the Normandy invasion, and a way for me to say thank you to my Dad and to a lot of people like him."

The key thing Spielberg learned from the veterans, and from historians, like Stephen Ambrose, was that previous World War II movies never really captured the terrifying nature of warfare. Thus, Spielberg decided to begin his film with 25 of the most harrowing action ever put in a mainstream film.

"I knew what I was getting into when I chose to tell the story from the veterans' point of view, not from a filmmaker's point of view.

"I don't know war, because I never fought in a war. But I honor the veterans by letting them inform me, and through the documentaries I watched, and Robert Capa's eight surviving D-Day photographs. They all helped me determine how I wanted the film to look.

"I was just able to interpret and communicate what happened to them, to people who don't know anything about war, let alone World War II, which I think is probably the epiphany of the 20th century."

Ambrose, the author of Citizen Soldiers, and a leading historian on D-Day and World War II, is quick to acknowledge Spielberg's accomplishment with Saving Private Ryan, and with Schindler's List and Amistad.

"The guy who made E.T. and Jaws and Raiders, has now become America's historian," Ambrose says. "As a storyteller, he has the biggest audience. In recent years, his stories have been American history."

Happy discovery

But Spielberg is also the most successful filmmaker in history, having made seven of the 20 top-grossing films ever. And two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks was happy to discover he and Spielberg were interested in the same project.

Both had early looks at Robert Rodat's script, and were anxious to sign on.

"The story was always great -- and the philosophical question was there," Hanks says. "But the captain I was supposed to play originally was a cigar-chomping medal of honor winner.

"However, Steven said he wanted to make the most realistic war movie ever made. I told him that meant changing every line. He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Can I help?' "

Hanks says the tone of Saving Private Ryan -- serious, realistic and devoid of John Wayne bravado -- was established as soon as they decided to stage the Omaha Beach invasion at the start of production.

The horrifically violent, 25-minute sequence not only sets the mood for filmgoers, but it also influenced Spielberg and his actors the rest of the way.

"After we had shot it, there was so many times later that we'd see that certain scenes or lines were stupid, and we didn't want to say the lines."

Spielberg and Hanks were nervous about working together, only because they're close friends.

"Our families are joined at the hip," Spielberg says.

But they needn't have worried. "At least a dozen times" during the shooting, Hanks says, both men simultaneously came up with similar ideas to maintain the integrity of the project.

And working alongside Spielberg, Hanks got a first-hand look at why his friend is Hollywood's top director.

"He never censors his instincts or gets precious about what he's doing. He sees it, he wants it, he gets it, and he gets it as fast as he can.

"He's got the artistry and expertise to make it all first-rate, so none of it is slap-dash or haphazard unless he wants it to look that way.

"In the time it takes me to set up one shot, Steven would have seven shots under his belt and be working on the next fourteen," Hanks says.

"That speed and momentum and clarity -- and not questioning his instincts -- that's why he's who he is."

But beyond the chance to work with his good friend and Hollywood's top director, Hanks says he was simply thrilled to be part of such a film.

"I always play these ordinary guys in extraordinary circumstances, but what's more extraordinary than being in a landing craft at Normandy on D-Day.

"I'm really proud of the way it came out," Hanks adds.

"We know actors will come up to us for the rest of our lives, wanting to know what it was like to make Saving Private Ryan."