SOURCE: Jaehne, Karen. “Saving Private Ryan.” Film Quarterly 53, no. 1 (fall 1999): 39-41.

In the following review, Jaehne elucidates the theme of communication in Saving Private Ryan.

In September 1998, Steven Spielberg received the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany from President Roman Herzog, who expressed Germany's appreciation to the American Jewish director. “Germany thanks you for work that has given us more than you may realize,” said Herzog. The film that made the Germans realize that there were maybe heroes among them would be Schindler's List. Yet at that time, Spielberg's subsequent film was also playing in German cinemas—a film that had as its cornerstone the same verse from the Talmud emblazoned on the screen in Schindler's List: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

In making Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg inverted that principle to show an entire group setting...