Explore "Saving Private Ryan" by Howard Zinn on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hollywood has always loved war. Not only are war movies popular and profitable, but they create a partnership between the movie industry and the government, thus violating the principle of independence in art. Indeed, at times, the government will subsidize such movies, lending its equipment for war scenes, giving its material support and official approval for a war-mongering movie of the Vietnam era, The Green Berets. Saving Private Ryan, the movie, recalled to me the gbrification of World War II which has persisted in our culture for over fifty years, and fitted perfectly the martial spirit of Hollywood. "I thought it needed a critical eye, so I wrote this piece for The Progressive.
Like so many World War II veterans (I could see them all around me in the theater audience) I was drawn to see Saving Private Ryan. I had volunteered for the Air Force at the age of 20, and after training as a bombardier went overseas with my crew to fly, out of England, the last bombing missions of the European war.