Trivia for
Saving Private Ryan (1998) More at IMDb Pro »

• The role of Caparzo was written just for Vin Diesel after director Steven Spielberg saw Diesel's independent film Strays (1997), which was also his directorial, writing, producing and lead acting debut.
  
  
• All the principal actors underwent several days of grueling army training - except for Matt Damon, who was spared so that the other actors would resent him, and would convey that resentment in their performances.
  
  
• Real amputees were used for the shots of people with limbs missing.
  
  

• The two German Tiger tanks in the movie were in fact Russian T-34 tanks modified to appear as convincing Tiger tanks. You can see the difference between these fake Tigers and the real ones by the differing road wheels.
  
  
• Upham is chastised for saluting Miller (Tom Hanks) because it will make Miller a target for snipers. In Forrest Gump (1994), Forrest (Hanks) is chastised for doing the same thing to Lt. Dan.
  
  
• Although Steven Spielberg reduced the color saturation of the movie by 60% for artistic reasons, both major American satellite providers (DirecTV and Dish Newtork) and numerous cable TV providers turned up the chroma gain to re-enhance the color saturation to normal-looking levels when broadcasting the movie. They did this because on the first day or two of the movie's broadcast run, their customer service centers were swamped with calls from viewers complaining that something was wrong with the color.
  
  
• This was the first movie to be rated NC-16 in Singapore. Due to the nature of the violence of the movie, it couldn't be passed as PG film. Also, the lack of adult theme, it couldn't be granted R(A) rating.
  
  
• Body Count: 206
  
  
• The names Rieben reads off the dog tags are all friends of actor Edward Burns.
  
  
• For the initial fighting scenes in the sea, spare ammunition carried by the actors was made from wood, as metal was too heavy.
  
  
• The two "German" soldiers who are shot trying to surrender were speaking Czech. They were saying, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!" They were members of what the Germans called Ost [East] Battalions, men - mostly Czech and Polish - taken prisoner in eastern European countries invaded by Germany and forced into the German army.
  
  
• Edward Norton was offered the role of Private Ryan, but turned it down.
  
  
• The opening and closing of the film features a US flag backlit by the sun. This is exactly the same as a shot in Leni Riefenstahl's Tag der Freiheit - Unsere Wehrmacht (1935). In that film, a Nazi flag gently sways in the wind, with the sun shining through it from behind, rendering the flag somewhat translucent.
  
  
• The siege in the village of Ramelle was filmed on a set created on a disused airfield in Hatfield, England. The bridge so valiantly defended actually crosses a three foot deep canal created for the movie. Earlier scenes in the village of Neuville-au-Plain used the same set carefully shot from different angles.
  
  
• One camera's shutter was deliberately misaligned to make it go off sync. This was a direct homage to a shot by Director of Photography Douglas Milsome in Full Metal Jacket (1987).
  
  
• This is the last film edited on a non-digital editing system to win an Academy Award for editing.
  
  
• Cameo: [Janusz Kaminski] The film's cinematographer appears as a documentary filmmaker.
  
  
• Full character names: John H. Miller, Michael Horvath, Richard Reiben, Daniel Jackson, Stanley Mellish, Adrien Caparzo, Irwin Wade and Timothy E. Upham.
  
  
• Voted #1 greatest war film in Channel 4 (UK) recent poll.
  
  
• Gunfire sound effects heard in the film were recorded from actual gunfire with live ammunition fired from authentic period weapons, recorded at a live fire machine gun range near Atlanta, Georgia. The range is owned by a weapons manufacturer.
  
  
• In the German-dubbed version of the movie, one of the actors, himself a German veteran of the Normandy invasion, couldn't deal with emotional realism of the film and dropped out and had to be replaced.
  
  
• Michael Madsen was offered the role of Sgt. Horvath. He turned it down, recommending friend Tom Sizemore for the part instead.
  
  
• Ranked #10 on the American Film Institute's 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time (2006).
  
  
• [June 2008] Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Epic".
  
  
• In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #71 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).
  
  
• Selected as the opening film at the 55th Venice Film Festival in 1998.
  
  
• Just after the scene where Captain Miller "recruits" Upham for the mission there is a short scene that shows the motor pool. For a few brief seconds a jeep with a small trailer rolls by. If you look carefully you can see that the jeep and trailer contain Captain Miller and his men. The next scene shows Miller and the others walking through a meadow on foot with no vehicle in sight. This is due to the fact that the scene which shows how Miller and the men lose the jeep was deleted from the final cut. Later in the film Miller mentions something about losing "most of their ammo". This occurred when they lost the jeep.
  
  
• Inspired by the true story of the Niland brothers. Sgt. Frederick Niland was in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne. "Band of Brothers" (2001), produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, told the story of another 101st Airborne unit, Easy Company of the 506th PIR.
  
  
• Abraham Lincoln''s letter to Mrs. Bixby, while a real document, was inaccurate when written. Only two of her sons died: Sgt. Charles Bixby at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862 and Pvt. Charles Bixby at Petersburg, Virginia, the following year. Two more sons, Pvts. George and Edward Bixby, both deserted, and the remaining son, Cpl. Henry Bixby, was captured and later swapped in a prisoner exchange. In fact, Mrs. Bixby - a Confederate sympathizer who operated a brothel - had lied to the War Department about the number of sons she'd lost. Moreover, according to the Abraham Lincoln Association, the letter itself wasn't even written by Lincoln but by one of his secretaries, John Hay. Brown University houses Hay's scrapbook of newspaper clippings which featured his writings. The Mrs. Bixby letter, publicly credited to Lincoln, is among them. One of the words in the letter, "beguiled", was helpful in showing that it wasn't Lincoln who wrote the letter. A database of Lincoln speeches/writings revealed the only instance in which he uses the word "beguiled" is in the Bixby letter. Hay, however, is documented to have used it at least a dozen different times in his letters, writings and speeches.
  
  
• Foley artist Jana Vance dislocated three ribs while lugging heavy gear and military boots for a scene's sound effects.
  
  
• When the camera shakes during explosions, Steven Spielberg used drills attached to the side of the camera which were turned on when required. While shooting with this effect the crew's photographer let Spielberg know that there was a shaker lens for cameras. Spielberg said in an interview that he had thought he had invented a great new technique at first.
  
  
• Cap. Dale Dye (USMC Ret.), the film's military advisor, makes an appearance as a War Department colonel in the scene with Gen. George C. Marshall. He can be recognized by his white hair and mustache.
  
  
• Upham's shoulder patch, a blue and grey "yin yang" symbol, identifies him as a member of the 29th US infantry division. It symbolizes the fact that the division was composed of units from Virginia and Maryland, who fought on both sides of the American Civil War.
  
  
• The information on casualties didn't reach The War Department for quite a few weeks. Supposedly Ryan's brothers' casualty information arrived at D-Plus 3 . Most families were lucky to hear of wounded loved ones let alone KIA sixty days after it happened. This of course is a major device of the story but would never have happened so early in the invasion.
  
  
• In 1994, Robert Rodat was visiting a monument in Putney Corners, New Hampshire, dedicated to 8 brothers who had all been killed during the American Civil War. Inspired by the story, Rodat did some research and decided to set the story during World War II.
  
  
• Robert Rodat's script was bought by producer Mark Gordon who liked the story but only accepted the final screenplay after 11 drafts.
  
  
• The Omaha Beach scene cost $11 million to shoot and involved up to 1000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, 20-30 of them were amputees issued with prosthetic limbs to simulate soldiers having their limbs blown off.
  
  
• Two of the landing craft used in the Omaha Beach scenes were actually in use in World War II.
  
  
• 40 barrels of fake blood were utilized in the opening battle scene.
  
  
• Local reenactment groups such as the Second Battle Group were employed as extras to play German and American soldiers.
  
  
• The Battle of Ramelle never took place in real life. The town and the battle were both fictional.
  
  
• One of the very last films to be released on Laserdisc in November 1999. Laserdiscs ceased being manufactured at the end of that year.
  
  
• The input of Industrial Light & Magic was significantly downplayed so as not to make the film appear to be a special effects movie. ILM's contribution however was subtle but highly necessary as most of the bullet hits in the Omaha Beach attack were digitally created.
  
  
• To achieve his unique "look" for the film, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski adjusted his film shutter to 90 degrees to create sharper, more realistic images, and used an Image Shaker to vibrate the camera to approximate the impact of explosions.
  
  
• The first DreamWorks film to cross the $100 million mark.
  
  
• In 2006, Tom Hanks was inducted into the US Army's Ranger Hall of Fame as an honorary member, largely thanks to his portrayal of company commander John Miller in this film.
  
  
• The Department of Veterans Affairs set up a special 800 number to help the hundreds of former soldiers who were traumatized after seeing the film.
  
  
• Cinemas were instructed to up the volume when they showed the film as the sound effects play such a crucial part in its overall effect.
  
  
• Director Steven Spielberg considered casting Matt Damon after viewing his performance in Courage Under Fire (1996), but thought he was too skinny. Robin Williams introduced Damon to Spielberg on the set of Good Will Hunting (1997), and Spielberg changed his mind.
  
  
• In the scene in which Tom Hanks's character tells the rest of the unit what he does for a living back at home, Hanks' speech was much longer in the original script. But Hanks felt that his character wouldn't have said so much about himself, and he told director Steven Spielberg so. Spielberg agreed, and the speech was shortened.
  
  
• Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford were both considered for the role of Captain John Miller, before Steven Spielberg decided on casting Tom Hanks.
  
  
• Many veterans of D-Day have congratulated director Steven Spielberg for the film's authenticity, including actor James Doohan, best known as Scotty from "Star Trek" (1966). Doohan lost the middle finger of his right hand and was wounded in the leg during the war. He commended Spielberg for not leaving out any gory details.
  
  
• Matt Damon ad-libbed the story he tells towards the end of the film about spying on his brother in the barn with the ugly girl. Steven Spielberg liked it so much he decided to leave it in the film.
  
  
• The film was blocked by the Censor Board of India for too much violence. The Board demanded cuts that Steven Spielberg declined to make, and instead he decided not to release the movie in India at all. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the then Home Minister of India saw the movie himself and, impressed, ordered it to be released uncut.
  
  
• Scott Frank and Frank Darabont did uncredited script doctor work on the screenplay. Scott Frank's work is, according to claims, the most prominent.
  
  
• Filming switched from the UK to Ireland after the British Ministry of Defence declined to provide the huge numbers of soldiers requested to act as extras in the film. The Irish Defence forces supplied 250 men drawn from a mix of units of the FCA (Army Reserve) and Slua Muiri (Navy) reserves. They spent four weeks in the surf on the beaches while filming the landing scenes. The UK MoD also supplied a couple of hundred soldiers from their reserves, but not the thousands that Steven Spielberg had asked for.
  
  
• As Steven Spielberg refused to cut the violent scenes, the film was banned in Malaysia.
  
  
• Steven Spielberg requested that no one gain admittance to the movie once it had begun.
  
  
• Originally Steven Spielberg envisaged the film as being like a Boy's Own adventure. However, after he started interviewing WWII vets, he realized that such a treatment would be wholly inappropriate.
  
  
• Steven Spielberg is on record as saying that even if the film had received an NC-17 rating, he would have released it uncut anyway.
  
  
• Steven Spielberg donated an undisclosed amount of money to build a theater at America's National D-Day Memorial in honor of his late father, who flew Army Air Corps missions and was a radio operator in Burma during World War II.
  
  

• SPOILER: During the ending sequence when Upham emerges from hiding, he speaks in German without subtitles. Roughly translated, he says, "Hands high! Lay down your weapons!" (repeated) says, "I know this soldier. I know this man." Upham responds, "Hold your snout!" The German soldier responds, "Upham," then after a pause Upham shoots him. Then, to the rest of the soldiers he says, "Scram! Vanish!"
  
  
• SPOILER: As the German soldier stabs Mellish to death, he says: "Gib' auf, du hast keine Chance! Lass' es uns beenden! Es ist einfacher für dich, viel einfacher. Du wirst sehen, es ist gleich vorbei." This translates: "Give up, you don't stand a chance! Let's end this here! It will be easier for you, much easier. You'll see it will be over quickly." The words are spoken in accent-free German.
  
  

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