Great Scene: “Saving Private Ryan”

Captain Miller finally reveals what his job is back home. Some interesting changes from script to screen.

IMDb plot summary: Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Written by Robert Rodat.

Setup: There has been a running bet among the Second Rangers soldiers, taking guesses as to what Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) does for a living back home. In the run-up to this scene, the soldiers are pissed off. Two of their men have been killed in combat while they are stuck on a mission to find Private Ryan, who they do not know, and escort him to safety. They don’t understand the mission, they don’t want the mission, they’d rather be fighting the war. When they find a German soldier who killed one of their own, Miller makes a controversial decision: To let the soldier go.

Here is the scene from a screenplay dated 6/13/1997.

Compare to the movie:

Here is Miller’s monologue:

I’m a schoolteacher. I teach English composition… in this little town called Adley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I’ve been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was a coach of the baseball team in the springtime. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it’s a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I’ve changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I’ll ever be able to tell her about days like today. Ah, Ryan. I don’t know anything about Ryan. I don’t care. The man means nothing to me. It’s just a name. But if… You know if going to Rumelle and finding him so that he can go home. If that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that’s my mission. You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won’t stop you. I’ll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.

The movie version has Miller revealing his background in a moment of heightened conflict making for much better drama. He uses the details of his life back home to defuse a potentially violent situation. The elements are all there in the script. They are brought together in the movie to make for an even more dramatic moment.

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