"Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg's summer 1998 "blockbuster," is noteworthy [among other reasons for] its recreation of the experience of combat . . . . [A]udiences will surely remember [the film's] attention to the realities of battle . . . . Private Ryan is not anti-war; rather, it is a bloody memorial to the veterans of the crusade against Hitler. . . . We may leave the film with the conviction that war is hell, but not the belief that this war was unworthy of sacrifice. . . . The scene in which Private Ryan's mother sees the priest emerge from the car and she realizes that someone has been killed (she does not yet know that three of her sons are dead) is as powerful as any of the action scenes: She steps out onto the porch and in silent agony slowly sits down to await the news . . . . [Saving Private Ryan] takes the history of combat seriously [and for that] military historians, at least, owe Spielberg a debt. And for those who never saw a battle, Spielberg has enriched the imagination."