He called it "incomparably more realistic" than "Saving Private Ryan." "On the whole I think was pretty close to the truth," Beevor said of the 2001 HBO miniseries, which Spielberg and Tom Hanks executive produced. So what does Beevor prefer in the way of a Hollywood treatment of D-Day? Another project Spielberg had a hand in, "Band of Brothers." "The real fighting and the real casualties," he added, "came in the Battle of Normandy." Casualties on D-Day were far lighter than expected - had expected 10,000 dead and only 3,000 died. "But in fact it was the fighting in Normandy which was far worse. Films like 'The Longest Day' and 'Saving Private Ryan' almost give the impression that D-Day was 'it' and then the next thing people know about was the liberation of Paris," he said. "D-Day, although an iconic moment, was not actually the end of it. Making use of first-person accounts stored in the National Archives, as well as a wealth of other material, Beevor depicts in painstaking detail not only the D-Day landings by American, British, Canadian and Free French forces, but also the subsequent battle for the whole of Normandy that proved pivotal in defeating Nazi Germany.īeevor says a director would do well to remember that the Allied effort to retake the continent extended well beyond that single day of June 6, 1944. If any filmmakers wish to take on D-Day again, Beevor's book provides enough material for a dozen screenplays. It shows the tension between patriotic and therefore collective loyalty, and the struggle of the individual for survival: those mutually contradictory pressures, which in many ways lie at the heart of war," Beevor observed in the talk. "Spielberg's basic story line had great potential. He has expanded on the criticism in a lecture.
"It's sort of a 'Dirty Dozen' cliche of the worst form," he said. He admires the famed Omaha Beach opening - "Probably the most realistic battle sequence ever filmed," he said - but described the rest of "Saving Private Ryan" as "ghastly." Not only is it not the greatest war movie, it's not even the best cinematic depiction of D-Day, says Beevor, author of the newly published "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy" (Viking). Military historian Antony Beevor begs to differ. (CNN) - Some reviewers have called "Saving Private Ryan," Steven Spielberg's World War II film about D-Day and the search for a soldier, one of the greatest war movies.
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