Stoic Hero In Saving Private Ryan

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Tom Hanks is Steven Spielberg’s great stoic hero. In Saving Private Ryan, he’s the schoolteacher soldier, trying to maintain a semblance of sense in the chaos of World War II; in Catch Me If You Can, he’s the befuddled Fed, blustering through every airy caper to drag the conman hero back down to earth. And in Bridge of Spies, Hanks plays James B. Donovan, a lawyer who defended the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel after his arrest in 1957, performing the vital duty of representing American fairness, and giving Abel his day in court. More importantly, to Spielberg, Donovan actually put in effort as Abel’s lawyer rather than serve as a simple prop, a distinction that recurs in the film time and time again.

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