MORE ON "RYAN"

I know I just criticized "Saving Private Ryan" for its all too realistic portrayal of violence, but I must mention that I was quite disturbed by some of the reactions from some of the movie-goers who were in the theater with me. I saw the film last Friday night, a week after it opened, at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. During the opening D-Day scene, several very disturbing moments were displayed, including some depictions that, if they were in a cartoon, could have been viewed as amusing. A small cluster of people (by small I mean 15 or so people), found these moments funny enough to laugh out loud. They laughed as events occured on screen that no human should ever have to suffer in real life. They laughed as some of the more ironic moments in war were displayed. But this was not a cartoon and the film was meant as a realistic mirror to what World War II (and other wars) were really like. How could these people laugh? I am quite baffled as the film certainly did not portray the deaths of American soldiers in a light-hearted or frivolous way like most other movies (be them war movies or just those with action scenes in them) so how could these people laugh? My only conclusion is that some people have so lost touch with the sacrifices our grandfathers made in that war that they find all images of war to be unreal and fictional. What a shame.