The Glorious Dead and Sacred Communities in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan and Wajda’s Katyń

Abstract

Historical memory is one of the keys to strengthening what Anthony Smith calls the “deep cultural resources” of national identity (Chosen Peoples 5). This article argues that in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan of 1998 and Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń of 2007 a dialogue with sacred cultural resources takes place. Focusing as they do on wartime experiences of Americans and Poles, the historical memory brought to the fore in these films evokes the specific trials that the respective nations endured in WWII. Through the depiction of the military community at war, the films contribute to the underlying sacred national communities that remain to this day. The themes of commemoration implicit in the films foster an ethical dimension within the respective sacred communities, since commemoration of the wartime dead develops moral memory. Through the depictions of their sacrifice in both films, the glorious dead augment both the sacred sources of their immediate military communities and, either as heroes or victims, those of their larger national communities.