The Completist- Steven Spielberg: Boy (full of) Wonder
An Introduction
Steven Spielberg was always going to be a filmmaker. A statement that might seem obvious today would have been pretty bold to his electrical engineer father, and even to his freer spirited concert pianist mother. However, early in his biography of the legendary filmmaker, author Joseph McBride notes how in control he was, even as a teenager running fairly amateur sets. "[H]e got there and suddenly he was in charge (emphasis his). He became a totally different person" (McBride, 12) from the young man alienated by and from familial difficulties, multiple moves, and his Jewish identity. Molly Haskell delves into all of those elements in her book too. The picture that emerges is that of someone who came completely to life making movies. If you've seen The Fabelmans, you understand this too, especially as Spielberg seems to be confessing that being this way may kill you, but it's still inescapable. The former schoolmate quoted above saw both versions of him, and knew of what he spoke. It is an oft-repeated sentiment by friends and collaborators over the years.
"His strength is really the ability to be able to tell a story in pictures instinctively," says longtime friend and contemporary Martin Scorsese (Spielberg, 2017). "I wouldn't say he's an intellectual director. I think he fells things intuitively and emotionally. He seems to breathe cinema," adds Schindler's List actor Ben Kingsley in the same film. I won't (can't) quote them all, but the feeling is shared by film & television luminaries from Steven Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues, to The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola. Going all the way back to the 1960s and earlier filmmaking episodes, we learn of his creativity: early shorts with his Boy Scout troupe, or the family dog (Haskell 27-29), culminating in Firelight, the feature he directed at 16 but now disavows. All of these were against the backdrop of the suburban Arizona life he was then living, which would become recognizable to us (the suburban part especially) in early features like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Instead of turning completely internal, Steven picked up a camera that he used to tell stories that interacted with those alienated parts of himself, but also drew an audience to his films. Firelight not only features aliens, but lost aircraft, and a straight couple whose relationship is in trouble--- all of which would later be a factor in Close Encounters. After gaining a name and respect on episodic television, he made Duel (1971) a movie made for TV, but featuring a number of what would become Spielbergian Signatures: reflections in mirrors and mirrored surfaces. Unseen or partially hidden villains and monsters. An eye for intense spectacle. Tension breaking humour.
Following Duel was The Sugarland Express (1974), starring Goldie Hawn as a woman attempting to reunite her family and prevent her son from being taken into foster care-- away from her & her jailbird husband. Based partially on a real-life story that had taken place in Texas in the late 60s, Sugarland was panned by the great film critic Pauline Kael. She called it "commercial and shallow and impersonal," but she also noted that it had "so much eagerness and flash and talent" it almost overcame those failings. Of Spielberg, Kael added, "if there is such a thing as a movie sense-- and I think there is...-- Spielberg really has it. There she was, observing what she say as a shallow endeavour and yet, she also saw the talent behind the camera.
Spielberg has faced versions of this criticism ever since. His films are marketable to mass audiences, but don't engage deeply enough with serious subjects to be taken as art. Even his "artistic" films, like The Color Purple and Schindler's List shy away from the real horror they could portray. He's a little boy filmmaker with no sex appeal or risk beyond the external. His fables are nice and all, but his lost boy tropes are enough already, don't you think? Perhaps this is all true. Perhaps this whole exercise will prove to me finally that he's a lesser filmmaker, worthy of his financial success maybe, but not of a spot among the great American directors. Or maybe the opposite. Or maybe (dream with me) in spite of, or what about because of and through his flaws, we are sifting through the works of a major talent with plenty to say about society, heroism, connection, life out there with the stars, and our shared humanity.
The Pairings
Alien-nation: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.Spielberg Does Kubrick: A.I. and Minority Report
Our Tech Overlords: Jurassic Park and Ready Player One
Firsts: Duel and West Side Story
Best Picture Blockbusters: Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark
Creative Low Points: 1941 and Hook
Getting the Job Done: Bridge of Spies and The Post
Fractured Families: Always and The Fabelmans
Midseason Break: Arguing About Steve
The 9/11 Trilogy: The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich
The Sophomore Slump: Temple of Doom and The Lost World
Slavery in America: Amistad and Lincoln
Animations: Tintin and The BFG
Lost in Battle: Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, and War Horse
Fathers & Sons: The Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Runaways: The Sugarland Express and Catch me if you Can
Prestige Adaptations: The Color Purple and Schindler's List
Coda: Closing Thoughts and Disclosure Day
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