Steven Spielberg - classic or dud

The Terminal stripped him of any claim to classicness.

It's one thing to get excited in a 'film school' sort of way about his technique. It's another thing to sit in a dark theater and be moderately entertained by his movies. But has Speilberg overcome the limits of his medium to create great and lasting art in the way of Cocteau or Fellini or Howard Hawks or Preston Sturges? Not in my view. He generally makes clever confections. He's a great chef.

However, his depiction of the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan is a classic that stands head and shoulders above his normal work, including the remainder of SPR.

Take, for example,Brininging Up Baby. It aims at nothing more than sheer entertainment, but it is so entertaining that it sheerly delights me with its artistry and wit, its little-red-wagon sense of fun. It is an exemplar of light-hearted foolery, a gush of google-eyed silliness, a whole 'nother world you step into.

E.T. - The Extra Terrestrial aims at something a bit more than 'mere' entertainment. It wants to achieve a certain modicum of significance, in a warm and fuzzy sort of way - as a statement about wonder and innocence or something like that. But it doesn't really work on that level. It achieves a sappy, happy sentimentality about wonder and innocence. You cry when ET is dying at the hands of the mean, cold-hearted scientists because, um, never mind why. But can you take any part of it back into your life and make it work for you.

That's why Spielberg is meh. He's a perfect B+ student. He gets all the low-hanging fruit and most of the middling stuff, but never quite bags the topmost stuff.

He may be pretty middlebrow, but stuff like Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, WOTW etc is very entertaining, well made cinema. I agree that he often feels like he's trying to make a bigger statement than he actually achieves, but I cannot think of another director working currently who has consistently entertained me so well over the last 25 years.

No mention of it yet here, but I'm on the side that feels A.I. is one of his best films, too. There's plenty not to like about it, but the stuff that works (the whole opening act, the journey to drowned Manhattan, fuck it, even the ending) is some of the most mesmerising, compelling sci-fi I have ever seen. Real cinema of wonder in a very pure form.

xp

i actually LIKE spielberg and feel he gets a bad rap from "entertainment is not art" types, but howard hawks is a greater director than spielberg for the same reason charles schulz is a greater artist than dave sim.

i. dis. agree. there, that wasn't so hard. in this context, i don't care about great directors. i care about entertaining films. hawks' films are *quite* entertaining. but they don't stand out particularly from hollywood films of the 'classic' (c. 1930 - c. 1960) period.

he has a slightly nasty, right-libertarian view of society based on the rugged-individualist/masculinist ideal (women have to be men). it's this glib view of 'how to deal' that i mean by 'audience-minded'. he's all about winners.

expressive editing (blah phrase, but whatevs) is not film school bullshit. following the aesthetic choices of 1950s cahiers du cinema is film school bullshit!!

point is the kind of stuff spielberg does, like the beach scene, was beyond the dreams of any classic hollywood director. they'd have fucking killed to have done it. maybe sam fuller with spielberg's crew would be the best thing.

# Indiana Jones 4 (2006) (announced)
# Untitled Steven Spielberg/Abraham Lincoln Project (2007) (pre-production)
# Untitled 1972 Munich Olympics Project (2005) (filming)
# War of the Worlds (2005)
# The Terminal (2004)
# Catch Me If You Can (2002)
# Minority Report (2002)
# Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)

This list, of films I have seen, arranged more or less in descending order of quality (last = best) is the reason why I'm not interested in any of the films above:

# Saving Private Ryan (1998)
# The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
# Schindler's List (1993)
# Jurassic Park (1993)
# Hook (1991)
# Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
# Empire of the Sun (1987)
# The Color Purple (1985)
# Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
# E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
# Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
# Jaws (1975)
# Duel (1971)

In conclusion, Thank You Mr. Spielberg for bringing some really fantastic adventures to the big screen, and showing us some highly exciting moments, No Thank You Mr. Spielberg for saddling nearly all of them with increasingly awful casting as time marches on and for trying to choke us to death with your faith in the human spirit or whatever you want to call that unbelievably smug annoying self-congratulatory horseshit.

xpost,
more complexity and disturbingly adult themes
So do the fucking Matrix movies. OMG HE DIES TO SAVE EVERYBODY

this is kinda otm -- it's there in the movies -- but the horseshit bits are outnumbered by the highly exciting moments. or, they're *both* there. same way fall-flat bits of unfunniness and misanthropy coexist with real chills in hitchcock.

otoh, is 'saving private ryan' really that smug? it has those terrible bookends, and the matt damon bits are really annoying, but i've seen far less convinving movies about war.

The first time I saw Duel I knew it was supposed to be "atypical" Spielberg but I still spent probably half the movie waiting for some insipid deus ex machina to rob me of all my actual emotions and replace them with spoonfed lotus blooms. This is what he's done to his legacy.

Looking at that list above I realize I've disliked a LOT of his movies, without even really realizing they were Spielberg flix. I mean the only movies that I like in that list are Raiders, Last Crusade, Duel, Catch Me If You Can (and that's not even an active like because I forgot I saw it until recently) and...uh...well, I don't actually like Jurassic Park at ALL but Jeff Goldblum dresses fantastically in it so I'll give it a little bit of a pass (THAT FINAL SHOT OF THE T-REX AND THE RAPTORS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SHOT IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CINEMATOGRAPHY AND DIRECTION AND THAT IS A STONE COLD FACT PEOPLE). I'd like Saving Private Ryan better if the bookends were deleted and it was about a half hour shorter.

Dr. Morbius, how about you discuss the "disturbing adult themes" in, say, Catch Me If You Can?

jaws fucking rules ally. jpark3's pretty great, the best of the bunch no doubt. poltergeist was pretty great. band of brothers was incredible. into the west was rousing fun.

Jaws does NOT fucking rule!

UNIFIED WORKS suck anyway

ie his refusal to end his recent movies unyuckily is the price he is prepared to pay for the chance to shoot [x] idea

i don't buy this really, but i wd admire SS lots if i discovered this is where he's secretly at

They're called boobs, Ed.

Ebert, who famously didn't award many negative reviews, embarrassed himself with that Erin Brockovich review, which I watched live on their show. Of course he fawned over the crap Traffic because it was An Important Film.

theres room for both to be bad but the important point stands that the reviews were in and of themselves bad also i guess

what did he make of americas sweethearts

Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a pile of shit
CGI makes me sick

theres room for both to be bad but the important point stands that the reviews were in and of themselves bad also i guess

what did he make of americas sweethearts

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac)

ftr Erin Brockovich is top Soderbergh and almost a great movie.

i may well yet watch it based on that good word

Julia Roberts-Albert Finney chemistry is tops imo

Just watched EB for the first time a couple weeks ago. It's good. Finney is great.

Soderbergh at his best. The legal conundrum is clear. He doesn't condescend to the working-class characters. He enables a star to give her best performance to date.

ftr in addition to being a masterpiece jurassic park is in its treatment of desire/obsession/art/movies a direct spiritual sequel to close encounters: equally beautiful but less childish

alfred otm about ebert review of brokovich: "the costume design sinks this movie"

Would watch a movie of Finney and Roberts in crap clothes and eating worse fast food as they debate legal strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFCUCnNKmmI

Soderbergh is the best genre director working today, I think. His thrillers and crime movies are frequently amazing and never fail to get the job done.

Someone mentioned Fuller upthread; The Big Red One (the restored version that's available on DVD) is better than Saving Private Ryan. I haven't seen The Thin Red Line. The only Malick movies I've seen are Badlands and The New World.

ftr Erin Brockovich is top Soderbergh and almost a great movie.

I had never gotten around to it but watched it on a transatlantic flight this summer and found it entirely satisfying. All a bit Hollywoodized of course, but with that light Soderbergh touch that his good stuff has. I agree about the Roberts-Finney chemistry, very likable on both sides.

there was an amusing cut scene where Brockovich had just gotten fired and was taking her stuff out and said "any of you cunts want to help me carry this shit?", but they cut it cos it was 'too much'

Erin Brockovich was by a considerable length the best movie up for the best picture Oscar that year

And if we're to the point of saying Flags of Our Fathers is superior to Saving Private Ryan, sorry, disembarking this train

The weird thing about Ebert is that he often really gets a lot of things that other people miss, but when he himself misses things, he misses big.

This is, for the record, every single film critic ever. Every film critic misses things in an embarrassing way

Erin Brockovich was by a considerable length the best movie up for the best picture Oscar that year

― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.),

This.

Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a pile of shit
CGI makes me sick

― earosmith (Neanderthal)

there's actually not that much CGI in Jurassic Park

the majority of the dinosaur shots are animatronic (which is why most of it looks better than today's blockbusters)

I actually love JP but just heard the post in the LFO cadence and ran with it

p much the only one in the series I can even watch. I hate the new Jurassic World series, Lost World was garbage, never saw JP3.

book actually had the balls to kill Hammond though which the movie didn't.

Iirc JP3 was not terrible.

The CGI in Jurassic Park has a majesty and groundedness that is still almost unmatched. It’s a miracle of a film that benefited immensely from Phil Tippett being able to bring in what he had envisioned for stop-mo VFX

Still, I DO wonder what a Joe Dante take on the material could have been like. I’ve also always wanted to read the rejected Malia Stotch Mormo draft of the script, and I should see if the Margaret Herrick Library has a copy

Still, I DO wonder what a Joe Dante take on the material could have been like

Probably not terribly different from Small Soldiers.

I imagine the casting would have been radically different. I’ve wondered why Richard Dreyfuss and William Hurt both turned down the film, although I thought that Hurt didn’t want to work with Spielberg initially because of their close friendship

I’d love to hear some kind of official account regarding longstanding rumors about Dante supervising some of the post-production on The Lost World because of Spielberg’s commitment to Amistad.

i enjoy JP when i'm along for the ride, but it has a problem it shares w/so many other blockbusters post-early New Hollywood blockbusters like the first handful of Spielberg classics, and it's just the broader dumbed-down acting and dialogue. i really can really hear the screenwriting and see the mugging for the back row more over time with a lot of these.

BABIES SMELL

idk Laura Dern and Sam Neil recede into the background if I'm being sinister, or, if I'm feeling generous, are exactly the precise second-tier non-stars (in 1993) a director would want in such a spectacle.

lol god xp

i mean w/Spielberg, imagine how the scene with Indiana Jones, Brody, and the two military intelligence agents at the beginning of Raiders would have been written and directed by the end of the decade. If the Spielberg who made Last Crusade had been in the chair. That's a scene which is eerie, zero comedy, a couple of gov't agents out of their depth who nonetheless aren't dumb and willing to listen to what these two guys have to tell them.

i get what you're saying alfred, i think you're likely more forgiving of some of that than i am, to your credit.

That's a great observation, his ability to put across a scene so silly and pulpy as something that should be taken seriously is a gift. It started with Jaws, really.

what i like about the scene is it's a little naturalistically sloppy. the guys talk over one another, some interruptions, there are these very subtle shots which really make it work thoroughly (the quick side-eye Porkins in the background gives Indy while he's thinking, facing away from the camera, in the foreground. Indy getting psyched talking about the Staff of Ra and Brody smiling, looking at him, approvingly and seeing his excitement about the upcoming quest. the perfect moment for the John Williams score to make an appearance as the agents look at the depiction of the ark unleashing its power.

And if we're to the point of saying Flags of Our Fathers is superior to Saving Private Ryan, sorry, disembarking this train

Letters from Iwo Jima & Flags of Our Fathers (you can't split them apart), but again, not a fan of Saving Private Ryan regardless.

You can absolutely sever Letters From Iwo Jima from Flags of Our Fathers. The former feels like a movie from a different filmmaker, and it’s immeasurably superior to the latter

dern's performance in JP is all mumbles, chuckles, little asides to herself, thinking out loud, thinking silently, laughter of various kinds (fond, knowing, anxious), remaining half-inside conversations while pulled half-outside by something she's professionally obsessed with, and finally: screaming. imo it does manage to be competitive with the guy who says "hitler's a NUT!"

book actually had the balls to kill Hammond though which the movie didn't.

these are two different characters with the same name: one is a cartoon villain created only to be killed and the other is a tragic self-portrait

xxp respectfully disagree - as mentioned, one of the core ideas of the film is needed to address the power cinema has in re-writing history, something Iwo Jima has been criticized for by its detractors.

Hammond in the book is i believe fairly megalomaniacal, rather than the wrongheaded avuncular guy in over his head. i don't disagree btw that Laura Dern is a better actor in JP than the fella with the pipe in ROTLA, especially when it's put like that, but i think the overall execution of the latter film is very gripping in ways that JP is not with use of character. i won't dispute the sheer entertainment value of JP obv.

Classic

Amazing how Spielberg has always gotten all the credit for his cinematographer's work

— Russ (@Russ__ATX) December 19, 2023

lol, not that stupid response, this:

on Spielberg's birthday thinking about one of his hardest-ever shots pic.twitter.com/mG7FiZQCB3

— Brendan Hodges (@metaplexmovies) December 18, 2023

brb, double checking to make sure I didn't accidentally follow that first poster

Isn't that a variation on his famous shot in Jaws?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom

It is, but there's a lot more going on in terms of movement, framing, etc. Especially when the camera pulls back behind the *other* camera.

I'd never seen "Bridge of Spies" before, but I think I really love Spielberg in this sort of ... I guess almost post-modern mode. The movie has the rhythm and vibe of a classic '40s film - much of it I could imagine Academy aspect ratio and black and white - yet is filled with virtuoso Spielberg shots and modern FX and other more contemporary trademarks. He's been in this mode for a bunch of movies in a row, since "War Horse" more or less, with his weaker recent stuff (The BFG, Ready Player One) the conspicuous exceptions/deviations.

I think I mentioned on the relative thread that I bet Spielberg could have made a compelling version of "Killers of the Flower Moon."