Now I've Seen Everything Dept.: Steven Spielberg (4 of 4)

Steven Spielberg, Senior Year


One of the exciting things about seeing movies over an extended period of time is seeing the growth of a genuine artist. Despite reservations about his early output, it was obvious from the outset that Steven Allen Spielberg was a dynamic story-teller and a wizard in communicating with a camera. His training manuals were the classics of the film-makers of spectacle—the David Lean's and Alfred Hitchcock's and Cecil B. DeMille's, the guys who made expansive roadshows that appealed to a mass audience. They made movies of exotic places and large personalities that could fill a Cinemascope expanse with adventure and color and grandeur. They could also manipulate an audience with their technique to fill them with awe and wonder, or propel them out of their seats in an explosion of popcorn. Movies were a thrill-ride, but with better scenery. From the beginning, Spielberg had that impresario spirit to look at an audience as a territory to be conquered: give them bread and circuses and chases. Tell them a story and give them a thrill. Very quickly, he became his own brand: "A Spielberg Film" was something to see.

The events of 9/11/2001 weighed heavily on Spielberg (as it did all of us) resulting in films where the usual sense of wonder was replaced by a loss of innocence. The shocked expressions of Dakota Fanning in War of the Worlds, and the blank look of his "Pinocchio" in A.I. were no longer the awe-inspired faces displayed in so many of his movies. Spielberg's subject matter became darker—even in Tintin—and he seemed to be grasping for stories that illustrated the problems of the world...and how we might best overcome them. At the same time, he became a subtler film-maker, and his collaborators the top of their field.  

War Horse (2011)  Spielberg likes to tell the story of meeting John Ford ("So you want to be a 'picture-maker'") and having Ford make him look at his Remington prints and observe the horizon line of the paintings. "When you're able to appreciate why the horizon is at the top of the picture or at the bottom of the picture, then you might make a pretty good picture-maker.  Now get the f#&% outta here!"

War Horse proved that Spielberg had learned his lesson and quite a few other things as well.  Sure it's a horse story, but it's not like the usual "boy/girl loves horse" type of "growing up responsible" tale.  It's gritty, tough and incorporates an Equine Odyssey that offers an objective but not disinterested view of the best of man's instincts and its worst, and so much of it is done without words (and the words, by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis, are quite well done). Pictorially, it is amazing—lush, full, going from verdant Irish hillsides to man-made trenches of death, with the horse (as it would be, anyway, to the audience) the focal point of the story as his human masters fall in and out of his story.  It reads deceptively simple, but Spielberg makes the most of the visual aspects that provide a pictorial sub-text to the story, giving it far more resonance than words on the page could provide.  And there is one episode in the story—a brief truce between Germans and Brits during the first World War that is a grimly humorous reminder of the uselessness of war and how a common goal can shatter a conflict like a disagreement can shatter the peace. War Horse is an overlooked gem.

Lincoln (2012) Spielberg's long-in-the-planning biography of the almost canonized saint of the U.S. Presidency. With the help of his master craftsmen and his Munich scribe Tony Kushner—who manages to convey what was so special (and so irritating) about the man, the team focuses on the last months of Lincoln's life (Kushner's script was voluminous and Spielberg ultimately decided to concentrate on his last months), combining his relationships with the world of his family, compatriots, and enemies at the end of the Civil War, the passage of the 16th Amendment, and his death, while not treading the traditional paths of every other film that touched on the subject—Spielberg doesn't even show Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater, choosing instead to show the event through the eyes of his beloved son, Willie. It's a stellar cast, all providing exceptional work but dominated by James Spader's lobby-lizard and Tommy Lee Jones, whose Thaddeus Stevens has reasons for delivering the controversial amendment both ideological and personal, and, of course, Daniel Day-Lewis, whose imaginatively scholarly work on the man creates a moving portrait beyond the static images of Matthew Brady, breathing life and voice into them, making the man less of a monument, more of a man, and no less monumental for it. Much more so, the film is an exercise in showing the messy business of democracy—of seeking agreement for the greater good, despite the polarization inflicted by the various points of view, at a time when the nation was warring over higher ideals that are timeless over the short-sighted goals of economy.  Lincoln is an education in the best sense of the term, providing perspective on the man and his times...and ours.

Bridge of Spies (2015) Spielberg and Tom Hanks reunite to tell the story of insurance lawyer James B. Donovan who was roped into the no-win job of defending a communist spy (a standout performance by Mark Rylance) during the height of the Cold War and, through a combination of ideals and empathy with the man, ended up taking his case, first, to the Supreme Court to save his life, and then, later, to Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie to return him to Russia in exchange for Francis Gary Powers, the captured pilot of an American spy-plane. The film is entirely unflashy, muted and solid, has an impeccable sense of period (with no compromises for younger audiences—which is more unusual than you'd think) and still manages to be intriguing, even when one suspects how it will end—it is, after all, based on a true story. With a script by Mark Charman, it got a polish from the Coen Brothers with an emphasis on ideals...and ideals in the face of pressures, bureaucratic, autocratic, whichever side of The Wall they're on, both sides weigh in on the spirit of morality and grace. Ultimately, it is a story not about winning or gaining advantage, but of aspiring to the better part of humanness, and standing true to it.

The BFG (2016) The BFG is remarkable—stunning in all sorts of applaudable ways. The effects work is stellar, making up the vast majority of the mise en scene of the movie with a fluidity and attention to detail that draws one in with fascination. This is spectacular world-building, similar to the care and beauty that went into Disney' 2016 version of The Jungle Book from earlier that Summer. And the motion-capture performances of Mark Rylance (who was the very sly stand-out for his underplayed work in Spielberg's Bridge of Spies), Jemaine Clement and the other giant actors is truly amazing, completely stepping over "The Uncanny Valley" as nimbly as if there truly were giants of great stride. Spielberg also retains his reputation as a deft director of children, getting a terrific performance from newcomer Ruby Barnhill as the heroine of the story, Sophie.

I was dissatisfied with the film, however, despite it hitting all its marks, and bringing the wonders and chills of childhood to the fore. A great children's film should also appeal to adults, as well. And I found that the film dragged (despite my delight that it wasn't a roller-coaster). Bits of business and Spielberg's scrupulous sense of place by making sure the audience knows where it is at all times bogs the movie down no matter how fluid the camera work and intricacy of the choreography. I found myself drifting off, losing focus and the sense of caring about what was going on. Perhaps it was the circumstances under which the film was made. Maybe the filmmakers couldn't bear to part with a single word or sequence that had been worked out by "Our Melissa"—screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who'd written Spielberg's E.T., and who died from cancer while the film was in production. Gifted she is, but in the editing room, a filmmaker must be equal parts story-teller and butcher. Maybe the affection for the screen-writer overwhelmed the cruelty of the knife that is required to make a tight, concise film that isn't in love with itself, so determined is its aim to win over the audience. I think this was a case of too much affection for the material to the point of protection, and maybe some hubris that a Spielberg children's film was a certain home-run. Nothing is certain in the market-place. This one may be big, it may be friendly, but its quite a few feet below giant stage.

The Post (2017) The Post was squeezed into Spielberg's schedule while post-production continued on Ready Play One and casting hit a snag on another project. The first feature script by Liz Hannah (where it was put on 2016's annual "Black List" of interesting scripts), it has a textual and sub-textual significance during the turbulent Trump years: the obvious, textual one involves the publication of the so-called "Pentagon Papers" (comprised of a Department of defense study on the handling of the Vietnam War from the Truman administration on) by The New York Times and The Washington Post; the sub-textual one involves the struggle of Post owner and publisher Katharine Graham (played superbly by Meryl Streep) to deal with a potentially ruinous and lawfully risky decision to publish when she is being bombarded from all sides by a manfully aggressive phalanx of government and Wall Street types to go against her instincts as a newspaper publisher. Spielberg can be accused of hitting some of the points a bit hard, but there are extraordinarily nuanced sequences, culminating in one amazing sequence of a pressure-cooker of a phone-call where all the arguments in the world cannot dissuade from the role she was born to play and, because of societal and traditional women's roles she has blithely gone along with, she has been denied. The production summarized the story by saying it was "the week Katharine Graham became Katharine Graham" and the pay-off feels more important, personally, than just defying a governmental attempt to suppress the Press, than the breaking free of a woman's lifetime of suppression. It's quite the nifty Big Statement. 

Ready Player One (2018) When Spielberg does dystopian, of course he's going to come up with an alternative to it. The extensive CGI landscapes and characters that suffuses the VR Reality "The Oasis" in Ready Player One is where folks go to when they want to "escape" the reality of life in "The Stacks"—large towers of manufactured homes that have supplanted high-rise apartments as the solution to a growing population and the breakdown of society. Of course, they never really escape—they're just playing at it. The gist of the story is that the creator of "The Oasis" bequeaths his Virtual Empire to whoever can crack the many games contained in that world. The entire world is competing for the prize (including well-funded corporate interests) but the ones who seem to be closest are a motley group of "gunters"—a mongrelization of "egg-hunters"—who call themselves "The High-Five" (who have only met as avatars) have the best synergy to get to the end-game. But, the irony of the competition is that the guy who gets there is the guy who can appreciate not having it the most. He who desires it the least wins the most.

It's a VR version of "Willy Wonka" (with a bit of "Oz" thrown in), celebrating gaming culture while subverting it at the same time with the Big Picture. It's Spielberg at his cagiest and most ingenious.

 

 

West Side Story (2021) Robert Wise's 1960 film of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents street-tough re-working of "Romeo and Juliet" was always a favorite of the director's since childhood. But—like everybody else who's ever watched it—he realized that, as great as it is, it is flawed. And—working with Tony Kushner—Spielberg took pains to improve on them.

And he does. Some of the tent-pole songs were out of place where they were. They're switched to better spots and with better motivations. New York is no longer an abandoned silent city while the songs are sung full-throated in the foreground. The male lead, Tony (played by Ansel Elgort), now has a back-story where both his hopes and his risks are higher, the leader of The Jets, Bernardo (David Alvarez) is a professional boxer, and the city is visibly going through a displacing urban renewal project to make room for the building of Lincoln Center—where the musical would play in 1968—and there is no compromise in casting Latino's for the Jets. Important? Yeah. It is. Especially when you include Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose...and Rita Moreno. Also, Mike Faist is a stand-out as Riff. And Spielberg's direction is smart, assured, and, for the first time in a while, bravura. Reviews were laudatory, but audiences stayed away. Online comments were ludicrous—"I hear that 'they' speak Spanish without subtitles" (Yes, they do, but nothing crucial, just overlapping dialogue and "bridge"-statements) and (my favorite) "Why did they have to remake this?" (I dunno. Why remake "Romeo and Juliet"?). It's subtle, smart and energetic, and in every way surpasses the first version.

The Fabelmans (2022) Spielberg's past has informed subtly, sometimes metaphorically, his films. The Fabelmans, however, comes right out and spells it out. The movie originated as a 1999 script "I'll Be Home" by Spielberg's sister Anne, and as Tony Kushner and Spielberg worked on other projects, Kushner kept pushing the director to concentrate on bringing it to a final form, something they worked out over Zoom meetings during the pandemic. It is Spielberg's first co-authored screenplay since A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and is a clear-eyed look at his influences, drive, and conflicts as he set out to make something of himself, in a family split between the practical (his father was a computer engineer) and the fanciful (his mother was a pianist). Along the way, he sees how his dreams can conflict, rather than enhance, his reality and the cost of devotion. It's a great film, much more personal than what he has been doing of late (although his dedication to his craft has never wavered) and his look back may be the final putting away of "childish things" but one doubts that. Spielberg, even as he approaches his 80th spin around the sun, still informs every frame with the enthusiasm of a "whiz-kid."

What's next for Spielberg? There are rumors that he wants to make a new Bullitt movie, starring Bradley Cooper, but it's just rumor stages for the moment. Tony Kushner's script of David Kertzer's The Kidnapping of Arturo Mortara (a historical piece about a Jewish boy raised Christian in Italy) looks to be next. After that, it's hard to say, as he frequently changes his mind in mid-pre-production about what's "right" to direct (for the longest time he was set to direct Memoirs of a Geisha, then abandoned it, and his long-time project Interstellar ended up being directed by Christopher Nolan). Robopocalypse was in pre-production, but isn't anymore. James Mangold is directing "Indiana Jones 5". One suspects that Spielberg hasn't completely put away childish things—his directorial sense is still infused with a youthful enthusiasm. But his films have grown darker, more considered, and less feeling like contraptions.

Whatever his future work holds in store, it will be interesting, provocative, maybe even indelible.

A preview trailer of a five-part video essay on Spielberg on Indiewire.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Now I've Seen Everything, Dept.: Steven Spielberg (3 of 4)

Steven Spielberg, Junior Year


One of the exciting things about seeing movies over an extended period of time is seeing the growth of a genuine artist. Despite reservations about his early output, it was obvious from the outset that Steven Allen Spielberg was a dynamic story-teller and a wizard in communicating with a camera. His training manuals were the classics of the film-makers of spectacle—the David Lean's and Alfred Hitchcock's and Cecil B. DeMille's, the guys who made expansive roadshows that appealed to a mass audience. They made movies of exotic places and large personalities that could fill a Cinemascope expanse with adventure and color and grandeur. They could also manipulate an audience with their technique to fill them with awe and wonder, or propel them out of their seats in an explosion of popcorn. Movies were a thrill-ride, but with better scenery. From the beginning, Spielberg had that impresario spirit to look at an audience as a territory to be conquered: give them bread and circuses and chases. Tell them a story and give them a thrill. Very quickly, he became his own brand: "A Spielberg Film" was something to see.

Now, with the achievement of his personal goal of winning dual Oscars for Director and Picture (for Schindler's List), Spielberg could pursue projects following his interests with one eye on making money for his new production conglomerate Dreamworks SKG, and telling stories important to him...for whatever reason.


The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) After years of resisting efforts by studios to follow up one his blockbusters, Spielberg finally made a sequel to one of his movies. The Lost World would be the first. Partially, this was in gratitude to Universal Studios for allowing him to make Schindler's List. But there was another more selfish reason Spielberg wanted to do the follow-up—he wanted to be the first one to have a CGI T-Rex rampaging through an American city. The Lost World is a weird hybrid of sources, starting with the original book's opening. Then, it follows Crichton's follow-up book, then Spielberg went on his own tangent bringing the dinosaurs to the U.S. He's aided by a great cast: Jeff Goldblum returns, and is joined by Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite (his first of two movies for Spielberg), Arliss Howard and a pre-"West Wing" Richard Schiff. Only Vince Vaughn fails to register as a viable character. And...there's an annoying kid. Ultimately for all the technical advances, its a bit too much and unfocused, except for a Rube Goldberg set-piece—taken directly from Crichton's book--involving three people in an articulated double RV, a precipitous cliff and two predatory T-Rex's stomping around outside. It's a giddy nail-biter. And if Spielberg had stuck to that tone, instead of playing around with the satiric possibilities of Rex's in America, it would have been a far better movie.

Amistad (1997) The story of the uprising aboard the slave-ship La Amistad had never been told before, but given Spielberg's clout post-Schindler's List, what was once considered box-office poison now had green-light potential. (And one should remember that the subject of slavery was very rarely addressed in films—and, incredibly, when it was presented, it was dealt with tolerance for the idea of "owned" human beings, however familial the colors it was cast in) As with The Color Purple, Spielberg's earnestness gets in the way of the story, which, if one merely gets the facts right, would make for compelling drama. Again, the cast assembled is amazing * Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Feeman, and as the "white knight" of the story, new star Mathew McConaughey—who despite tamping down his snarky Southern man exuberance still feels anachronistic for the period. And as the focus of the story, male-model Djimon Houssou acquits himself well--an impressive start for greater things to come. Now, if only they'd left John Quincey Adams' exemplary summation unscored by John Williams it wouldn't feel so much like a lecture, which, unfortunately extends to the entire film. After Amistad, Spielberg would take a year off before taking on his next subject..

Saving Private Ryan (1999) Spielberg's first film for his newly-created entertainment studio, Dreamworks SKG. Spielberg begins with a bravura set-piece--the landing at Normandy on D-Day presented quite unlike any way its been portrayed. Spielberg takes the subjective viewpoint to convey what it feels like to be a sitting duck in a go-for-broke battle, as well as the arbitrariness of death in war. Folks quibble about the rest of the movie, but you can't deny the power of that sequence, visually and sonically.** A uniformly fine cast with Tom Hanks, Ed Burns, Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Matt Damon, as well as cameos by Ted Danson, Dennis Farina and up-and-comers Nathan Fillion and Paul Giamatti.*** Hanks' portrayal of a "Joe" who just wants to go home and does whatever he has to towards that end is well-reasoned—you have to believe that Hanks could deliver the devastating last line that slams home the coda of the film. It's one of the few war films to deal with the trauma of survivor's guilt and the brick wall that lies between life in war and life in peace. Saving Private Ryan raised awareness of the soldier's lot in the "good" war, and dispelled the notion that any war could be "good" for those on the line. For that alone, it should be regarded as one of the greatest of war films. After Ryan, Spielberg would take another year-break from directing.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) The Kubrick-Spielberg love-child that nobody loved. Kubrick called it his "Pinocchio" movie, and quite rightly decided after years of development to hand it to Spielberg, which, after Kubrick's death, he was only too eager to complete. But in the transition from Kubrick outline to Spielberg screenplay there's a lot of gear-grinding going from cold fantasy to sentimentality. And unfortunately it suffers a fate that too many sci-fi movies suffer—it asks us to absorb too many concepts too fast, and the casual movie-goer has a hard time accepting global warming, robot love, and an ice-aged Earth inhabited by your PC's descendants. Throw in a Blue Fairy and a dying robot's last wish and the audience is in stitches. But...it dares to ask that question rarely asked (except by Hitchcock in Vertigo) "What is love, really?" And the answer is..."Love is what audiences didn't feel about this movie." Still, there's some definite mind-stretching going on here. And it gave Jude Law a star-making turn, at last. Plus, the kid, Haley Joel Osment,  is simply amazing. Spielberg would take another year off, and come back in 2003 with two new films.

Minority Report (2003) Spielberg teams up with Tom Cruise on one of Philip K. Dick's high-concept sci-fi novels and manages to make a far more plausible future, but a less moody one, than that imagined in Ridley Scott's Dick adaptation, Blade Runner. Spielberg went the Kubrick route and hired future conceptualists (rather than art directors) to imagine the Washington D.C. of the future, full of mag-lev cars, targeted advertising via retinal scan, policemen with jet-packs and pre-cognitives who direct the police to the scene of the crime before it occurs. Spielberg casts a noir pall over the whole scenario which succeeds in nullifying some of his star's more intense moments. Colin Farrell impresses in an edgy performance that bests Cruise in their one scene together. The story is not much. But the trappings of it make it worth seeing. Spielberg evens pulls off a sequence that Hitchcock wanted to do: a fugitive makes his get-away by rushing into an auto assembly line and has the car built around him to escape.

One other thing we should mention—it put an idea into the head of computer engineers that produced the first series of computer touch-screens, showing what can happen when you build a better mouse.

Catch Me if You Can (2003) Spielberg, with a considerably lighter touch, tells the story of Frank Abignale Jr., who, shattered and adrift from his parents' divorce, gravitates to the edge of society and becomes an expert forger and jack of all professions. Leonardo DeCaprio is a hoot as a kid who just wants to belong somewhere, and Tom Hanks squashes any ego to play the flat-foot FBI guy who dogs his tail. Divorce is a subject close to Spielberg, and he must have been drawn to the story of a kid dealing with it...by doing anything he wants, and DeCaprio's Frank could be Empire of the Sun's "Jim," another loose cannon on deck, all semi-grown-up. There's some particularly good work by Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Jennifer Garner along the way, and a snazzy, jazzy score that lets John Williams go back in time to when he was a jazz session-man named Johnny Williams. Look for Amy Adams in an early role, along with Elizabeth Banks and Amy Acker. Spielberg was always able to spot talent and use it early.

The Terminal (2004) What Spielberg accomplished with Catch Me If You Can was needed on The Terminal, as, for some reason, its a return to heavy-handed direction. Maybe its because the film is so set-bound (A nearly-scale jet terminal and concourse was constructed to exacting detail on a sound-stage and the majority of filming took place there), or maybe the director thought there was a bigger message (a comment on the situation of illegal immigrants, perhaps? If so, it's buried under too much Spielberg-business) but the story of a Slavic visitor whose homeland goes to war and leaves him without a country and with invalid papers--thus making him incapable of leaving the terminal without being arrested and deported--overstays its visa. There is some great work with the minimum-wage employees of the port who form a greek chorus and cheering section for Hanks' character (and Zoe Saldana is featured—in an act of serendipity, she gives the Vulcan salute). But the film goes astray with Catherine Zeta-Jones as a cute/clutzy stew. You just don't buy her as being so pathetic. Ultimately when all is revealed one gets the impression of a balloon encased in concrete. All the potential charm is squeezed out of it by Spielberg's leaden direction. Spielberg would again take a year break and then quickly produce another two films in a year.

The War of the Worlds (2006) Spielberg and Cruise again. This time Spielberg was paying homage to the original Paramount film, as well as Welles' (Orson's) radio version, and the original Wells (H.G.) novel, while also drilling down on something that had been fascinating Spielberg since September 11th--the idea of American refugees. War of the Worlds delivers that image in spades. There were all sorts of gripes about the tripod walkers (its from the book!) and the way the story just sort of ends (IT'S FROM THE BOOK! ALRIGHT??!), but at least no one complained about not making the invaders "Martians" anymore. I found Spielberg's devotion to the predecessors admirable, and only once does he succumb to "Tom Cruise-Super Hero" mode, (Cruise is blessedly at his most restrained). Dakota Fanning is extraordinary, and to see the stars of the Paramount version at the end of the trail warmed my heart. The only section of the film that disappoints is the extended scenes in Tim Robbins' basement. Robbins' performance is over-the-top, and the sequence kills any momentum for the film. But all in all, its a great attempt to modernize the classic while staying true to its red roots.

But, there’s more: One can see War of the Worlds as the final part of a trilogy of films, just as Oliver Stone had a Viet Nam troika—all taking on different perspectives of that conflict. Close Encounters is The Searchers with E.T.’s instead of Commanche’s—little Barry is abducted and it’s his mother's quest to get him back. In E.T. one of the aliens is the one left stranded and he must find his own way home, just as Elliott must turn aside his selfishness and aid his alien-friend in doing so. In War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise is the “Ethan Edwards” character—a deadbeat dad, self-centered, another in a long-line of men with “Peter Pan” syndrome in Spielberg films. In his “search” he must get his family home and reunited with their mother. And his hanging-back from going inside that home is a direct reflection of the ending of The Searchers (In fact, I was half-way expecting Cruise to grip his arm at the end, but he didn’t).  It's not enough to say "we are not alone."  We never really were.

Munich (2006) The same year as War of the Worlds, Spielberg came out with this. It's the fictionalized story of a specific Mossad unit's hunting down of the perpetrators of the Munich Massacre at the '72 Olympics. It had been filmed once before as "Sword of Gideon" for the Showtime cable channel, but Spielberg and his scripters ("Angels in America" author Tony Kushner and veteran scribe Eric Roth) pull out all the stops and consider the cost of revenge on the team-members and the future outcome of that mission. Brutal and completely cynical, Munich is a very mature telling of a spy story, with all the possibilities for compromise, double-dealings and betrayals—as well as the identification with the "other side" that a story of this type can lend itself to. Plus, there are all the set-pieces of assassinations that Spielberg winds up like lethal Swiss watches. It's a bit like "Mission: Impossible" with guilt, and there are images from this movie that you will never, ever get out of your head. Eric Bana leads the cast with a couple of the assassins played by future Bond Daniel Craig and Ciarán Hinds. Plus, look for Mathieu Amalric and Marie-Josée Croze of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. After two films in the shadow of the dust-cloud of 9/11, Spielberg decided to lighten up for his next film. But that shadow still remained.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) Comfort food. That's what you could call the fourth "Indiana Jones" film, after the harrowing one-two punch of his previous films. It was a chance to team with old pals, and do something lighter and more fanciful. But getting a story was the tough part. Spielberg, Lucas and star Harrison Ford tossed ideas around for years, leading to a decade of anticipation and false-expectations. When the movie was actually released, the fan-boys turned on it for stretching credulity too far ("Nuking the fridge" became a variation of "jumping the shark"), as if the first three films were somehow rooted in reality. Please.

Crystal Skull represents the true sequel to the original Raiders in terms of quality and verve. Where the other films were "variations on a theme" to the first, Crystal Skull embraces the filmic-culture of the time it is set. Instead, of the raucous serials of the 40's, this one is set in the 50's with such B-movie drive-in staples as Red-scare villains, hot-rodders, biker-boys, nuclear consequences and Invaders from Another World—I was only slightly disappointed that a nuclear explosion didn't create a giant creature-critter off in the distance. The film is buttressed by two "Indy-in-thrall" shots—one of a nuclear explosion and the other of an inter-dimensional ship tearing up the landscape in lift-off, that represent a choice between the destructive and the transportive, and serves as a cautionary presentation of choice for the McGuffin of the story—knowledge and its uses. There's more to "Crystal Skull" than its detractors have the patience to see. An article in the works will explore that, and speculate about what would be fun in the future...IF a rumored fifth "Indiana Jones" film comes to fruition. Part of me hopes it doesn't, because Spielberg could be better used on other projects.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (2011) Spielberg teamed up with Peter Jackson to make this motion-capture animation version of the internationally popular Tintin books by Hergé. Fun idea, especially for the ever-growing international audiences that seem to be a bit more predictable than jaded American ones. But Tintin gave those who had been following Spielberg a special treat—an answer to a question no one had dared consider—what would Spielberg do with a film if he had no limitations whatsoever?  The results are almost hallucinatory. The film starts out with a fairly standard pattern of Spielberg wizardry, pin-wheeling shots and edits. But before long, it turns into one long tracking shot, moving in and out of flashback, wheeling through chases that move from perspective to perspective without so much as a cut, stunts that couldn't be filmed, let alone approved for insurance purposes, and enough dog endangerment to produce life-threatening seizures in an entire kennel of ASPCA inspectors.  It's 1941 without the "restraint" and with a bit more class.  The learning curve of Spielberg with this film came quickly, conquering the "uncanny valley" and allowing the characters to squint to overcome it. And given its nautical theme, there's enough swaying from flash-back to flash-forward to evoke a certain wooziness.  Still, it makes you wonder  what other tricks Spielberg might have up his sleeve, given no restraint.  The thought is almost scary.

Spielberg is approaching the best of both worlds--he's working with some of the finest dramatists and authors available, while keeping his visual eye peeled for the striking image. If he has one weakness entering into his Senior Year, it is that constant desire to make Play-Mountains out of Mole-Hills.**** He can do anything he wants, with as much money as people can throw at him. But, Spielberg tends to work best with constraint...whether with time or budget, and that has a tendency to make him come up with better story-telling solutions than if he could do everything he wanted--a lesson learned from Jaws and Raiders... At least, he seems to know that--with his extended pre-production periods and his break-neck pace making movies these days As for subject matter, his "light" films now carry darker nuances, while his more heavy subjects are benefiting from his more streamlined directorial style. Spielberg seems to have left his naivete behind, while keeping his sense of wonder...and outrage. Of all his contemporaries (Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese, DePalma), he has managed to broaden and deepen his technique and subject matter in a cinematic environment that goes for the quick buck, and least common denominator. Of all of them, Spielberg seems to be the one getting better and wiser, in an age of the dumbed down movie despite all the money and clout he has earned throughout his career. It will be fascinating to see what he does with it in the future.

Freshman Year (1971-981)
Sophomore Year(1982-1993
 

* One particular cast-member is a funny one: Darren Burrows who played "Ed," Cicely's aspiring film-maker and an obsessive student of Spielberg in "Northern Exposure."

** I have a vivid memory of watching Ryan for the first time. Ten minutes in, I realized I was in pain, so I pulled my head out of the movie, and realized I was ducking down in my seat. To avoid the bullets. I straightened up to watch the rest of the movie, but I did it with respect.

*** I've heard this rumor that its Kevin Costner as the German soldier shot through his rifle sight. Sure looks like him.

**** He did this literally—though in reverse—in the fourth Indiana Jones movie.