Update: Now I've Seen Everything Dept.: Christopher Nolan

Planners and Schemers, 
Madmen and Dreamers

Christopher Edward Nolan (born July 30, 1970) can pretty much do anything he wants in Hollywood now. He could film the phone-book (out of order, probably) and there would be no lack of investors to throw cash at the project. His last few films have been extraordinarily expensive epics, a far cry from his humble beginnings as an experimental film-maker.  His ability to make more movie for less budget in his early career vaulted him pretty quickly into Hollywood's A-list, as his limited budgets (for Following and Memento) made him a good risk with studio funds. His ability to keep the reins on a story-line, but also evoke feelings of dread and disorientation have made him a director of down-beat and uniquely crafted movies. And with the exception of one film, all of them have one shared quality.

Storytelling dictates a linear approach; you're supposed to have a beginning, a middle and an end. The shortest distance between "Fade from Black" to "The End" is a straight line, or, if you're of the bent, a story-arc. But if you look at a Christopher Nolan film, it looks more like a möbius strip.

Stitched together by Frankenstein.

"In Media Res" is the term for one of his films, the lens aperture opening for a limited amount of time, and closing with events still in flux, the world changing and the future uncertain. One has the sense of a Nolan film merely stopping, with the story-line continuing past the audience's part in it, again leading to a lack of fulfillment...or dread. In either case, one exits one of the director's films dis-oriented, uneasy...but not often dis-satisfied.

Following (1998) This is Nolan's first film success, a short caper/character study that feels a bit like a "Mamet" filmed by the BBC, with the same deliberate cadence of the dialog, but with one major difference--it's presented out of sequence and with no sense of linear construction. The only clues you have to when things work out in the timeline are the lead character's appearance. Sometimes he looks like a slob (he's an unemployed writer) and sometimes he's dressed like a sharp (he's been given sartorial tutoring for a particular line of work) and sometimes he's spitting out teeth (he's been beaten up).

The story itself is a trifle; a writer, suddenly single, begins a bad habit of picking people out in a crowd and following them home--nothing kinky, just research. But random chance brings him to one person who notices he's being followed and, as they say, things get complicated. One wonders why Nolan's elaborate editing scheme is there in the first place, as the plot resolves in the same way in either order (the DVD gives you the choice of viewing options). The only real reason to do it is obfuscation. An interesting exercise, but a bit pointless, unless it can be rationalized as the film being bracketed by a police grilling and the writer is remembering the story in pieces. But if it was obfuscation the director wanted, one would think there was a more interesting way to do it than relying on post-production.

But it did put him in the proper mind-set for his next film, where the editing structure is far more rigid, and is part and parcel for the film-concept.

Memento (2000) As opposed to the scrambled editing structure of Following, Memento has a diabolical editing scheme, going two linear directions at once, forward and backwards: the black and white sections heading for the future, and the color sections retreating to the past. It tells the story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance-fraud investigator, who we learn suffers from anterograde amnesia--he can't make new memories--due to injuries suffered in a home-assault which killed his wife. Despite the fact that he forgets what he's learned in his investigation every five minutes, he attempts to hunt down the second man in the assault for revenge. Because of his condition he's forced to leave clues to himself via instant Polaroid's, tattoo's, and notes, and depends on the help of accomplices Natalie (Carrie Ann-Moss) and Teddy (John Pantoliano) to form a through-line in his unstable quest. The film begins with a murder, and it ends with another one, and we are left with the scenario of a human loose-cannon, pursuing his empty clues whereever they may lead.

It's a fascinating idea for a film, and the conceit is a great one. Not unlike a classic murder mystery played backwards, with all the clues that have been building, revealing the actual events at the end to the viewer. Unfortunately, the ultimate effect of the film is not revelation but helplessness-there is no satisfaction gained from the answer, only a sense that there is no mystery, just random acts of violence. One feels hoodwinked.

And ultimately, like Following, the film would be pointless if not for the backward chronology; if it weren't for that construction, the film would be completely unsatisfying, and, like the classic murder mystery chronology, or any film whose weak story-line is propped up by starting with the consequences, the manipulation of time is its one strength.

Still, its an interesting experiment. And the performances by Pearce, Moss and Patoliano are expert in themselves, Pearce, revealing all that he can know at any given time, and Pantoliano and Moss being deliberately obtuse, not to reveal too much.

Insomnia (2002) Following and Memento were both made on shoe-string budgets, but this remake of a Norwegian film has an all-star cast of Oscar winners, and something Nolan hasn't tried before, a linear timeline.

Two homicide cops under investiagtion by their department are sent to a friendly district in Nightmute, Alaska to cool off and help in a homicide investigation. The partners are a bit wary of each other, not sure of what the other will tell, and since the charge involves planting evidence--who do you trust? One thing Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) doesn't factor in is the perpetual sun-light all day above the Arctic Circle.* If he was having trouble sleeping before, now he's suffering from full-on sleep deprivation and his judgement, along with his already questionable ethics, are making him slip up. And given that the killer (Robin Williams) is at least as smart as he is, the results could be fatal. Nolan has fun with the chases evoking the same sort of "French Connection"-style" philosophy** but turned on its fishing-village ear. Pacino and Williams crackle in their scenes together, though fellow Oscar-winner Hillary Swank, with less meat and scenery to chew on, has less to show for it. And Nolan, sticking to the clock, compensates with atmosphere and intriguingly shot set-pieces that keep you guessing. Appropriately, this is the only film that has a definite ending, with Dormer finally achieving a rest of sorts in the only blackness the environment can provide.

Det. Will Dormer (Al Pacino) in several fogs

Batman Begins (2005) After Insomnia, Nolan was handed the keys to Warner Brothers' staked-like-a-vampire "Batman" series to "revamp" the franchise back into fighting strength. He's aided immeasurably by a good cast, particularly Christian Bale using George Bush boorishness for his portrayal of Gothan City billionaire Bruce Wayne, who dresses as a bat to carry on his murdered father's legacy of helping the down-trodden and oppressed. But the top-heavy cast also includes Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson (and Katie Holmes). Like the old joke goes: "Any 'names?'"

But that origin story. That one always gets in the way--starting with the Wayne kid's parents being murdered? Not even Tim Burton led with that. No, Nolan juggles the time-line a bit to start with us--and Bruce--off-guard and a bit lost, fighting for his life in a foreign prison. He's recruited by Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Assassins to maximize his potential and leave his past behind--a past that is slowly released by Nolan in dribs and drabs for viewing. Then his pilgrimage and training complete, it's back to Gotham for acquiring "all those wonderful toys."

Nolan and scripter David Goyer have a lot of ground to cover with a lot of characters--two villains (maybe three), Gordon's story and Alfred's, the fate of the Wayne fortune, and Bruce's childhood girlfriend, and oh, yeah, the intertwining plots of the villains. They keep everything moving and even pull off a surprise or two, but the final attack on Gotham City is an over-extended and splintered mess that focuses on too many characters for its own good and too much property damage for the city's. You begin to wonder what's been saved. But there's enough promise to whet one's appetite for the inevitable follow-up.

"Batman" begins

The Prestige (2006) Written about more extensively here, The Prestige is a good-looking period film that sets up a perfect crime and the perfect revenge in one fell swoop as two competing magicians devote their careers and lives to out-tricking and out-illusioning the other. But illusions are in the eye of the beholder, and it all comes with a cost. Like all magic tricks, you feel a bit disappointed when the secrets are revealed, and the film leaves one with the same sense of vague let-down, even with the extraordinarily creepy and resonating final image. Nolan's set-ups in this film are terrific, but in time one realizes just how self-destructive this competition has been.

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale star with strong supporting turns by Michael Caine and David Bowie (as electrical innovator Nicola Tesla), and a perfunctory "girl" role by Scarlett Johanson, that could have been done by anybody, frankly. But Nolan knows how to get the maximum out of his performers, including Jackman in a good performance in something that doesn't involve claws.

The Dark Knight (2008)  Nolan's second "Batman" film raises the stakes for the entire cast, adding Heath Ledger's trickster Joker and Aaron Eckhart as D.A. Harvey Dent, who has taken up with Wayne old flame Rachel Dawes (now played by Maggie Gyllenhall). Ledger's unique take on The Joker grabbed all the attention—and the Best Supporting Oscar that year—but the extremely well-integrated storyline combining The Joker, Two-Face, Batman, and Rachel and the intertwining of their fates makes this one the most cohesive of Nolan's latter films; it's a puzzle that fits together intricately and inelegantly, creating a satisfying whole despite the chaos (and a couple large eyes of a plot-hole or six) that churns in its center.

And it is chaos. Some critics have made too much of Ledger's Joker saying he's an agent of it, while also concocting elaborate plots that require a lot of preparation, seemingly belying the words. Yet, he is chaotic, and not just in the results he produces.  The very idea that he does one thing and says another shows him to be inconsistent, undependable, untrustworthy, mercurial, as changble as the stories he spins for his smile of scars. He's just the guy who will blow away any elaborately arranged house of cards, the opposite of Wayne's predictable planner and schemer, a man not unlike the director.

Heath Ledger, sure.  But The Dark Knight is Harvey Dent's story (played by Aaron Eckhardt)

Inception (2010)  Oh, yeah. It looks good. It looks great, and its elaborate set of rules and regulations provide some consistency in a shaky foundation of dream-scapes and the even more tremulous ones of character. That's the conflict of dream-team-leader Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio)—keeping things dependable, despite the vagaries of personality. He runs an industrial spy ring that does "Mission: Impossible"-style invasions into targets' minds while they sleep, creating whole worlds to maneuver through. As in most of these stories, the best laid plans go awry and the crew has to punt in order to  accomplish their goals. For Cobb's team, he's their weakest link; his guilt over the death of his wife (Marion Cotillard) on a previous job threatens to unravel the sturdiest of missions—an element of reality that betrays the unreality of the various scenarios his group puts together.

The structure of Inception is fun—dreams within dreams within dreams within a movie, which is, as its a product of imagination, just another dream, revealed puckishly by Nolan by playing the "safety" song "Non, je ne regrette rien" over the credits in the final few minutes of the film, gradually being replaced by the awakening thrum just as the film...ends. Cute. And Nolan's flash-backs, forwards, and brief interruptions and insertions are further complicated by an elaborate nested-dream sequence that dominates the last half of the film.  Even though played in deadly earnest by another terrific cast, it's Nolan's lightest film, as he plays with the form (necessitating repeated views) of how we watch movies, stretching the rules of film-watching...if not film-making.

Folding space and time in Inception

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)  Nolan's third (and presumably final) "Batman" movie ends the story quite definitively, by providing "The Dark Knight," eight years in retirement, with one last challenge that in many ways reflects his origins. It's a good full circle approach, and makes one suspect that Nolan may have had this as a grand design, rather than, say, just pulling out elements of Batman Begins to tie everything in a nice thematic bow.  

But those elements feel like after-thoughts a bit, hanging threads that mar the look of a nice design. The most interesting aspect of TDKR is Tom Hardy's Bane, a hired thug, with several masters, but who appears to be working on his own. Bane is another "Dark Knight" opposite—where Bruce Wayne is enmeshed in armor, Bane is pretty much organic, less of a construct. Stronger and faster than Batman, he can best him in a fair fight...and cruelly take advantage of the loser's injuries so he'll never get up again. Where Wayne's face is exposed in his disguise, Bane's is covered with a morphine breather, where Wayne tried to protect Gotham City, Bane wants to level it. That central conflict provides the momentum of the movie, but there are many side-trips for the rest of the cast, including a young beat-cop who was inspired by Batman as a child (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and another creature of the night—Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway)—who seems to have as many loyalties as lives. And the film ends with things still in a state of flux, as Gotham City needs to rebuild and the fates of many of the characters in question.

The only thing definitive is that Batman, after a career of working in the shadows, had been forced into the light and ends his work with a blinding flash.

The Dark Knight rises...like the sun.

A LOT of masks in The Dark Knight Rises (some better than others)

Interstellar (2014) Interstellar was in development at Paramount for years (at one point, Spielberg was attached to it), but when Spielberg moved from Paramount to Disney, the film became directionless. Nolan's brother, Jonathan, was writing the screenplay and suggested him for director. Nolan's commitment to Warner Bros, created a high-powered collaboration between the two studios and Legendary Pictures to finance the film. They needed all the money they could get—Interstellar was a huge undertaking, with a lot of special effects commitment. It was an ambitious undertaking—to make a film about the science of black holes and their impact on space travel and on puny humans. Earth is suffering the severe effects of climate change, and a secret facility has already started exploratory missions for new homes for humanity accessible by a black hole in the vicinity of Saturn. A former astronaut, Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is recruited to pilot the ship Endurance to contact and bring back the solo astronauts who did the initial reccy's.

First off, the movie is gorgeous with images (designed by scientist Kip Thorne) that are truly out of this world. A lot of the concepts are mind-blowing. The story, however, is lacking, offering nothing more than a "humans can't be trusted" drama and a "love conquers all" conclusion. As committed as everyone is to the thing, it finally collapses on its own gravity, with too many sequences that are desperate to write themselves out of a jam. For me, Interstellar was a major disappointment while making my eyes wide.

Dunkirk (2017) "Dunkirk" was not just one "thing" in World War II, a singular event. It was a series of events that came together in desperation. The trapped British soldiers were there for a week, pushed to the sea by the Nazi's, with only the English Channel between them and home, the "mosquito squad" of ships to rescue them—a combination of military requisitioning and volunteers—took a day, and there was but an hour when cover from the air could be effective against the German planes strafing the scene. If you were to tell all those stories, you'd have a very lopsided movie—all the action pushed to the end—but you couldn't give ALL the stories their due. Nolan, always pushing the boundaries of visual story-telling, finds a unique solution: he divides the movie into three segments—land, sea, air—and stretches all of them across the 100 minutes of movie. It's up to the viewer to re-order the timeline, and "key" events and players are used to clue you in (if you choose to do so), but, in this way, he is able to raise the stakes on all sides, giving complete scope to the events. It is such a radical way to tell the story and puts a lot of faith in an audience's ability to puzzle out what's going on, but if viewers could work backwards to parse out Memento, the larger chunks of narrative that quilt Dunkirk should be a simpler process. Nolan refuses to "dumb down" his films, and challenges audiences as well as the very process of narrative to full dramatic effect. That's a unique gift for a story-teller and makes him much more than a "picture-maker," but an Escher-like manipulator of time and space.

Tenet (2021) "Seeing is believing" is the old adage. Nolan's Tenet challenges that conceit, while challenging audiences as well. This may be one of the more taxing movies in format than any film in history. It's story of a security agent (John David Washington) who, after he is "killed" in a mission is brought back to life and, being dead, he's a valuable asset. He is given a mission to go backwards in time (via inverted entropy) living his life (going forward) in reverse, so as to stop an adversary also moving back in time to a particular countdown...or count-back. He is going to do something no one suspects...because it hasn't already happened. Confusing? Sure. It gives you a head-ache and at some point, one should shut off their brain and just watch everything going backwards while our heroes go forward. It's Nolan's "James Bond" film, but with the added caveat that the plot is extra convoluted and what you are seeing is convoluted. At an early exposition scene about all this, some expert says "Don't think it. Feel it."

I suppose that applies to the confusion, as well.

We see this car flip forwards and backwards in Tenet.

Oppenheimer (2023) Nolan's 3 hour meditation on the life and career of J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the atomic bomb" (and played in the film by Cillian Murphy). And it is, ironically, Nolan's least complex narrative structure about his most complex subject. Oppenheimer was a genius, and he knew it, but that knowledge can only take you so far. The man's career was about, and comprised of, chain reactions. But, just as he was unable to predict the specific outcome of his work, he was also unable to see the fall-out of what his research would garner for him personally. The achievement of his lifetime would lead to a lifetime of regret, where even the awards are, ironically, not really his own. He would help unleash the greatest power source known to the world, only to be powerless to contain it and his personal triumph would, ultimately, be a tragedy for the world. He would live in the terrible shadow of its mushroom cloud, even as the world did. And take no satisfaction in what he wrought upon this Earth.

 

With Robert Downey, jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Alden Ehrenreich, Tom Conti, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, and Florence Pugh.

The Odyssey (2026) After winning multiple Oscars for Oppenheimer, Nolan took the awards caché (which had become the rocky shores of Hubris for other directors) and set his sights on filming a "realistic" version of Homer's ancient poem of Ulysses' tortured voyage home, complicated by the machinations of the Greek gods, who have decided to mess with him (as gods tend to do) and his crew for their violations of Zeus' Law (regarding the act of hospitality...as even the gods had been known to disguise themselves as beggars) during the Trojan War. He doesn't scrimp on the trials (well, he doesn't include everything, but do you want to see a 20-year movie?), so there's a Cyclops, Circe, Calypso, Charybdis, and non-'C' beings like Sirens, man-eating Laestrygonians, and Scylla, but not a hint of a green screen in sight.

What's interesting about Nolan's version is that he resisted the temptation to make it a CGI-fest (as so many previous depictions have depended on special effects), and kept it as "practical" as possible...although the monster Scylla is heavily pixelated into being, even using the very real black-sand beaches of Iceland to depict the underworld of Hades. Sure, there are magical beings depicted, but Nolan couches it as a time of "apparent magic" eliminating imagined celestial landscapes in the clouds for vast expanses of gritty beaches, and horizonless water-scapes.

What I found most interesting was that this is (although I've said it before for other of his films) the least complicated "timeline" of any of Nolan's movies (aside from his 'Batman' films). Sure, the majority of it is told in flashback, and there are flashbacks within the flashback, but, nothing as mind-blowing or intricate as telling a story backwards, inside-out, or with multiple realities or scrambled time-lines. You don't need a road-map for this film (although Ulysses could certainly have used one!).

* If you've looked at the map you know it isn't.

** That is, the bad-guys have free reign and the cops have to play by the rules.

Update: Now I've Seen Everything Dept.: Steven Spielberg (Part 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 here, 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 the publisher from the role she was born to play and, because of societal and traditional women's roles that 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" (having only met as avatars) and who have the best synergy to get to the end-game. But, the Big 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 his films subtly, sometimes metaphorically. 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."

Disclosure Day (2026) Spielberg's fourth film about humans and extra-terrestrials has a different spin than the previous three. And as those films were of their times and so, too, is this one. All four have something to say about the effect that visitors from another planet would have on Earth society.

 

But, this is the first one where Earthers are the "bad guys". 

 

Sure, the aliens are a little manipulative in getting their message across to human society (see "alien abduction," one of the many UFO "conspiracy theories" that have been marketed since the old "flying saucers" days that Spielberg references in the film), but, for the most part they are benign (the only time they weren't in a Spielberg film was in his version of The War of the Worlds in 2005). Here, it's the governments, researchers, and specialists who are the real enemy, who are determined to suppress the information that we are not alone AT ALL COSTS (Spielberg used that theme much more lightly in CE3K and E.T.) and to a pathological and homicidal degree far beyond the worth of doing it. Are you worried about aliens and "the replacement theory?" This movie makes a very good argument in favor of it.

 

The result is a roller-coaster ride of a movie where two "everyday people" (Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor) become awake to the possibility that they were "indoctrinated" by aliens and tasked to deliver the message of alien visitation...much like apostles. They become fugitives for the entire movie, dodging bullets, tasers, and parapsychic attacks that escalate to the ludicrous point where they are pushed into the path of a speeding train leaving them clinging to a disintegrating car only to be shot at by a paralleling government vehicle. It sounds like one of those unbelievable "Fast and Furious" stunt sequences, but Spielberg films it with nail-biting glee. 

 

There are two Spielberg directing modes, and usually only one shows up per movie project. But, Disclosure Day sees him firing on all his filmmaking cylinders, both as Earnest Message Man and as The Sadistic Carny at the Roller-Coaster.

   

What's next for Spielberg? There are rumors that he wants to make a new Bullitt movie, starring Bradley Cooper, but it's just in the 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 directed "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.