Summer of Spielberg: The Elder Statesman

Part 8 of 8

If there is one thing Steven Spielberg is brilliant at predicting, it’s what people will pay money to see at the movies. Ever since the ’80s, Spielberg has had one of the most marketable names one could put on a movie trailer. With a handful of exceptions, having Spielberg as a producer or executive producer for your project will do a lot when it comes to marketing and how the public perceives your film. There’s a reason the trailers for all the Transformers films feature Spielberg’s name as prominently as Michael Bay’s: his presence will bring a certain number of people in. Particularly in recent years, Spielberg has been awfully generous with his “executive producer” credits, but he has a long history of supporting films he believes 1) will be good, or 2) will make money. What’s encouraging about this is that Spielberg has decided not to become a hermit who releases only his movies and ignores everything else. He actively helps movies to get made because he likes a world where they exist.

Summer of Spielberg: Late-Career Science Fiction

Part 7 of 8

There is not a director on Earth that doesn’t want to win an Academy Award. This desire may not wholly drive their filmmaking (and it shouldn’t), but if someone says they detest the idea of accepting a golden statuette they are lying. One does not need a bookcase full of Oscars to prove they had a great film career, but it provides a certain je ne sais quoi that filmmakers may otherwise not get. If a prominent or well-established director has gone several years without winning, there may actually come a point where they start taking on more prestigious fare to get some awards attention. This may not be the conscious reasoning behind directing Oscar bait, but I’ll bet the desire for recognition plays a significant role. One example is the career of Martin Scorsese. After three decades of directing great films but not getting squat in return, the early ’00s saw him taking on projects like Gangs of New York and The Aviator. (Intriguingly, he finally won with the über-Scorcesian crime film The Departed.) Steven Spielberg went on his prestige binge in the ’90s, and since he came out the other end with two Best Director awards (Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan) that meant he could spend the next decade making slightly stranger—and in many cases, more ambitious—films.

Summer of Spielberg: Deep Cuts, Failures, and Other Miscellany

Part 6 of 8

All previous posts in my Summer of Spielberg project have followed a single aspect of Spielberg’s film career. While the subjects of his films are very diverse, there are a handful of themes that he always seems to revisit time and time again. This week, the collection of films I’ll be looking at is slightly more eclectic. The idea is that these are not the projects normally brought up when the oeuvre of Steven Spielberg enters the conversation. These are the films that have more or less fallen by the wayside, and I have gathered them together in this post, where they shall find a home. Yes, some of these films have made quite a bit of money, but none of them are seen as his best work by just about anyone. Instead of my usual rambling, I will be discussing each film in a manner similar to my Director Profiles; with a brief review, and then a grade. Let us begin our journey into the deep cuts of Steven Spielberg.

Summer of Spielberg: Oppression and Revenge

Part 5 of 8

Last week, I discussed how the WWII drama Empire of the Sun marked a transitional moment in the career of Steven Spielberg. It was his first (semi) successful attempt at filmmaking of a darker, more mature sort. Before that film, his best work was in the genre of the mainstream Hollywood blockbuster. After that, the subject matter of his films entered slightly more disturbing territory. A recurring subject in these later works would be how certain groups of people can be seen as something less than human beings; as objects that can readily be tossed into the trash. Schindler’s List is the most obvious example—it would have fit well into this week’s post, but I placed it in last week’s group simply because of its World War II setting—but this is not the only time he explored such themes. However, it likely is the best film he’s made of this ilk. The films I’m discussing this week—The Color Purple, Amistad and Munich—are imperfect, but they all are about what happens when a person lives their life only as a servant, a product or a target.

Summer of Spielberg: World War II

Part 4 of 8

Much of Steven Spielberg’s early work could be described as celebrations of childhood. There was a brilliant simplicity to them, and they often emphasized entertainment and wonder over gut-wrenching drama. This is not a criticism; some of his greatest films come from this early era. However, there came a point in the late ’80s when Spielberg began to develop slightly more complex sensibilities. This transition is best illustrated in 1987’s Empire of the Sun, a film which tells the story of a literal loss of innocence. It would also be the first of three Spielberg films about World War II. (Yes, 1941 is technically a World War II movie. I’m saving that for later.) Fittingly, these projects would prove to be some of the bleakest films he’s ever made, as they explore the consequences of war rather than the thrill of victory. Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan would prove to be the films that escorted Spielberg to subject matter of a more mature sort.

Summer of Spielberg: The Alien Trilogy

Part 3 of 8

Many films in the Steven Spielberg oeuvre have been about the relationship between man and the unknown. Sometimes the unknown has been of this Earth, and sometimes it is something more supernatural. However—whether it be in his directorial or producing work—one of Spielberg’s main fascinations has always been the existence of extraterrestrial life. More specifically, he explores the possibilities as to what might happen if these aliens ever decide to interact with us. Over the course of his career, Spielberg has directed three films which attack this subject in three very different ways. His first two films (Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.) suggest that the aliens might be rather amicable, while his 2005 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds goes in the complete other direction. All three films are strong, but it’s obvious which of these films Spielberg’s heart was most invested in.

Summer of Spielberg: Blockbustin'

Part 2 of 8

Most people don’t ask for much when they go to the movies, particularly in the months between May and September. After Steven Spielberg ostensibly invented the summer blockbuster with Jaws in 1975, he would spend much of the rest of his career exploring the genre which he had helped create. Many have tried to recapture the energy of Spielberg’s films, but, obviously, none have truly come up with a worthy duplication. Even weaker Spielberg blockbusters still have a magic and wonder about them that other films lack. Over the course of the next two weeks, we shall be exploring the various ways in which Spielberg tackles his large-scale material. Next week we will focus on his forays into science fiction and extraterrestrial life, but this week is all about the two huge action franchises he helped create: Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.

Summer of Spielberg: The Young Gunslinger

Part 1 of 8

Whenever you talk to Steven Spielberg about the subject of Jaws (which I haven't), he describes it as a time when he was “young and stupid.” That does not mean he isn’t fond of the film. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Spielberg is fond of his Jaws-era work because that film could only have been made by a filmmaker who was certifiably insane/too young to know better. Where an older, more experienced Spielberg would have likely found a more reasonable way to go about creating the film, the young Spielberg—flying by the seat of his pants—was able to create one of the great thrillers of all time. Like Hitchcock’s Psycho, it remains to this day a perfect example of how to keep an audience on their toes. This wasn’t just the film that shot Spielberg into the stratosphere, but it would also prove to be one of the key films in shaping the modern Hollywood landscape.

Announcing: The Summer of Spielberg

Why, yes. I did make this in Paint.

In terms of sheer influence over the modern Hollywood landscape, no filmmaker comes close to Steven Spielberg. The very notion of a “tent pole movie” or a “summer movie season” may not be existent without his work, but that also may sell the rest of his oeuvre short. Those who see him solely as the inventor of the blockbuster are forgetting the equal influence of his dramatic work. Even through all his years, he has rarely settled on a “safe” project; though it has happened from time to time. Last year, I devoted several posts to the films of Martin Scorsese. This year, my “Summer of” project will focus on Spielberg; a very different but equally—if not more—important director. Plus, both their surnames begin with ‘S,’ so they both sound good with “summer.”