[HPFGU-OTChatter] anti-Spielberg and a bit on Columbus

Fri Jun 29 16:28:58 UTC 2001

Amy --

I am totally with you when it comes to Spielberg's blockbusters.  I have
given most of them a deliberate miss, and the ones that I haven't skipped
have been prone to every one of the faults you describe.  Which is not to
say I didn't enjoy some of them in spite of that (I have a strange fondness
for HOOK and YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES in particular), but I don't like it when
directors try to manipulate my emotions so shamelessly, either.  It just
makes me dig in my heels and determine not to let them succeed.

Spielberg, however, is a director with a split personality.  Three-quarters
of the films he makes are sentimental, overblown eye-candy.  But every now
and then he turns around and delivers a film of exquisite skill and real
emotional and philosophical power, completely free of the excesses,
gimmicks, and conspicuous displays of special effects that you despise.  I
can only say that you NEED to see those films before you can decide what you
really think of Spielberg.

I would personally recommend EMPIRE OF THE SUN to start.  I had no idea
Spielberg was capable of anything great until I saw that film.  After three
wrenching hours of exquisite cinema, my jaw was on the floor.  I literally
could not believe it was the same Steven Spielberg directing it.  I felt the
same way about SCHINDLER'S LIST, which I truly believe is the greatest movie
ever made (and I fervently hope I never have to watch it again).  That film
has to be seen in the cinema for proper effect:  in fact I was appalled at
the thought of it going to video, because I couldn't help thinking it would
lose a great deal of its impact.  But since it is now very unlikely that you
can see it in such a venue, I guess the video will have to do.  (I saw
EMPIRE on video and it didn't keep me from appreciating it, although I now
wish I'd seen it on the screen.)

Both those films left me emotionally wrung-out for a week, but not because
they employed any of Spielberg's usual maudlin tricks.  Indeed, in EMPIRE
one might even say Spielberg turned his own reputation for wide-eyed star
gazing shots on its head, because pretty much any time anybody looks up into
the sky in that film, seriously awful things happen.  And Christian Bale is
incredible as the young protagonist.  (The film also contains what I
consider to be the perfect role for John Malkovich, and certainly the best
acting I've ever seen from him yet; although I don't actually like John
Malkovich, so I may be a bit biased on that point.)

John Williams, too, has a split personality to go with Spielberg's.  Most of
his music (the famous stuff, anyway) seems to be built around the same
musical theme, with a few not-very-interesting variations.  I was quite
convinced the man was a hack with an undeserved reputation, until I heard
his score for SCHINDLER'S LIST and was completely blown away.  It did not
sound like anything I would ever have recognized as Williams music at all.
It was beautiful and wrenching and utterly appropriate for the film.  I own
the soundtrack and listen to it on a regular basis, and when I listen to it,
not once do I find myself thinking, "Oh, yeah, that guy who did the music
for STAR WARS (or SUPERMAN, or any of those others with annoyingly similar
themes)."

So I'm willing to give Williams a chance to outdo himself on HP, although
admittedly it's not likely that he'll pull out all the stops on a
fantastical kiddie film -- he'll probably just go back to his old habits.
But at least I know he can do more -- much, much more -- than I'd ever
anticipated.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj

----- Original Message -----
From: "Amy Z" <aiz24 at hotmail.com>
To: <HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 11:31 AM
Subject: [HPFGU-OTChatter] anti-Spielberg and a bit on Columbus

> I having confessed that boggarts turn into Steven Spielberg when they
> see me coming, ***Draco~Malfoy~Lover*** wrote on the main list:
>
> >Why Steven Spielberg? He's a great director! He'd probably do a
> >better job on this film than Chritopher Comlumbus :::mutters darkly
> >about the choice of director:::.
>
> None of the following should be read as an endorsement of Chris "Home
> Alone 2" Columbus, nor, for that matter, a statement that I would
> prefer him to Spielberg as the director of HP.  CC is on serious
> probation as far as I'm concerned.
>
> Five reasons I don't like Steven Spielberg:
>
> -His chief technique for getting the audience to feel surprise,
> wonder, etc., is to show character upon character gazing in surprise,
> wonder, etc., usually skyward.  This is a fine cinematic approach used
> in moderation, but it wears thin long before SS is done with it, IMO.
>  I caught onto it back at E.T., and it's driven me nuts ever since.
> (I should've caught on earlier.  Shots of people gazing at things take
> up 40% of Close Encounters.)
>
> -Corollary to above:  he's a basically manipulative filmmaker.  I feel
> as if he tugs on every obvious expectation and cliche (I refused to
> see Saving Private Ryan because I couldn't stand one more army flick
> with the squadron of stereotypes--the hick who's ignorant but boy can
> he shoot [all those years of huntin' squirrels 'n' 'possums]).  This
> kind of thing gets my sarcasm engine turned on, as you may have
> noticed.  Now, art is about skillful manipulation, but there are
> artists who make me say "Aha!" and artists who make me say "I'm being
> manipulated."  The great ones are the former; Spielberg is
> consistently the latter.  I also prefer directors who use their powers
> of manipulation toward some lofty purpose, which brings me to . . .
>
> -He has used his considerable talent to make one shallow blockbuster
> after another.  Shallow blockbusters are okay--I rent mostly comedies,
> myself, purely for entertainment and not to change my life--but what
> so irritates me about Spielberg is that he wants recognition as some
> kind of auteur despite basically being a turner-out of entertaining
> bits of fluff.  Case in point:  when he won Best Director for
> Schindler's List (his first directing Oscar), he said something along
> the lines of "at last"; there had been a lot of handwringing about how
> he kept getting passed over.  The only serious film he had made up to
> that point, IMHO, was The Color Purple (never saw it, though I'd like
> to, so I won't venture a judgment; I never saw Schindler's List in
> its entirety, either--the power went out at the movie theater 40
> minutes in, though I did like those 40 minutes).  You would have
> thought that he'd been making masterpieces all these years and been
> ignored.  I liked Jaws, I liked Close Encounters, I even liked E.T.,
> but none of them are the kinds of movies I would vote for for Best
> Picture.  (Neither are most of the movies that have won it,
> historically.)  I ask for more than entertainment from a Best
> Director.
>
> -He makes movies for children that are extremely violent.  I loved
> Raiders of the Lost Ark when I was a kid--I think I saw it 5 times the
> week it came out--but now I look at it and realize how many people our
> hero kills along the way.  Dirty Harry, move over.  It really bothers
> me that this stuff is sold as wholesome entertainment.  The
> writer Barbara Kingsolver tells a story about this that is very
> revealing:  a friend of hers told her, "You'll like it, it isn't
> violent at all," and like me, BK watched and counted up the bodies.
> That's the worst thing about that kind of movie--the mayhem is
> presented in such a flip, cartoonish way that we don't even realize
> how much of it there is.
>
> -Rumor had it that he said he'd direct HP only if Haley Joel Osment
> played Harry.  A big raspberry to SS for trying to stack his influence
> against JKR's (anyone know an emoticon for a raspberry?).  No offense
> to HJO, who may be a very talented actor, but he is not British and
> that settles it.  It should have settled it for Spielberg, or at least
> he should have said, "Well, I differ with the author on the necessity
> for a British cast, so I will have to gracefully decline the
> possibility of directing."  As I said, the information that he was
> throwing his weight around is rumor, so do take it with a grain of
> salt.
>
> Ah well, de gustibus non titillandum.
>
> Back to Columbus:  I was heartened by the quote in USA Today where he
> said he wanted to express his darker, less sentimental side in HP.  We
> can only hope so.
>
> Amy Z
>
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