Steven Spielberg - Early Career

This is going to be a series, but it also won't be. The initial idea was to pick the 8 greatest filmmakers and figure out who the best of all time is. Typing that out make me realize, even more than I already have, that the idea of deciding who is objectively greatest filmmaker to ever walk the globe is possibly the most egotistical thing a young man, like myself, can do. So what I'm going to do is go through the careers of some filmmakers that I love and some that I've heard are great and write about them. Alright, now we're on the same page... cool.

I'm going to do Steven Spielberg in three parts. Part one will be his early career and rise to prominence (1975-1990). Part two will be the middle of his career, when some would say he was at his apex (1990-2010). Part three will be the weird place he's currently in (2010-). These are rough dates but it's for the purpose of formatting and so this doesn't turn into a 10,000 word Spielberg focused equivalent to the Unabomber Manifesto.

---

It's hard to think of iconic moments from post-western American cinema and not think of moments from a Spielberg films. Try it. What moments came to mind? Was one of them the "We're gonna need a bigger boat" scene? Or the T-Rex from Jurassic Park? Maybe Indy stealing the gold stature in Raiders? The Normandy Landing in Saving Private Ryan? Maybe one of the many not mentioned here. Spielberg has brought a lifetimes worth of iconic scenes to the cinema during his 50 years on the scene.

His ability to create iconic and emotional moment's has lead to him being the most successful director at the box office ever. His directorial efforts have netted him 10 billion at the worldwide box office and I can't even imagine how big that number is if you include the films he's produced. Second and third on the list are the Russo brothers who've each made over 6.5 billion at the box office, which means they're about 2 Avengers movies away from taking the top spot. Rounding out the top 10 you have Peter Jackson, Michael Bay, James Cameron, David Yates, Christopher Nolan, J.J. Abrams, and Tim Burton.

One thing I'd like to mention before we start to get into a little analysis Spielberg's films is his inspiration. There are a lot of filmmakers where you can tell their inspirations by looking at their filmography. When you look at Spielberg you can see his influence from a multitude of different sources. I think he gets his desire for iconography from Disney while pulling some lessons in suspense from Hitchcock. Then he grabbed a dash of influence from David Lean and Stanley Kubrick in terms of frame composition while also using the rest of the movie brats a sources of competitive motivation. They were like a college basketball team that knew if they worked together it would be easier for them to win.

The main movies that we're going to be looking at in this Spielberg manifesto are Jaws (75), Close Encounters of a Third Kind (77), 1941 (1979), The Color Purple (85), Schindlers List (93), Jurassic Park (93), Saving Private Ryan (98), War of the Worlds (05), The Adventures of Tintin (11), Lincoln (12), and the Post (16).

---

Real quick side note before we get into the movies. Through out all of the parts of this series I'm going keep track of Spielberg's record (W-L) based on what films I liked and which I didn't. It's only opinion so send me your own if you feel so inclined.

Jaws (1975)

Jaws is the most iconic single movie to come out since the beginning of the movie brat revolution. The music, performances, and cinematography all create truly iconic moments.

There's a sizeable part in the HBO Spielberg documentary just focused on Jaws and it talks about these huge line ups, which became common after Jaws but have recently fallen out of favor due to online replacements like reserved seats and pre-orders. It currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the first summer blockbuster (First film to make more than $100 million at the box office (Side note: I don't think this record was adjusted for inflation because adjusted for inflation I think it would be Snow White and the Seven Dwarves)).

One of Spielberg's major qualities as a filmmaker is his ability to make emotional connections with the audience and through that, he makes incredible iconography. In Jaws, Spielberg can spin the audience into a cradle of suspense and make them hang on every letter said in every scene while the score fills the film with the perfect emotion, dread. Jaws also features the most iconic dolly zooms of all time and one of the most iconic lines in American cinema which is definitely in the movie quote hall of fame (Along with the oft misrepresented "Luke I am your father". Here are a couple others from AFI that might bring back memories). There are also career-defining performances from Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, and Roy Scheider.

I'm going to get philosophical about Jaws for a little bit here so bear with me.

The thing that kept being brought up during the Spielberg documentary was how Spielberg would use his movies as a sort of therapy to work through problems in his life. If we look at Brody he's a man who's recently been put in a position where a large group of people are trusting him to deliver on a goal that also could cost the people who trust him everything. It ends up being a complete fucking mess but he gets the job done. That's what's happening with Spielberg at the time of making Jaws.

Spielberg was given authority over a $4 million movie by Universal and it became (As previously stated) a complete fucking mess. The first problem was that he wanted to shoot on the open ocean which created a great product but is a Herculean task because it's the ocean, one of natures most powerful forces. You can't tame the ocean so some actors can flop around with a robot shark. The ocean doesn't care. Then there are famous stories about the shark doesn't consistently work which leads to Spielberg having to rewrite to the movie so there was less of the shark which was definitely a good thing. There was also conflict and some less than professional behavior from Robert Shaw (He was drunk a lot and I think evading taxes. You can pick up on both by watching close enough). These problems caused Spielberg to go over budget (The movie more than doubled it's expected budget and ended up costing $9 million) and for them to shoot much longer than anticipated (100 days over schedule). The production of the movie became a mess but people trusted him so he had to get it done to the best of his ability. I think that Spielberg used his experience from making Jaws to inform the character of Brody whether he knew it or not.

The trio of Brody, Hooper, and Quint is incredible because they are like a three circle ven diagram where only the perimeters of the circles touch. They each occupy a unique and important role in the crew making all of them important in their own way.

In the end, Jaws ends with a bit of a sentimental ending which is a theme that we will see through most of Spielberg's filmography. He loves ending with just too much cheese and happiness which is a strength when making a blockbuster film but a weakness when you are attempting to create subversive art. Jaws is will forever be an iconic piece of American cinema. There may be media that is more popular at a specific time but Jaws is like Casablanca, Psycho, Gone With The Wind, and The Wizard of Oz, it's a timeless classic that should come with every green card.

Spielberg's record: 1-0

Close Encounters of a Third Kind (1977)

Close Encounters of a Third Kind is by far Spielberg's most intimate film. It debuted in 1977 as the third feature from the then promising young director who decided he wanted to take on writing it, as any good auteur would. In the Jaws section, I mentioned Spielberg using his movies as therapy and emotionally putting himself into his films (In know that many filmmakers do this but none of them have had Spielberg type success).], well, Close Encounters is the number one example of this. There are multiple moments in the movie that come from Spielberg's actual life experiences (He says this in the documentary, it's a good watch if you're interested in the man).

In the abstract, there's the theme of divorce and absent father actually do and go through. In the film, Richard Dreyfuss's character, Roy, becomes obsessed with the image and shape of this mound which ends up being the Devils Tower in Wyoming. This obsession ends up tearing his family apart and after his wife, Ronnie (Teri Garr), leaves with the kids about four-sevenths of the way through the film we never see them again and it's implied that Roy never sees them again either (He does seem ok with leaving the kids... or he really likes getting anally probed). Spielberg's parents got divorced when he was young and for a large chunk of his life he didn't have a father

One of the most striking moments in the movie that feels almost too raw to make up is when we see Roy crying in the shower and his some comes up to the door and starts slamming it and yelling "YOU CRYBABY" at him. That's a moment from Spielberg's life. He saw his Dad crying and started yelling crybaby at him.

I think of this film as Spielberg's initial entry into the early heavy visual effects sci-fi film bubble that has become dominated by Disney in recent years but was really started with films like Star Wars, Alien, Terminator, Blade Runner, and Zardoz. The effects in the film are as good as it get's for the time but Spielberg's ability to pull emotion is honestly unmatched. Maybe it's because I'm a child of divorce but this film hit me more than a film like Star Wars or Zardoz hit's me. It's really hard to make a sci-fi film that is also a great family drama and incredibly suspenseful but he managed to do it so bravo to big Steve.

Spielberg's record: 2-0

1941 (1979)

1941 is a strange film. It starts with a text scroll (I believe it's meant to be a reference to Star Wars) than a reference to one of Spielberg's own films, Jaws, with a naked woman swimming in the ocean at the beginning. It's also got a pretty crazy cast. Imagine a comedy having Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, and John Candy all in one film but then you add Tishiro Mifune who is just outstanding on top of that. The sad part is... it sucks.

The film received a tepid response when it was released getting a 34 metacritic score but made over $90 million on a $35 million budget. I think the film fails for me because there really is an art to comedy directing and knowing how to direct actors so you get the funniest moments rather than what Spielberg normally does which is to direct for dramatic moments. Comedy has a cadence that is developed with practice and I don't think Spielberg had really put in the work.

The plot is also just strange. So the basic idea is that the Japanese, lead by Mifune, want to bomb Hollywood after their successful bombing of Pearl Harbour. Then there's Wally who want's to "dance" with Betty but Chuck also wants to "dance" with Betty except the joke is that he gonna do it against her will. I can hear Chuck saying "It's the implication". Then there's another guy named Loomis and he wants to, as they say, park his plane in her hanger. Then Dan Ackroyd runs a unit that Chuck belongs to and also sets up anti-aircraft guns at peoples houses... cool.

Maybe I just didn't grow up in the right generation for this film. This might get a little political but I don't find the racism that ranges from casual to overt very funny. Generally to find characters funny in a comedy they have to have some sort of likeability and tell some sort of joke or do something funny at all. It's just kinda people saying Japs and falling over then they paint a black guys face white. There isn't a charming character in the movie. I'm also not sure where I fall on the "funny" war film especially when it doesn't feel like there's any commentary on what war actually is. Doctor Strangelove is fantastic but it's also witty and a commentary on the military.

I watched this because I thought it would help me understand how he inserted a semi humorous tone into our next film, The Colour Purple, but it left me with more questions then answers. I love Mifune but the Japanese submarine sub plot didn't need to be in the movie, it just added 30 unneeded minutes. Spielberg does some cool stuff with the camera but the characters just suck. It's like a rapey teen sex comedy except the teens are soldiers and the comedy is dumb. I really didn't like this film at all and it's 2:30:00 long... bad.

Spielberg's record 2-1

The Color Purple (1985)

I'd like to address the elephant in the blog post right off the bat. I'm jumping forward in Spielberg's filmography quite a bit here. Between 1979 and 1985 he released Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Temple of Doom (I've got a plan for Indiana Jones and as I'm writing this I came up with a plan to write about E.T.). Those are great films and I will cover them later on in this site's life cycle but the Color Purple really informs the rest of his career in my opinion. From here on out Spielberg takes on projects that are much more Serious (If I was saying this version of serious I would audibly say "Capital S Serious). Jaws and Close Encounters have some serious themes but they're still about 20 foot long killer shark and aliens. The Color Purple is about the abuse and essentially enslavement of Celie by an older man in the 1930's. After The Color Purple you get Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan but also Empire of the Sun and Amistad. I see Jaws and Close Encounters as an exercise in creating entertainment and suspense. Then 1941 is him seeing if he was born with a funny bone, and The Color Purple as him trying to stretch his dramatic muscles to an angle he's never achieved before but thankfully he didn't pop his arm out of its socket.

When you watch this film you can see some lessons Spielberg picked up in previous films influencing this film. During the scene's where Celie (Whoppi Goldberg) is shaving Mister (Danny Glover) you can feel the same sort of suspense that Spielberg elicits from the audiences during the Alex Kintner death scene. This film also features family drama within a single house like Close Encounters though it's much heavier. This film is also funny, something that Spielberg isn't really known for. The only reason that Spielberg is able to mix all these aspects is because he has such incredible control over the craft of directing. He's able to pace things out and not completely confuse the audiences as the to the tone. My favorite scene is when Mister is getting dressed for the first Shug concert, stressed, and blaming Celie but she knows his so well that he just has everything ready for him (Where was the charm in 1941?).

I'm not going to speak to the authenticity of the story or the adaptation because I haven't read the book nor do I really don't know enough about history to make that judgement. I can relay some of the positives and negatives pointed out near the time of release though. Roger Ebert loved this film praising Whoopi, Spielberg, and the world they created. The whole cast is incredible in this film and any praise towards them is well earned. There are also some incredibly shot scenes in the film like the one where Mister goes to Celies Dad and asks if he can have Nettie.

There were criticisms of the film about the over sentimentality which is very valid but also kind of Spielberg's thing. He always wants a happy ending. In Close Encounters he was able to make a story about a father abandoning his family (Which is pulled from his real life) to go get probed by aliens sentimental. My least favorite thing about the film is how Mister's story ends. By all accounts he's a physically and psychologically abusive person but it seems like we are suppose to root for in the final minutes of the film because he reunites Celie and Nettie but he was the one that forced them apart for decades and in those decades abused Celie. He's not a good guy and you can't be a piece of shit for 70 years and just say psych and now it's all good. I haven't read the book but I feel like he should've died at the end. He's a vile character.

---

I'm not sure when the next part will come out, I will likely take a break form Spielberg for a bit. You should check out the first episode of the podcast. My friend and I saw a Tenet-Unhinged double feature and recorded our thoughts about it on the drive home. If you liked this for some reason follow me on twitter @calder_aw so you'll know when new posts go up.