Spielberg and HD?

[Guest fstop]

great post Max- I agree entirely with your assessment of Ryan. I too was appalled to see Hollywood return to it's black and white portrayal of war many years after the likes of Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and MASH had made a mockery of the primitive thinking displayed in the last of those oppressive bigoted John Wayne films such as THE GREEN BERETS. Film's that open and close with the American flag with such a po-face are only allowed to so aslong as either Leslie Nielsen or Arnold Schwarzenegger make an apparenace to send it all up! I do however admire and enjoy Spielberg's The Colour Purple and Empire of the Sun, both of which were far more restrained, intelligent and overviewing a clear grey area as oppose to the likes of Ryan. Unfortunately, neither of the films I mentioned made much money either. Ryan did, however.

[Boone Hudgins]

One movie I didn't care for shot by Douglas Slocombe was The Great Gatsby. I like the look of nets, but it seemed a little much. Especially on Mia Farrow's closeups. Of course, the cinematography was most likely hampered by Francis Ford Coppola's pounded-out script and Jack Clayton's paint-by-numbers visual symbolism.

Edited June 13, 2005 by Boone Hudgins

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, there are a few shots in "Raiders" that are more naturally lit & exposed, like that low-angle of the natives holding the spears against the hot sky, in semi-silhouette. But the rest of that scene was clearly lit-up with arc lights under the dark canopy of trees. But lit for mood, not flatly.

 

I'm not objecting to any of that, by the way, it's just the slightly archaic style of the film... that works so well since the movie itself is somewhat of a throwback to earlier movies. The difference is that Slocombe comes by it honestly, having been trained in that era, and I'm worried that a younger DP would just be parodying it.

 

I like the look of the third Indy film too, although the switch to nets on some shots is jarring, and the cave at the end of the movie is a bit overlit, even compared to the canyon at night at the end of "Raiders."

[Guest]

"The old soldier walking along the beachfront is followed by 3 blonde All-American girls, with their huger knockers nearly bursting out of their tight t-shirts. And lets not even get into the salute at the end..."

 

Well Max obviously Ryan was made primarily for a US audience. It's no surprise that people outside of the USA are turned off by US movies that, "fly the flag."

 

The British used to make movies like that as well in the 50s-60s, films that glorified the achievements of the Empire, but they don't make those any more.

 

R,

[Guest fstop]

I'm not objecting to any of that, by the way, it's just the slightly archaic style of the film... that works so well since the movie itself is somewhat of a throwback to earlier movies.  The difference is that Slocombe comes by it honestly, having been trained in that era, and I'm worried that a younger DP would just be parodying it.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You've nailed it. Thankyou.

 

This is one of the reasons that for all the endless self aware parody Stephen Sommerisms that make THE MUMMY and it's sequel unwatchable (1999 and 2001), at least they were shot by Adrian Biddle, who was apprentice to Harry Waxman, one of Slocombe's contemporaries.

 

As I said before, I think David Tattersall would be the only youngster I could see lensing a new INDY, but only because he was doing a Slocombe every week on 16mm in the days of YOUNG INDY.

[Tenolian Bell]

To me this is propaganda at it's worst, because as an audience you have to surrender yourself to his ideology if you want to enjoy the movie. I like to keep my brain switched on and actually be allowed to think if a movie claims to be 'serious'.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think to feel that way you would just about have to object to most any war film made in America. The films from the 40's and 50's were even worse. They were total propaganda films. Geared towards making America and its soldiers right and true.

 

I think put up agains these films Saving Private Ryan is less so. But you are right in that Spielberg always has to force sentementalism. That's what killed Minority Report for me.

 

Spielberg couldn't just let Tom Cruise be an anti-hero, he had to turn him into a hero and that killed the film.

[Max Jacoby]

That's why I always like to metion 'Thin Red Line' which got released the same year as SPR. Now that film really is a piece of art.

[David Mullen ASC]

That's why I always like to metion 'Thin Red Line' which got released the same year as SPR. Now that film really is a piece of art.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think both films have their weaknesses but that overall, TRL is a real work of art, whereas SPR is sporadically good at best and occasionally really bad.

 

Personally if you simply took the Normandy Beach invasion out of the film and viewed that alone, it is quite a powerful and NON-political statement about the sheer carnage of war and the ability of men to wage it, even survive it, through sheer effort. I haven't witnessed shots as powerful as some in there in any other war film, including TRL. Just the shot of the boat doors opening and a dozen men getting their heads blown-off in the first few seconds of battle is enough to last a long time in the mind, and I hardly call that a "pro war" statement. In fact, what's so effective about that battle scene is that it is so grueling as to make you question EVERYTHING going on, including the whys. Your brain is constantly searching for meaning in it all, while the film effectively doesn't stop to tell you what to think. After that scene, it starts to tell you what to think, which is why the movie goes downhill.

 

Also, the bookends of the movie are terrible, and most everything after the opening battle scene is not particularly original, and yes, a throwback to old war movies. But the D-Day invasion scene was powerful in a way that most war films never quite reach and set the bar higher for warfare depicted onscreen. And that has a lot to do with Spielberg's skills as a director. If the scene WASN'T effective, so many people wouldn't be so shamelessly trying to copy it ever since then, would they?

[Guest Roman]

And if anyone could tell me the name of the critic who called 'Schindler's List' 'emotional pornography' because that is exactly what it is.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It was David Mamet who said that.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

"Thin Red Line" was hopelessly overlong.

 

Phil

[Guest Roman]

As for Stanley Kubrick enjoying Spielberg's movies, well he also said about 'Schindler's List' that the holocaust is about 6 Million people dying, not 6000 gettign saved.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I would like to see a reliable source for this Kubrick's quote. However, it is ultimately not fair to approach that issue in this fashion. Does this mean that one should show 6 million people dying (and nothing else) to have a "right" to make movie about it?

 

If I would have the same passionate feelings against Roman Polanski as you have against Steven Spielberg (or his work) I might have commented on his "Oscar" winning movie in this vain:

 

Holocaust is about 6 million people dying, not (one) The Pianist being saved.

 

and add that so and so (someone famous and respected, preferably dead has said that)? I honestly believe this is a matter of taste. I like Spielberg's work you don't. However, liking his work wasn't enough for me to see SPR anyways :)

[Tenolian Bell]

As for Stanley Kubrick enjoying Spielberg's movies, well he also said about 'Schindler's List' that the holocaust is about 6 Million people dying, not 6000 gettign saved.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Would be pretty depressing to only show death and no redemption for life.

 

I didn't know much at all about the Jewish Holocaust when SL came out. So I rather enjoyed it. That was also one of the earliest films I saw where I felt a connection with the filmmaking and the photography. I think because

 

I was at an age where I began to notice that kind of thing, but I still did not know how to articulate it.

 

I learned a great deal more about World War 2 and its historical facts in college. During this same time came a string of Holocaust films that were pretty much all along the same theme as SL.

 

What I always thought would make an interesting story is how it even got to that point. Genocide was not the original plan, the Nazi party originally mostly wanted the Jews out of Germany. Things did not go their way with the war, and through a string of degenerative plans did the genocide finally evolve.

 

I don't know if this would be a popular story in that you would have to take some energy away from demonizing the Nazi's.

[Tenolian Bell]

What it interesting in looking at film history by Spielberg is Amistad.

 

Amistad was nearly a complete work of fiction based on true historical accounts.

 

The horror of slavery was briefly shown inspite of the fact that the Atlantic slave trade lasted almost three hundred years, and transported African's from the Caribbean, to the southern states, through central American, almost half went to South America and what today is Brazil.

 

Through all that time scant records were kept, there is no way with complete accuracy over all that time to tell how many were transported and how many died. It is estimated that 8 million died on the route between Africa and Cuba alone. But that doesn't take into account all of the other routes.

 

All that to say as we watch Amistad there is really little to no demonization at all for the politics or the society at large which perpetuated, profited, and prospered from the slave trade.

 

But there were a lot of impassioned speeches about freedom, justice, and morality. I found it quite interesting.

Edited June 14, 2005 by tenobell

[David Mullen ASC]

In a fiction film, it's hard to make the deaths of millions mean much emotionally, so you have to personalize it and let people extrapolate the fate of a few as being symbolic of the fate of millions. I mean, you could SHOW six million people being killed on-screen but it would lose its dramatic impact.

 

I enjoyed "Amistad" quite a bit, although mostly for the portrayal of John Quincy Adams; the early history of this country is a particular hobby of mine so the politics of the day as presented in the movie were interesting to me. And I though the slave ship passage flashback was quite powerful.

 

As much as some people like to criticise "Schindler's List" it only succumbs to sentimentality in a few key scenes considering its length; in many others, the horrors of the situation were presented in a matter-the-fact manner, making them all the more effective. As for the notion that it picked some small story about the Holocaust that involved those few that survived it, I'm not sure why Spielberg had to make some sort of all-encompassing story of the entire Holocaust. You might as well say that the book should also never have been written.

 

I'm reminded of the line in Sam Fuller's "The Big Red One": "the only glory in war is surviving it."

[Tenolian Bell]

From what I've studied and read the politics in Amistad were partially correct but erred to the side of emotion.

 

This is a time when the Atlantic slave trade was just abolished, but slavery itself in America was still going strong. This is before the Civil War and 24 years before the Emancipation Proclimation. So nearly everyone in the aristocratic class were slave owners in one way or another, and enslaved Africa's in America by law are still considered less than human. Free African's were looked down upon socially.

 

I didn't see that this was the enviornment of America in Amistad. There was a hint or a whisp of it, but in reality that was the social norm of the time.

 

From what I've read even though John Quincy Adams was for letting the African's from the Amistad free, he did not invite Cinque into his home, and he did not give that speech in court.

Edited June 14, 2005 by tenobell

[Brad Grimmett]

That's why I always like to metion 'Thin Red Line' which got released the same year as SPR. Now that film really is a piece of art.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree with you Max, but I saw The Thin Red Line with about 9 other people and only two of us liked it. The rest of the group absolutely hated it. Just goes to show what sells. But I DID like SPR, so feel free to take my opinion with a grain of salt.

[David Mullen ASC]

From what I've read even though John Quincy Adams was for letting the African's from the Amistad free, he did not invite Cinque into his home, and he did not give that speech in court.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I heard that John Quincy Adam's speech to the Supreme Court lasted two days actually...

 

While obviously slavery was going on strong at the time, many of the characters in the story would probably not have owned slaves (the abolishionist publisher, the poor lawyer, Adams, etc.) The slave TRADE was quite on display in this movie and I don't think there was some attempt to hide the existence of slavery in the film, since obviously that's the subject of the movie.

 

Anyway, I've never been too fanatic about pointing out historical inaccuracies since I don't look to movies to provide me with facts, just stories. If anything, we should all be skeptical of any information provided by the movies and make an effort to check out the real history behind the story (my recent readings of American history though have centered around the first few administrations though so I'm a little weak on Martin Van Buren's presidency...)

 

I don't even know for sure that John Quincy Adams did not own any slaves but considering how anti-slavery his parents were, I somehow doubt it.

[Tenolian Bell]

Ah now I remember he gave a speech in front of the Supereme court to petition their freedom, but the content of the speech wasn't the same as in the film.

 

I'm sure he didn't own slaves while trying to free the African's from the Amistad, I wasn't really saying he had, just stating the norm of the time was for most of the aristocracy to have owned slaves, or owned businesses that used slaves for labor.

 

I guess we have a different out look on it. The subject of the film was slavery, from the film you see the concept of slavery. But you don't see how ingrained the actual practice was in the fabric of society at that time.

 

It would be pretty easy to walk away from Amistad feeling society as portrayed in the film was much closer to where we are currently, than the fact slavery was still in full effect.

Edited June 14, 2005 by tenobell

[Max Jacoby]

Personally if you simply took the Normandy Beach invasion out of the film and viewed that alone, it is quite a powerful and NON-political statement about the sheer carnage of war and the ability of men to wage it, even survive it, through sheer effort. 

 

I completely agree with you on that, I think most of that scene is indeed amazing.

[Max Jacoby]

What I always thought would make an interesting story is how it even got to that point. Genocide was not the original plan, the Nazi party originally mostly wanted the Jews out of Germany. Things did not go their way with the war, and through a string of degenerative plans did the genocide finally evolve.

 

I would have to look this up, but I would say it had always been their plan. It might not have been fully formed in their minds from the beginning and they never even made the killing of jews and other minorities public, but they wanted to get rid of them by all means. After the war in Nürnburg Nazi criminals tried to deny knowledge of the holocaust and at least Albert Speer succeeded, although current evidence proves he is as guilty as those who got hanged.

[Guest Kai.w]

I would have to look this up, but I would say it had always been their plan. It might not have been fully formed in their minds from the beginning and they never even made the killing of jews and other minorities public, but they wanted to get rid of them by all means. After the war in Nürnburg Nazi criminals tried to deny knowledge of the holocaust and at least Albert Speer succeeded, although current evidence proves he is as guilty as those who got hanged.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's a matter of interpretation. I'd say after reading Hitlers "Mein Kampf" it could have been clear that it was not just about "getting them out of germany". So, one could have known/guessed what would happen later, and some apparently did and left the country early.

 

As for SL. I'm kind of torn. There are long passages which have a rather neutral less emotional view, in the light of other parts however its difficult not to take the good ones without the grain of salt of feeling like getting it forced down the throwd just more fluidly (my english).

 

Actually my favorite Spielberg movie is one where he objectivly spoken failed: A.I. You can really feel how hard he tried to get into Kubricks vain (which is not his), how he was fighting with this, which creates an interesting sort of edge/tension.

Plus, Spielbergs way and talent of manipulating the audience works well for me here, cause its meant to be a fairy tale anyway...

 

 

-k

[Guest razerfish]

I think a stong directorial viewpoint is essential to a good director (and a good film), but Spielberg overdoes it to the detriment of everything else. You can only enjoy his films by submitting to his simplistic view of the world. This might be suited for popcorn films, but he even does it for his so called 'serious' films.  A perfect example is 'Saving Private Ryan', which got released at the same time than 'Thin Red Line'. Malick's film is a meditation of the nature of man and war which raises a lot of questions, but does not pretend to know all the answers, while Spielbergs film is a narrow minded hammering home of his message 'war is bad, but necessary'. I don't think life is quite as simple as he makes it out to be.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You confuse what a director does. The story comes from the writer, not the director -- unles he writes it. Don't blame Spielberg for the stories he does because they aren't your type of stories. Blame the material he chooses, not how de directs it. He's proven he can't write very well -- A.I. is so poorly written, but he does have a great eye of filmic material.

 

Learn what a director does and doesn't. All of Spielberg's movies are well directed, well acted, well shot, etc., but lately, the material has been average. No matter how good any director is, without good material, he's stuck.

 

Oh, a big problem with Saving Private Ryan is the the conceit of having Private Ryan "remember" an event he wasn't even at -- the D Day invasion. Illogical writing.

[Boone Hudgins]

Spielberg isn't a writer. He's an assembler. Both movies he's gotten a screenplay credit for, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and AI, his job as a writer was picking the best parts of the countless screenplay drafts, ending up creating the movie he wanted to make. I believe his credit from Close Encounters came because when the WGA came knocking, none of the other writers wanted credit.

 

It's something he does a lot. Saving Private Ryan had a lot of uncredited help from Frank Darabont. It's something that happens a lot. Directors want revisions, they may bring in new writers, they may rewrite some of it themselves. Sometimes it's all uncredited. WGA arbitration stuff, usually. It's all a part of the directors finessing a film into their particular vision. Sometimes it's a little here and there, sometimes it's a lot. Sometimes it's for the better, sometimes it's for the worse.

 

I like Spielberg as a director. I like fine dining, but sometimes Burger King is good, too.

[Mark Allen]

There are two many various threads to quote all of them, but after browsing this thread I thought I'd add my own two cents.

 

Hitler - for the curious - MAX (starring John Cusack) is a very interesting and original perspactive on Hitler.

 

Spielberg and Private Ryan - I'm with you on the opening scene - daunting. As for the movie being told as a memory of Ryan's - It's not. The movie is a story about Hanks all the way through.

 

Spielberg as a director... When I first started watching movies as a kid, I liked a lot of Spielberg's movies - E.T., Raiders, etc. (didn't like Raiders 2 and 3 though). When I was studying theater, my teachers had me convinced that Spielberg was the death of all art and culture. After becoming a director myself I had a very strong respect for his story telling ability. However, I think it is incredibly inconsistent. I think at least half his movies fall apart for me. I think he is not afraid to go for the jugular when it comes to sentiment and when it works, it works well and when it doesn't work, you feel all sticky. I actually recently just finished watching a ton of his movies in order to reacquaint myself with his stylings (Second time I've done this). Even in his first feature - Sugarland Express - you can definitely see how he is actually thinking about his shots - how best will this shot tell my story and get the feeling of the moment? He's fantastic at giving you a sense of where you are and also focusing your attention on the small details. He's also got a great ability at picking up on small nuances in people's actions. Now... Why or how The guy who directed Raiders can follow it up with a similar cast and crew and make Raiders 2 or 3 - I do not know - it's like he isn't taking it seriously. Same with Hook and 1942. I think when he doesn't take his material seriously enough - it fails. When he addresses his movies with respect - they come through. I would say there are about five of his movies I think are incredibly well done and the rest I am mixed or don't like. But that doesn't take away from my recognition that he does so well what so many directors don't do - he looks for opportunities to tell his story at every chance and lets the emotion play through.

 

Frankly, I don't think it will matter if he shoots on digital or film even remotely as much as it will matter if he takes the movie subject seriously or not. If the script is strong that will help a lot of course.

[Eugene Lehnert]

I don't know how anyone can not say that Steven Spielberg is not a brilliant director. Even if you don't like his films. Styles and attitudes change, nobody can make an outstanding movie every time they make a film. I mean he and Lucas created these blockbusters we see in movies now. The problem is the glut. Too much of the same thing. It would be nice to see people go back to less complicated forms of filmmaking. I like watching old movies. Old movies are about interesting characters and dialogue and cool shots, because that is all they had. I mean less and less people are going to see these blockbusters so maybe it will turn around.

 

I don't know how I would like an HD Indiana Jones. But did anybody catch the cloud shots in Star Wars Episode II when Anakin gets married? Or in Sith when Yoda is on the platform? They looked real and I think they really stood out from all the CGI. I thought it looked quite nice. I think HD has this nice clean, flat look to it which has it's place but I don't know how it would work for Indiana Jones.

 

I can't wait to see War of the Worlds. I didn't care to go see Terminal, but I thought Catch Me If You Can was a great simple storyline. War of the Worlds appears to be what Independence Day was going to be, a dark, dramatic, alien invastion movie, but it just turned out to be a joke. Here is a movie where aliens just come in and attack earth and it is from one person's point of view. Not a global film, no joking around, just fear, one simple idea to grip you for two hours. Something more like the book, taking British Imperialism and replacing it with American Imperialism but doing it in a way that it isn't in your face with a message. That takes skill.