Director highlight!
Style - Anything goes with him!
Why this director?
Steven Spielberg has an unfortunate reputation, in some circles - he is seen as a light weight director - his films are child like, with pat happy endings.
His detractors claim his works don’t have the depth as those by his weighty counterparts, Coppola and Scorsese - all three came up at the same time.
He presents no crisp directorship profile, he makes far too much and in too many genres and fails to fit easily into definition. More likely, the truth is that he’s versatile, gifted and prolific - he can direct solid dramas like, Bridge of Spies to drama comedies like, The Sugarland Express to romps like, Jurassic Park to thrillers like Jaws - and the first third of Saving Private Ryan contain some of the most visceral war scenes ever filmed.
Spielberg began his career in the New Hollywood era and is currently the most commercially successful director, winning three academy awards - two for best director, for Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, the latter also winning best picture.
My top 3 films
Duel 1971
David, a businessman, passes by an old tanker truck in a dessert while travelling for a meeting. The driver of the truck is a psychopath who finds David's overtaking offensive and decides to kill him. A stripped down lean monster of a film - there’s barely any dialogue, you never see the driver of the pitch black lorry belching out fire and smoke - there’s nothing to the story on paper - it’s a cat and mouse game, played out for high stakes with high tension sustained all the way through. It was Spielberg’s first film, made on a low budget and showed all the promise of the force he was to become.
Schindler‘s list 1993
A dark masterpiece shot in black-and-white and starkly portraying the violence, brutality and atrocities of the Nazi regime. Scenes from the desperation of the Jewish women being herded into shower rooms, to the burnt flesh falling like snowflakes over Aushwitz, couldn’t be more compelling.
Ralph Fiennes single handedly carries the task of portraying the evil of the Nazi regime on on his shoulders, giving,to my mind his best performance as the detestable camp commander Amon Goeth, later hung for war crimes. His hanging is shown in the film.
Liam Neeson too, gives a possible career best performance as the indefinable German, Oscar Schindler who finds a way of saving a group of Jews by having them work at his factory. But are his motives benign? Spielberg leaves it open until the end.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind 1977
Something is coming, the world is preparing - might even be aliens. But are they going to be warring or benign?
You know they’re on the way - Everyman Richard Dreyfuss and a few others are having premonitions - making shapes and drawings of the aliens’ future landing spot, but for most of the film, they don’t understand why they are doing it - all they know is they are being compelled to go to the Wyoming mountain wilderness.
The view from the mountaintop remains remarkable. This is grand theatre, in which a great storyteller invites us to set aside scepticism, look up, and believe.
When the aliens do finally arrive, it is with awe - the set pieces and cast are massive - a masterpiece of wishful thinking.
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