Love him or hate him he’s probably the most significant filmmaker of all time. A lot of people (especially at the film school I went) to disregard him as as farcical. That he’s a manipulative filmmaker who plays at the audience’s emotions too much. No film’s merits are more controversial than Shindler’s List, a movie I’m, as George Bush would say, a flip-flopper in regards to whether I love it or not.
As a summer of sequels and big-budget film nears, with promises of domination from “studio flicks”, I choose to celebrate the man that started it all. Most of all, I hope to emphasize the difference between Spielberg, why I disliked him for a while, and how he walks the line of cheesy sentimentalist and master of form.
While this list isn’t particularly unique, it is one that I’ve been pining over for some time. I’ve succumb to the realization that Spielberg might be one of the best filmmakers of all time. This list is just a bit of therapy.
10. Shindler’s List
I could one day write a book on the controversy surrounding the movie. I wondered whether to even include it on my list in order to avoid defending its (low) position. I must concede its greatness, however. It is the most important Holocaust movie ever made. One of my majors in college was History Studies, with an emphasis in European History in the Twentieth Century. Much of America’s view (and images) of the Holocaust comes from this little, wonderful movie about a good man who changed from being an egotist to an altruist – a beautiful and worthy story.
The world deserves to see this movie. My middle school teacher, Mr. Manske, made it required viewing. However, as Terry Gilliam (quoting Kubrick) stated, “Shindler’s List is about success, the Holocaust was about failure”. I’ve never discussed the movie with my Jewish friends (most of my friends are Jewish) because their perspective is narrow. They already had all the answers growing up. What is one’s impression who had never heard of the Holocaust or who had never even met a Jew before? I don’t know, but I’m sure it isn’t what it should be. The movie is an undeniable masterpiece, so emotionally devastating that to even hear its theme music can put lumps in my throat.
9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
I recently caught this movie on T.V. and was reminded what great entertainment it is. The Indiana Jones flicks, now widely-known to be influenced by serials, are movies you flip to and just have to watch to the end. I’m not including the first on this list, (spoiler alert) but I won’t go into why . Too confusing.
What I will say is the genius of Spielberg, and his writers, is his combination of different “tension elements”. For the most classic example I would give the Indiana fight on the tank. He must deal with:
1. The Germans inside.
2. Falling off and being crushed by the rocks.
3. His father and friend being killed.
4. A truck filled with Nazis (blown-up by Connery)
5. Then the tank going off the cliff.
Watch all Spielberg set-pieces, many of them work like this – as do many of Lucas’.
8. Empire of the Sun
I have a huge soft spot for this little-discussed entry into Spielberg’s more dramatic works. Spielberg’s obsession with innocence in the face of reality is no more apparent than in this fantastic story written by JG Ballard, which was based on his experiences in similar camps as a boy.
Christian Bale, only a small boy, puts in a heroic performance and only its thematic uncertainties prevent this movie from more popularity. Movies about expatriates in wartime circumvent my defenses and penetrate deep into me – even if they’re not perfect. If you haven’t seen this flawed, but great, film, rent it or find it on Netflix. It is worth your time. Few movies are as shamelessly abusive of our sentimentality.
7. Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park is a great movie. F-you haters. Few movie going experiences stick with you as a kid; this one did. It was one of the first PG-13 movies I saw in the theater (I was six or seven) and had never been quite so wowed before. It wasn’t one of those, “I want to be a filmmaker moments”, but it definitely could have been.
All the complaints about the movie are valid. Crichton, after all, isn’t Shakespeare. However, the movie is for children and should always be considered that way. Or rather, was meant to make adults feel like children again.
6. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
I’ve never seen the original serials that inspired the series (nor will I ever watch them), but I imagine that the second addition is the most loyal to these. It is the most straightforward of the whole series and by far my favorite. What a great movie. Filled with adventure, nonsense, tension, action, and even a funny sex quarrel.
I don’t count the fourth film as part of the series. This is for a variety of reasons, but most of all it is because the damn movie just didn’t have the gigantic temple sets and an “organic look”. The second film is the ultimate who-the-fuck-cares adventure film. The first and third have undercurrents of a Bondish-type feel. The second is a simple temple story – I like that about it. Not to mention fucking Short Round is amazing.
5. Minority Report
The best Philip K. Dick adaption aside from Blade Runner, Minority Report, would a be a shining achievement for an average director, but is relegated to only fifth because of Spielberg’s greatness. Spielberg’s story is very different than Dick’s, but captures the essence of a Dick novel. It is more action-packed, but just as cerebral. It has a great premise matched with perfect execution – which is a rarity indeed. This movie came out of a nowhere mostly because no one could have imagined it would be so good.
Many scenes are so memorable that I don’t even have to rewatch the movie to write this blurb. The best scene of the movie, and one of my favorites of Spielberg’s, is where Cruise’s character fumbles around the fridge to find a sandwich and milk, but only finds the rotten contents. What use did this part have? Well, what we get to see is the bizarre and unique sense of humor that Spielberg never really shows, or at least explores to a great degree.
What makes the movie a masterpiece, as well as one of the best, most under-appreciated, sci-f films ever, is that it has real thematic importance. You can turn your noise up at this comment, saying, ”Well, imagine if someone like Kubrick had done it”. Yes, a different movie indeed, which leads me to another movie…
4. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
So what if Kubrick had done it? A.I. was a movie he’d been planning for years, waiting for a time when the special effects would catch up . What a dark and dreary movie it would have been. It remains so, but with Spielberg’s flair for the sentimental tucked away in the existentially demanding questions Kubrick poses.
Roger Ebert claimed the ending was too sentimental. I agree it is sentimental, but the movie has the rare effect of becoming more depressing because of the sentimentality. The movie’s ending – the robots have become an almost spiritual race - is one of my favorite of all time. It questions more than “what does it mean to be human” and moves across time and space with such audacity, wondering on existential questions without actually posing them. What does a robot loving someone unconditionally say about the human race? I don’t know. So few Spielberg films leave questions unanswered, it is a treat that we got a little taste of Kubrick even after he was dead.
Spielberg has quieted his critics who claimed he changed Kubrick’s vision by going into the future in the movie. He added that Kubrick’s treatment had the same storyline. The story needed to remove the whole human race from the equation and allow the audience to ponder the purpose of our existence. Does the whole thing work through the eyes of a non-human? I think so, but some do not.
3. Jaws
I’m not going to write much because nothing really needs to be said. The movie opened everywhere at once and invented the blockbuster. It also (more importantly) asserted that a B-movie could be art. After all, only a few years later Ridley Scott would make the B-movie art film Alien. Jaws was a defining moment for the director – proving that he could roll with the punches and survive one of the more difficult movie shoots.
It deserves many of the accolades it gets and is, if anything, a showing of how truly enjoyable Spielberg’s filmmaking technique is. He pulls out all the stops and because his characters are so funny and “real”, the movie is able to avoid being style-over-substance, which is was very close to being. Great music, characters, and editing saves him from that.
2. Close Ecounters of the Third Kind
Is it slow? Is it kind of bizarre. Is it really that good? Well, yes, yes, and yes. If you haven’t seen it (many my age have not) check it out because it is one of the truly great treasures from Spielberg. His alien obsessions have been farcical of late, but few other movies imagine the real splendor of creatures from another planet like this one does.
Its beginnings evoke the shitty alien flicks from the fifty and sixties and sort-of tricks the audience into thinking they’re going to see something they’re not. Instead, it attempts to evoke a spiritual sense of aliens, the universe, and our place in it. Maybe not that much, but that is what I thought.
The fact that Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) gets on the spaceship and abandons his family, who had all the right in the world to leave him, is a huge error on Spielberg’s part. A huge part of my youth, heavily influenced by my brother’s obsession with X-files, was pondering about aliens and hoping they were nice little men like in this movie.
I could go on about how stupid the aliens actually look, but I’ll leave that up to you.
1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
I can’t stand some kids movies these days. They are, with few exceptions from Pixar, shitty movies designed for two years olds. ET understands something fundamental about family entertainment: Scaring kids is good and totally acceptable.
I recently watched The Goonies, a movie that Sean Bean claimed was a c0-direction from Spielberg in Bean’s great book There and back again: An actors tale. The Goonies has dead bodies, skeletons, a monster with one eye, cursing, and serious possible death, but kids love it.
What makes E.T. so great is that it isn’t worried about making the movie too scary or “intense” for kids. It is a movie for adults, yes, but it is certainly aimed at children as well.
It is the best Spielberg movie of all time, one that I think even he claimed he’ll be remembered most for. I used to watch the movie over and over again when I was young, eventually wearing out the VHS tape it was on. Who can’t be charmed by the greatness of the bicycle scene or moved by the last moments of the movie?
- Collin
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