Bridge of Spies

Started by wilder, June 05, 2015, 03:34:45 PM

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wilder




A dramatic thriller set against the backdrop of a series of historic events, Bridge of Spies tells the story of James Donovan, a Brooklyn lawyer who finds himself thrust into the center of the Cold War when the CIA sends him on the near-impossible task to negotiate the release of a captured American U-2 pilot.

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Matt Charman and The Coen Bros.
Starring Tom Hanks and a whole lot of other people
Release Date - October 16, 2015


jenkins

Looking forward to articles about the screenplay's creation.

Alexandro

I'm pretty sure the screenplay was had more affinity with the absurd notion of the cold war when the Coens were sole writers, and then Spielberg got in there and toned that down, perhaps made it serious, and I would bet Tom Hanks is now either an absent father or his father abandoned him or something related to that kind of thing.

wilder



wilder

Wanting to watch the Q&A finally lit enough fire under me to get out of the house and go see this. The movie is fantastic - my favorite Spielberg since Catch Me if You Can at least. It's about actors, Actors, ACTORS. I couldn't believe the number of great faces in every single role. With PSH's passing I think Rylance has the most depth of any living actor now, and hope he'll step into more film work and provide us with the kinds of performances DDL supplies only every half decade. I saw Rylance in a taped version of Jez Butterworth's play at the Lincoln Center archives a couple months ago and was blown away. Blown. Away. DDL has competition, really.

And not to get too political but it struck me for the first time how Spielberg somehow sees himself as carrying the responsibility of the "American Image". You can sort of measure the temperature of patriotism by tracking the tone of his films. I haven't thought too hard about this so maybe it's iffy but I certainly felt that sense from BoS, and going back to his post 2000s stuff I see it too. Never realized how timely each of his movies was before. I feel dumb for not having noticed this.

JG

its a neat movie, but i still think it pales in comparison to even his last. its similar to lincoln because it loves the words, and its true, its concerned with whatever its means (/use to mean) to be american; due process, etc. its impossible to listen to the words without thinking of the coens, their wryness. in the above q&a spielberg talks about the story's need for irony, and yea, its here. rylance! looking forward to the next five years in which he appears in everything.

spielberg shoots and cuts in a way that no one does anymore. everything feels so well choreographed, whether its a sequence of shots (the plane crash!) or just a master where a couple of guys talk. i liked hearing in the q&a spielberg describe with glee coming up with shots the day of, like the footsteps stepping on the burnt bulbs.

kinda can't get past the kaminzski cinematography though. wish they went all the way and just made this one b&w.

wilder

Confession - I skipped Lincoln, which I should make up for. The Coen's involvement in the script seemed to help temper Speilberg's sentimentality here (only half a bookend this time!) and I liked most of the dialogue...this really felt like a classic American movie to me unconcerned with the now (thought it's obviously concerned with the now, thematically). Less showy "I'm Spielberg - here's my style and me throwing my weight around" and more in the vein of things like Marty, Inherit the Wind, From Here to Eternity -- stuff where the name of the director doesn't necessarily immediately leap to mind. A director doing his job and doing it well, slipping into the background. I was impressed by what I took as Spielberg's humility this go around in terms of letting the notes of the film play more subtly than usual. And I like his movies on the whole - but this felt like a real evolution in his style for me, even if incremental.

I agree the blocking was magnificent. Speilberg also mentioned an anecdote in one of those Q&A's about Soderbergh shooting multiple masters. A master from "this" angle" and then a reverse master, and then another and another. That had never occurred to me before. Interesting method.

I really, really didn't care for Munich upon its release and haven't watched it since, but Bridge of Spies is making me want to revisit it because my memory is linking that film to this as his most stylistically similar. I don't think I'll ever get over the sex-crying, though.

Alexandro

To be honest I didn't like Lincoln, but Munich you should go back to because it's actually stronger on subsequent viewings. I don't know why but I was never bothered by that sex scene, I was surprised when I realized it was "a thing".

Jeremy Blackman

Glancing at your post, this is what I read at first:

Quote from: Alexandro on October 21, 2015, 10:01:16 AMI didn't like Lincoln . . . but I was never bothered by that sex scene

Yikes. Some presidents, like one's parents, are best imagined to be chaste.

wilder

Quote from: Alexandro on October 21, 2015, 10:01:16 AM
Munich you should go back to because it's actually stronger on subsequent viewings.

Definitely will do.

One more trailer, the best of the bunch:



samsong

this isn't the first time spielberg's evoked saul bass as an indication of what's in store, and i don't think it's incidental that the poster very specifically apes two saul bass posters for movies starring jimmy stewart (vertigo and anatomy of a murder).  this could have very well been titled Mr Smith... er, Donovan Goes to Berlin. 

this felt like spielberg's The Departed, which is to say it's watching a master doing riffs on the kind of stuff they loved watching as a kid.  in scorsese's case it's an unrelenting homage to gangster/crime movies of old, rendered with a modern aesthetic but filled with anachronistic genre tropes and references to films of that era (most notably the mini-recreation of the ending of the third man, for no real reason other than to do it because he wanted to).  it plays like a cinematic mix tape.  bridge of spies operates on the same level, at least for me, and i kind of loved every minute of it.  everything from the coens immaculate ear for hollywood golden age dialogue, to the wholesome morality and optimism at the expense of "realism" or complexity, to an overall charm that oozes a love of that era of hollwood filmmaking that, as a fan of those kinds of movies, i couldn't help but be betwitched by.  i especially loved that it achieved this sense of classic hollwood film while still flaunting a modern technical prowess and sensibility. 

the lens i viewed the film through is probably a bit of a stretch but it made for a very sating moviegoing experience. 

modage

Just wanted to point out that the poster at the top is definitely fan-made but one of the official posters does nod to Bass so your point still stands.

http://www.impawards.com/2015/bridge_of_spies_ver3.html
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Jeremy Blackman

Tom Hank's pores look like the dashboard of a luxury car.

jenkins

it's tricky for me because Saul Bass has literally nothing to do with Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, which is by far my least favorite Frank Capra movie (by far), and what i do when i'm in the mood for old Hollywood is i watch an old Hollywood movie.

thought i'd maybe see this but now i don't know. should i have seen The Departed in theaters? i did, and who cares. i don't. i saw Hugo 3D twice and ftw.