From dvdanswer.com:
Title: Schindler's List
Starring: Liam Neeson
Released: 9th March 2004 (TBC)
SRP: $26.98 (TBC)
Further Details
We're hearing from a number of reliable sources that Universal has scheduled Schindler's List for release on the 9th March next year. Details are still a little sketchy of course, although we also hear that it will be available in seperate anamorphic widescreen and full screen releases, as well as a collector's package. The collector's set should retail at around $79.98, whereas the standard releases will set you back around $26.98 a pop. We'll try and get confirmation from Universal early next week. Stay tuned!
"typical dvd geek response to this post"
"golly-gee willa-kers..hopefully Mr. Speilbergh does a fab. commentary track"
even more typical response...
http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=45
What is TBC?
Quote from: NEON MERCURY"typical dvd geek response to this post"
"golly-gee willa-kers..hopefully Mr. Speilbergh does a fab. commentary track"
He doesn't do commentaries.
Quote from: RoyalTenenbaum
He doesn't do commentaries.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
He's an undeservedly pompous ass
Quote from: godardianQuote from: RoyalTenenbaum
He doesn't do commentaries.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
He's an undeservedly pompous ass
such bitterness
Quote from: cowboykurtisQuote from: godardianQuote from: RoyalTenenbaum
He doesn't do commentaries.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
He's an undeservedly pompous ass
such bitterness
You haven't seen bitterness about Spielberg and
Schindler's List until you've seen:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2FB00009YXIS.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg&hash=8e0fad2a5ae7b3dbd372ecb1f32b3350717eb879)
ill take your word for it
i've never seen schindler's list followed by an exclamation point before. is that like: "Schindler's List! The Musical"?
Quote from: taz.i've never seen schindler's list followed by an exclamation point before. is that like: "Schindler's List! The Musical"?
Wouldn't it just be
Schindler!?
Quote from: godardianQuote from: cowboykurtisQuote from: godardianQuote from: RoyalTenenbaum
He doesn't do commentaries.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
He's an undeservedly pompous ass
such bitterness
You haven't seen bitterness about Spielberg and Schindler's List until you've seen:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2FB00009YXIS.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg&hash=8e0fad2a5ae7b3dbd372ecb1f32b3350717eb879)
Godardian, what did you think of this film? I really did not like it at all.
Anytime I think of "In Praise Of Love" I'm reminded of Ebert's review of the film and his response to the Spielberg shit:
"His attacks on Steven Spielberg are painful and unfair. Some of the fragments of his film involve a Spielberg company trying to buy the memories of Holocaust survivors for a Hollywood film (it will star, we learn, Juliette Binoche, who appeared in "Hail Mary" but has now apparently gone over to the dark side). Elsewhere in the film he accuses Spielberg of having made millions from "Schindler's List" while Mrs. Schindler lives in Argentina in poverty. One muses: (1) Has Godard, having also used her, sent her any money? (2) Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors? (3) Has Godard so lost the ability to go to the movies that, having once loved the works of Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray, he cannot view a Spielberg film except through a prism of anger? "
Quote from: RaviWhat is TBC?
To be chastised......
Actually, I plan on renting Schindler's List DVD very soon. Along the same
subject line only, I really liked the Pianist.
Quote from: SHAFTRQuote from: godardianQuote from: cowboykurtisQuote from: godardianQuote from: RoyalTenenbaum
He doesn't do commentaries.
I think we can all be grateful for that.
He's an undeservedly pompous ass
such bitterness
You haven't seen bitterness about Spielberg and Schindler's List until you've seen:
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2FB00009YXIS.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg&hash=8e0fad2a5ae7b3dbd372ecb1f32b3350717eb879)
Godardian, what did you think of this film? I really did not like it at all.
I thought it was gorgeous, smart, irreverent, and very uneven.
Why do people get so defensive about Spielberg? Godard's point was not so much to attack Spielberg- though I suppose it could feel like an attack if you're one of the apparently 99.8% of the world that reveres him all out of proportion- as to say that no movie could ever do justice to something like the Holocaust, that a film like
Schindler's List, aside from being simpleminded and fairly dishonest, serves mainly to obfuscate and placate.
I'd imagine Godard is very bemused by Spielberg and dislikes what he's done to film- as do I- but the real point was about the medium itself (as it almost always is with Godard), and that had to include Spielberg in this case. There were things about the story of
Schindler's List that just weren't convenient, but instead of including anything that might confuse or upset anyone- that might've cast any doubt on whose "side" he film was on- Spielberg just got rid of those elements. He was patting people on the head with his movie, and there's something grotesque about patting people on the head and pretending you've made a brave statement when in fact you've made an amputated entertainment about an event that was an infathomable, bottomless bit of moral horror.
Ebert's points, as usual, are ludicrous and almost beneath argument. The stuff about Spielberg may be "painful" to Ebert, but that's his fault for idolizing someone so vulnerable to the slightest aesthetic or moral challenge or question; these are the kinds of questions Godard has always asked in his films, and they're hardly unfair.
Also, Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller would never have made anything so self-important and middlebrow as
Schindler's List.
Certainly, Spielberg's philanthropic work is something separate from his filmmaking, it's an honorable thing for him to be doing, and it's rather inappropriate of Ebert to bring that into a discussion of the film. Having a lot of money and giving it to those who deserve it does not make one an artist- truly conscientious or otherwise- or mean one has anything important or interesting to say, nor an important or interesting way of saying it.
Damn Godardian, I haven't seen In Praise of Love, but why so harsh on Spielberg? The guy knows what the fuck is up: Jaws, Close Encounters, ET, Indy, Jurassic Park, Minority Report, Saving Private Ryan. Now his historical pieces are among his worst films to me, for some reason (Empire of the Sun felt weird, as did Amistad and yes Schindler's List), but wasn't Schindler's List at one point half written by Billy Wilder and going to be directed by Scorsese? You can't really say this was a self-important piece, he directed this movie with good reason. As for the money, Ebert was responding to an argument in the movie, not just bringing in an outside defense.
Quote from: Gamblor du JourDamn Godardian, I haven't seen In Praise of Love, but why so harsh on Spielberg?
he's just defending godard. that's the thing about godardian, he always thinks for himself, but when godard or morrissey speak, he's like hypnotized.
i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that.. i'm the same with kubrick, and hot chicks.
Quote from: godardiana film like Schindler's List, aside from being simpleminded and fairly dishonest, serves mainly to obfuscate and placate.
How so?
Quote from: RaviWhat is TBC?
To Be Confirmed
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanQuote from: godardiana film like Schindler's List, aside from being simpleminded and fairly dishonest, serves mainly to obfuscate and placate.
How so?
Because, no matter how brave a filmmaker is in graphically showing us the horrors of the Holocaust, there still seems to be the need for the "hero," for the "closure." These are requirements of narrative filmmaking, or would seem to be, and it inherently cannot honor the grinding futility of the kind of moral failure- moral vacuum- the Holocaust represents. For the vast, inconceivable majority of its victims, the Holocaust had no closure, and there were no heroes. And yet people are encouraged to think of
Schindler's as an "important," "serious" work; they leave it feeling like they've somehow done their part. That's its "buzz." It's branded- Spielberg has branded the Holocaust!
Even
The Pianist, with so much more gravity and dignity than
Schindler's, is hard for me to take because of this. It seems to me Polanski tried to give us glimpses of the reality, but how can anyone make a narrative film that shows us what the Holocaust was really about? It's more depressing than almost anything; the only really honest Holocaust film would be a montage of utter hopelessness and naked human sadism, and would probably seem lugubrious and didactic to most viewers.
And please, don't even get me started on
Life is Beautiful.
P is kind of right about Godard and Morrissey or anyone else who's pierced my defenses- god, that sounds kind of Freudian, doesn't it? :)- but in this case, I credit Peter Biskind for giving me the real goods on why Spielberg rubs me the wrong way, recently backed up by Chuck White in his book
The Middle Mind, which takes on
Saving Private Ryan to thought-provoking effect.
I still think Spielberg's best film is
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That's obviously where his passion is, and it's a failure on his part to imagine that a fine, energetic entertainment is far inferior to an insufficient effort at Hollywood/Oscar-style "respectability" and "seriousness," with the Holocaust (or slavery... or Kubrick...) as fodder.
I bet no-one found the
Schindler's List episode of Seinfeld as delicious as I did...
Quote from: godardianthe only really honest Holocaust film would be a montage of utter hopelessness and naked human sadism, and would probably seem lugubrious and didactic to most viewers.
Good point. Something like Baraka?
I agree that Schindler was cast as a hero, that there aren't really any "heroes" of the holocaust, that it's kind of insulting... but I can't help liking the movie. Why is that?
I have to disagree about The Pianist, though. I don't think he thought of himself as a hero... I think the movie made it clear that he was (and we should be) uncomfortable with that idea.
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI agree that Schindler was cast as a hero, that there aren't really any "heroes" of the holocaust, that it's kind of insulting... but I can't help liking the movie. Why is that?
I think because the movie doesn't rest alone on Schindler, himself. There is an entire world being displayed and Schindler's story is just one of the main ingrediants in it. You can appreciate so much of the film with having problems to how Schindler was portrayed.
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanI can't help liking the movie. Why is that?
Well, there are certainly technically intriguing things about it... the cinematography, etc. Plus, a lot of times movies we love or like irrationally caught us at a particular moment in our lives where our own context didn't enable us to see it as objectively as we might have. Everyone has movies like that.
Godardian, I'm definitely crossed by your opinion and my own, but I want to ask more questions on what you believe:
Do you believe Schindler was not a hero for the actions he did? Was there an unfair portrait of him by Speilberg, maybe? Or does the whole picture of the Holocaust just speak a story of complete and absolute destruction without any real heroes to balance out the total horror?
You also mentioned Sam Fuller and spoke in defense of him. I like Fuller, but my main complaint about him has been his tendency to look at the truth through uncessary genre plot. Its not that I believe he was ever being untruthful, but I always got the sense he was limiting himself with how many of his films had traditional plots and traditional, if skewed, results. On the outside of his banal structures, there is a very honest eye to the subject. Its just this is quite limiting on how objective you can be. With criticism to Speilberg and his honesty to the subject, I do feel a similiar criticism, if for different reasons, can be brought against Fuller on how he marginalizes some subjects with some very banal stories.
I agree with godardian. Schindler's List is really a film of minor importance, but the very subject of the film gives it a certain "authority".
I think Spielberg shouldn't really have made Schindler's List. After all, Schindler was not jewish, he was even a member of the nazi party. So, why is it that a semi- or pseudo-semi-documentary about the Shoah deals with an "aryan" German as main character?
This movie was, in my opinion, a try to offer the Shoah, digested by the stomach of pop culture, to popcorn audiences. It's just plain nonsense to introduce hope and heroism to a movie that wants to deal with the greatest catastrophe civilization has ever created.
I would suggest Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah as reference for a film about this subject.
Quote from: The Gold TrumpetGodardian, I'm definitely crossed by your opinion and my own, but I want to ask more questions on what you believe:
Do you believe Schindler was not a hero for the actions he did? Was there an unfair portrait of him by Speilberg, maybe? Or does the whole picture of the Holocaust just speak a story of complete and absolute destruction without any real heroes to balance out the total horror?
You also mentioned Sam Fuller and spoke in defense of him. I like Fuller, but my main complaint about him has been his tendency to look at the truth through uncessary genre plot. Its not that I believe he was ever being untruthful, but I always got the sense he was limiting himself with how many of his films had traditional plots and traditional, if skewed, results. On the outside of his banal structures, there is a very honest eye to the subject. Its just this is quite limiting on how objective you can be. With criticism to Speilberg and his honesty to the subject, I do feel a similiar criticism, if for different reasons, can be brought against Fuller on how he marginalizes some subjects with some very banal stories.
The two main differences that spring directly to mind are that Fuller a) didn't make a picture about the Holocaust (as far as I know), and b) hasn't had any of his films canonized the way
Schindler's List has (wrongfully, I feel) been.
You're on the right track to understanding how I approach this film with your question about the Holocaust's total destruction and how it wasn't balanced out by heroes. I think Spielberg's film style and where he puts his attention- where his camera eye and spirit naturally go- make him one of the last people who should be putting any part of the Holocaust on film.
The best "fictional" Holocaust film I've seen?
The Grey Zone. Compare that and
Schindler's List, and it's easier to understand why Godard said Spielberg was turning Auschwitz into Disneyland.
Quote from: godardianThe two main differences that spring directly to mind are that Fuller a) didn't make a picture about the Holocaust (as far as I know), and b) hasn't had any of his films canonized the way Schindler's List has (wrongfully, I feel) been.
I'm guessing the holocaust has personal meaning to you in historical tradegy. It does not for me, but Sam Fuller has covered subjects that are very personal to other people like war and insane asylums. With covering insane aslyums, in Shock Corridor, he reduces the activies of the people committed to just screaming pyschos who say the most ludicrous and radical things one could think of for that time period (the early 60s) such as racism against (by a black himself, nonetheless). Fuller hardly makes an effort to understand these people at all. Its exploitation for the purpose of a very typical story. The benefits of the film is in how much angst Fuller films with.
Fuller has been canonized, but just not here. Among the film art crowd of France, he was a living God of American filmmakers. Late in his career, he got financing from Europe because it was the last place he could and he finally moved to Paris and spent the rest of his life going from tribute to tribue. The funniest one is that he even walked down a fashion runway right before he died. I wouldn't say there is anything wrong with getting this (all the more power to him), but I don't think his filmmaking career is up to the snuff they say.
Quote from: godardianYou're on the right track to understanding how I approach this film with your question about the Holocaust's total destruction and how it wasn't balanced out by heroes. I think Spielberg's film style and where he puts his attention- where his camera eye and spirit naturally go- make him one of the last people who should be putting any part of the Holocaust on film.
The best "fictional" Holocaust film I've seen? The Grey Zone. Compare that and Schindler's List, and it's easier to understand why Godard said Spielberg was turning Auschwitz into Disneyland.
I'm glad you mentioned The Grey Zone. I admired its aim in story a lot, but felt a loss of feeling for it considering the skill of filmmaking applied to earlier films really was felt more by me and holds up in my memory more.
On Schindler's List, I agree the total horror can't be balanced out by this one man, but what about for the realism of the lives and events he touched? The movie is very wide spanding, but also still related to the things Schindler influenced. Couldn't his story, a heroic one, be told if the film weighs out that yes, this was just one miracle in a world of terror? I think the film conveys he was just a businessman being driven to save lives but yet strained with grief because he could do so little. I don't think the film is overblown in realism to any romantic proportions, but I think it does understand he was a hero in this mess. The film gives weight to the awesome carnage but Schindler's struggle to save as many lives as he can. I don't think the film necessarily ended with the world being saved, but that little world of Schindler's Jews being saved only.
I think Speilberg, given his romantic touch, does a fine job for the story he has to tell. Also, Stanley Kubrick almost made a film about Oscar Schindler as well and went into pre production of a Holocaust film where the protaganist Jews survive WW2 without even touching a ghetto. What would you have thought about this? I ask because I know you admire him greatly.
Another important difference is that Fuller's films are a theater of the absurd, while Spielberg clearly wants us to believe he's doing justice to what "really" happened. Fuller's films are allegorical to the point of being symbolic; they're heightened, overripe, more fiction than fiction.
To get back to the original point of these comparisons, though: If Ebert can't think of why Godard would revere the films of Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller, but not those of Steven Spielberg, he must not be thinking very hard, even if he disagrees.
Quote from: godardianAnother important difference is that Fuller's films are a theater of the absurd, while Spielberg clearly wants us to believe he's doing justice to what "really" happened. Fuller's films are allegorical to the point of being symbolic; they're heightened, overripe, more fiction than fiction.
That's a nice way of looking at Fuller. I think it is him aim, but I don't believe though it justifies a lot of the faults I see in many of his films. A film like Shock Corridor explodes with so many issues and topics thrown in with minor characters who just stand there and yell it out at best. Thing is, most of what they say is hardly interesting as drama but is closer to "shock" speech for everything sacred in society. The film doesn't even follow through on any of this because it ends of genre terms for the journalist protaganist just succumbing to pyschosis himself. What decent commentary on society is that? It seems like a minor one, at best. Fuller's view points seem like flavor to the cheap genre he grew up writing and never grew out of. Going through his autobiography, The Third Face, I did notice his belief of absurdity in society but I also noticed his complete belief in the quality of the films he made when not dealing with the censors. With Shock Corridor, he just dealt with lack of money. This shouldn't matter because he says all that matters in film is a "good story".
I'm not sure, though, Spielberg wants us to believe what he conveys is what "really" happened. Moments like the girl in the red dress are artificial markings by Spielberg, but I think his chief aim and accomplishment is that he looked at the subject with maturity.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpetmore fiction than fiction.
That reminds me of what Van Gogh said about art being "more true than literal truth."
Quote from: Jeremy BlackmanQuote from: The Gold Trumpetmore fiction than fiction.
That reminds me of what Van Gogh said about art being "more true than literal truth."
I also see it along similiar lines as well. I think two excellent films that show what
Godardian means by this is Dr. Strangelove and How I Won the War. In those films, the aim of absurdity embodies the narrative and filmmaking so the possibilities are explored. Fuller is more conventional and skirts around this idea.
I have really mixed feelings about Schindler's List. First of all, on a purely cinemtic level, the film really is an astonishing accomplishment. Scene after scene. My biggest problem with it is the final 45 minutes or so -- basically the 3rd act.
Everything changes in the 3rd act. The momentum. The tone. It's no longer about survival, because he basically saves them at the beginning of the 3rd act. Then it's mostly about a sort of return to normalcy. He lets them conduct the sabbath, tells the guards to back off, etc. Even the ending where he says goodbye is too thought-out. In reality, Schindler cut out in the middle of the night with a trunk filled with loot. That's more interesting and ironic to me. But Spielberg felt a 3-hour film about the Holocaust NEEDED some type of resolution. After 3 hours of murder, he thought audiences needed that type of release. And as much as I dislike that part, I'm not questioning his instincts -- because that's what made the film for most people. People were REALLY blown away by the scene with the real-life survivors.
We can talk and debate and whatever now 10 years later from a safe distance. But this WAS NOT a commercial-minded film. It's 3 hours. In B&W. About the Halocaust. Yet it grossed $90 million domestically. It was a phenomenon. It affected people from all walks. There's a reason why it made the top 10 in the AFI's poll of the 100 greatest American films. The most recent film before that was The Godfather from 20 years earlier.
Spielberg was trying to make a DRAMATIC film. He used the score. He contrived scenes for drama and suspense. That's the difference with this and The Pianist. With Schindler's you're constantly being reminded what a catastrophe it was, but with Polanski, an actual survivor, he felt the presentation should be almost matter-of-fact in its banality.
One other thing. In 1993, Spielberg wasn't Oscar's golden boy. He'd never won before. He was like Scorsese or Kubrick. He'd been so successful and everybody knew he was so good that for him to actually win the bar was raised to absurd heights. He silenced everybody by going so far beyond what they expected. That's part of my opinion about Scorsese -- I don't think he's capable of pulling off that epic masterpiece which EVERYBODY gets behind. The bar is too high. And he's too inconsistent.
As for Godard...he's irrelevant at this point. He had his time late-50s-60s. If he really felt the need to take on America and crass Hollywood commercialism he should've gone after Disney. That's more appropriate. But then he'd be getting his ass sued. S.S. was an easier target for him. And let me stress this: Godard is incapable of creating anything along the level of Schindler's List, in terms of both craft, narrative, scale and historical importance. His films are sketches. Not murals.
Quote from: mutinycoHe was like Scorsese or Kubrick.
In his wildest, most fantastical and self-aggrandizing dreams, he was. We all saw him painfully trying to ride those Kubrick coattails with
A.I., which was just disrespectful. Just because they all hadn't won an Oscar... Spielberg panted for it far, far more than those two did- he clearly cares much more about mainstream acceptance, I mean that's just bluntly obvious- and it shows in his middlebrow, "serious" (but not TOO serious, not too "depressing") work.
Spielberg may be a "master" craftsman, but Godard is an artist. Better sketches by a real artist than technically proficient yet unintersting, utterly compromised murals by a craftsman.
"Think that was about the Holocaust? ...That was about success, wasn't it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler's List
is about six hundred people who don't. Anything else?" - Stanley Kubrick on
Schindler's ListSpielberg is always and only about success.
Excellent post, Mutincyo. The last paragraph may spark a large fight, but you came through like I knew you would on clearing some things up about Schindler's List.
Quote from: godardian"Think that was about the Holocaust? ...That was about success, wasn't it? The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. Schindler's List is about six hundred people who don't. Anything else?" - Stanley Kubrick on Schindler's List
Kubrick shouldn't talk. He was about to film a novel about the Holocaust that got nowhere near the true horror of the Holocaust. It was a survival story of an aunt and her nephew who forge papers and aliases to keep out of the ghetto. Kubrick was merely continuing his fascination with false aliases and identities at the expense of the subject. Kubrick withdrew from making the film because he didn't want yet another film to follow another highly publicized on the same subject and because, as his widow says, "he's read everything on WW2 so what story could he write to show all his knowlegde?" At least Speilberg set his story in the depths of some of that pain.
Quote from: The Gold Trumpet
Kubrick shouldn't talk. He was about to film a novel about the Holocaust that got nowhere near the true horror of the Holocaust. It was a survival story of an aunt and her nephew who forge papers and aliases to keep out of the ghetto. Kubrick was merely continuing his fascination with false aliases and identities at the expense of the subject.
Well, he didn't make it so unfortunately it's impossible to know what he would do with Wartime Lies.
I don't think Spielberg is middlebrow at all. But I do think Godard is irrelevant. The fact that one director's films have been embraced by billions of people doesn't make him a craftsman or a hack. And just because Godard is a misanthrope whose films are ignored doesn't mean he's an artist. They both have just as much control over their work. Spielberg controls every aspect of his films. If all he cares about is making audiences like him, I'm sure he'd do more test screenings. In fact, he doesn't do test screenings because he trusts his instincts. And there's one other thing -- Spielberg has a much greater responsibility than Godard because his films are more successful. He has businesses and charities to deal with. What exactly does Godard have to offer except what rattles around in his own small head? What great international causes does he contribute to?
And aside from an argument like this, you don't see Spielberg admirers routinely trashing Godard or Truffaut (who starred in Close Encounters). Spielberg loved the French New Wave. I think it's simple insecurity on the part of Godard fans.
Quote from: mutinycoIf all he cares about is making audiences like him, I'm sure he'd do more test screenings. In fact, he doesn't do test screenings because he trusts his instincts. And there's one other thing -- Spielberg has a much greater responsibility than Godard because his films are more successful. He has businesses and charities to deal with. What exactly does Godard have to offer except what rattles around in his own small head? What great international causes does he contribute to?
And aside from an argument like this, you don't see Spielberg admirers routinely trashing Godard or Truffaut (who starred in Close Encounters). Spielberg loved the French New Wave. I think it's simple insecurity on the part of Godard fans.
-In my opinion, the reason Spielberg doesn't need to do test screenings is that from the beginning, he's been his own ideal test-screening audience; his "instinct" is to make something that will be a "hit." He has an instinct for the mindless, for the escapist, for the heartwarming, for the "get up and cheer," and that's absolutely fine... until you go applying it to the Holocaust. Speaking of insecurity, what could seem more insecure than an ultra-successful filmmaker with a talent for being an entertainer who makes all these bad, pedestrian "serious" films in a clear attempt to gain elusive respect? Godard doesn't care about being respected; Spielberg does, and how.
-I already posited earlier that contributing to great international causes is all well and good, but it means nothing about a filmmaker's actual
work, however much it might mean about them as a person. It doesn't support your position very well when you have to defend a filmmaker's movies by pointing out what a great philanthropist they are (or attack another for not publicly trumpeting their business and charitable dealings).
Quote from: godardianHe has an instinct for the mindless, for the escapist, for the heartwarming, for the "get up and cheer," and that's absolutely fine... until you go applying it to the Holocaust. Speaking of insecurity, what could seem more insecure than an ultra-successful filmmaker with a talent for being an entertainer who makes all these bad, pedestrian "serious" films in a clear attempt to gain elusive respect? Godard doesn't care about being respected; Spielberg does, and how.
i think spielberg isnt as focused on those things as you think. i think he just likes telling stories. and his career path isnt as purposefully back and forth for respect and money, as it is just being able to tell different types of stories. lots of different things interest him and i dont think Empire Of The Sun, Schindlers List, Amistad, etc. were intentionally 'oscar bait'. he just has an interest in history and wwII that brings his attention to these sorts of stories.
mutinyco, where were you for the xixax-a-thon?! we needed you on some spielberg votes. also: mutinyco, a little off topic, whats YOUR favorite spielberg film and why?
Quote from: godardianHe has an instinct for the mindless, for the escapist, for the heartwarming, for the "get up and cheer," and that's absolutely fine... until you go applying it to the Holocaust.
yeah but...i didn't exactly get up and cheer at the end of schindler's list....did anyone else? i don't think I felt very warm inside either.....
I honestly can't say what my favorite film is. Too much variety. I love The Sugarland Express, but I only recommend seeing it in widescreen. I think Close Encounters is pretty successful, as is E.T. I think Spielberg captured the Baby Boom suburbs better than anybody -- especially if you also add Gremlins, Back to the Future and Poltergeist. I think Raiders and Temple of Doom are great popcorn adventures. I think Empire of the Sun is gorgeously done. Then I'd skip to his last 3 films. I'm not big on Jurassic or Schindler's or Ryan, though they're well-made.
And yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with having the instinct for hitmaking. And I don't think it's warm fluff in the slightest. Schindler's and Ryan are possibly the most violent mainstream films ever made. Hits? Lots of great artists were hitmakers. The Beatles. Picasso. Shakespeare. Beethoven. Kubrick. Warhol. It seems to me only in the modern age that popularity has been the sign of artistic corruption. Nobody makes a social art like movies and doesn't care if anybody sees it or it doesn't make money. If they tell you that they don't deserve the budget in the first place, cause that's being irresponsible. The idea is to be successful at what you do. Not to be great because you're not successful. And I know there are 2 types of success: artistic and commercial. But the best art usually tries to find a common ground. There's no point in saying something if you can't find a means of reaching people. And it's often the messenger that isn't working properly than the message. That's why Kubrick's films were so great -- he found a way to make uncompromised pictures that were popular successes.
Quote from: mutinycoI love The Sugarland Express, but I only recommend seeing it in widescreen.
i just saw that for the first time a month or two ago. TCM showed it in widescreen and i was just flipping channels when i stopped on the Robert Osbourne introduction. i was like "!" my favorite is ET. i loved it as a kid, and then didnt see it for years and years till i saw the rerelease in theatres last year, (while hardly remembering what happened in the film) and it hit me then probably more than ever before. i was awestruck at how much i loved it, (so much moreso than any of the other films i'd been seeing in the theatres) and i wish more movies had the impact that that one does.
Quote from: mutinyco
And yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with having the instinct for hitmaking. And I don't think it's warm fluff in the slightest. Schindler's and Ryan are possibly the most violent mainstream films ever made.
I don't think there's anything wrong with having an instinct for hitmaking either, as long as you can cop to it without being so goddamn self-important. I will always have a healthy respect for Stephen King for writing in the introduction to
Different Seasons, "I know I'm the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries" (I may be paraphrasing a bit). He's honest about it, he has a sense of humor, and he's good at what he does. Spielberg may have had a bit of that too, once upon a time, but lord knows he doesn't now.
I don't disagree that
Schindler's or
Ryan are unusually violent or disturbing for "mainstream" films. I maintain that both, particularly
Ryan, DO go for the warm fuzzies, and the violence is neither here nor there. You can have all the violence in the world in your film and still make the overall product tidy and acceptable to literal-minded, black-and-white thinkers.
I have never claimed that any film is bad simply because it's popular, nor that a true artist doesn't care about being popular and packing the seats. The argument always degenerates into that, and it's at once too elaborate and too simplistic.
My points are only this:
-Steven Spielberg has earned his reputation as a hitmaker, but he absolutely has not earned a reputation as an artist. Some can be both; he obviously can't. I'm not making generalizations; I'm not saying "This is the only way a real 'artist' can do it." I'm not saying, "You have to be as contrarian and smart as Godard to be a real artist." All- and I mean all- I'm saying is that, judging from his work alone, I feel the massive public and critical regard for it is very misplaced and even destructive.
-In addition to the distraction the deafening acclaim for Spielberg represents for other, less appreciated filmmakers, his effect on the the practice of cinema has been almost wholly destructive. There was a brief time before Spielberg/Lucas when producers and audiences seemed more willing to take a chance on something more complex, more subtle, more inspired, more interesting than anything we have now. There were many bridges between the "artists" and "the money"; there were hints of cinematic utopia in this. A film had time to grow; a film didn't have to beat every record to be a success. I feel that Spielberg, with his particular manias and commercial instincts, had a direct hand in blocking those hints of utopia out, and the film biz has never been the same since It's all ghettoized and compartmentalized now. And I think that's for the worst. As Michael Jackson is to music, Spielberg is to film; it's about beating records, it's about "winning." That's hardly necessary to be commercially viable, but it apparently is necessary to be the "king" or the "best" of anything.
Please don't boil my opinions down into "well, the REAL artist doesn't care about the audience." Of course they do- they care more about the audience than anyone, because won't insult them and slowly wear down their ability to approach a film intelligently the way Spielberg and Co., over time, have done. A real artist will find a way to get their work seen by as many people as possible
without compromising their vision. A real artist may accept less money (i.e. less responsibility to producers/financiers), a smaller audience, and even less acclaim to put that vision onto celluloid.
There is a conscientous way of approaching the audience and giving them something- and any artist intends to give their audience something- and then there is a
greed for an audience, a greed for success, that leads to a lowest-common-denominator, fearful, desperate product. And I really do feel Spielberg falls into the latter category. I don't respect him because for me- and without giving in to silly, simplistic, "this is 'commercial,' this is 'art'" distinctions, because I know very well that those lines can be blurred in myriad ways- he is one of the most obvious symptoms of the shrill, monolithic dumbing down of our culture. He has actually shifted the meanings of the word "commercial" and the word "art"; his own lack of perspective has permeated film culture to such a degree that skepticism and resistance to it is, I feel, worth my while as a movie-lover.
i honestly can't imagine someone who loves movies is numb to the feeling of joy most of us get while watching a good spielberg film.
i can't say i ever plan to be the kind of filmmaker he is, nor do his films really inspire me that much (except for maybe one or two), but goddamn would i be a liar if i said i don't get excited when a new spielberg film is coming out. but i guess that's neither here nor there. at least this has been a valid argument. godardian, i don't really agree with you, but it's nice to see you have points to back up your arguments, which is rare in a spielberg debate i think.
i can't even say he's in my top fifteen (maybe my top twenty-five...), but i dunno, i just get mad when people bash spielberg.
The idea of Schindler! the musical? Priceless. Hilarious. Gotta love it.
And I love you godardian. Well said! It's so refreshing to be in a place where everyone and their uncle isn't constantly rushing to inflate and fellate Herr Spielberg's ego and overpraise his poorly-realized films. I've already said enough on that, though, for a lifetime, in the Spielberg forum.
Quote from: ewardi dunno, i just get mad when people bash spielberg.
Believe me, you're not the first or only one to feel that way. I think he is a
nice person, which is probably part of why it's upsetting to people when he's criticized and taken to task. But a lot of nice people aren't that creative or interesting, and a lot of creative, interesting people aren't very nice. Sad but true. Kubrick and Hitchcock being primo examples. And Spielberg's niceness as a person doesn't, for me, compensate for his undeserved cultural-juggernaut status.
You know who's really an exceptionally nice person and someone I consider a cinematic artist? Todd Haynes. Most gracious, down-to-earth, modest yet articulate "famous" person I've ever met.
well, i meant bash him as a director, but he is a pretty nice guy isn't he? godardian, would you ever want to meet him?
I suppose that means you haven't met many famous people. (Todd Haynes famous! Ha! Just kidding. He is nice.)
Um, part of the flaw of your argument is that you ARE being simple-minded. If that's your idea of cinematic history it's naive. Spielberg and Lucas didn't set out tp change filmmaking. Both Jaws and Star Wars were predicted to be catastrophes until they opened. And as far as I'm concerned there never was a cinematic utopia.
What happened was a generation gap. Plain and simple. That and Vietnam and Watergate. The movies Hollywood normally made -- big dumb all-star musicals and epics -- weren't making money. A few no budget movies came out that did all right, so it opened the door for some decent filmmakers. And a lot of great films got made. BUT MOST OF THEM DIDN"T MAKE MONEY AND MADE THEIR REPUTATIONS BY SURVIVING.
When Jaws and Star Wars broke out the corporations saw this and bought into Hollywood. What happened in the late-60s/early-70s was a FLUKE. It wasn't the norm. A glitch. Hollywood found what now made money -- the youth market (baby boomers) that had comprised the audience for Easy Rider and 2001 were now getting married, having kids and working for corporations. THESE were the kinds of movies they wanted to see -- FAMILY FILMS. If you've got a family, you don't take 'em to see Raging Bull, you take 'em to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. Point is: IT WAS THE SAME AUDIENCE! ONLY ITS TASTE CHANGED.
And another thing, S.S. and Lucas sure as shit didn't intend to hurt other filmmakers -- they're friends! They just had a better sense of the American public. That's why I still say E.T. is a more important film than Raging Bull. It affected more people worldwide and had a greater cultural impact.
And Spielberg DOESN'T dumb down his films. Why do you think his last few films have done only moderately well against modern giant blockbusters? They're too intelligent. (Even the critics missed the ending of A.I.)
I've said this before -- the person who most represents what Spielberg haters hate is RON HOWARD. Get over it.
Quote from: mutinycoWhat happened in the late-60s/early-70s was a FLUKE. It wasn't the norm. A glitch.
It could have been a permanent revolution, but it was soundly destroyed in the late 70s. Have you seen "Decade Under the Influence"?
Quote from: mutinycothe youth market (baby boomers) that had comprised the audience for Easy Rider and 2001 were now getting married, having kids and working for corporations.
And that just happened suddenly? What about Rocky, Jaws, & Star Wars?
They're JUST MOVIES! This wasn't supply-side filmmaking. Those movies came out at a certain time where the baby boomers were settling down. There were a ton of movies coming out, but those were the movies they wanted to see and S.S. and Lucas understood that. The studios understood it too. That's all. You can't have a revolution without popular support.
And Rocky...did that even have a budget of a million? It was a tiny tiny tiny movie starring an unknown. It had uplift and found an audience. After Vietnam and Watergate people needed uplift. They needed to feel safe again.
Quote from: mutinycoAfter Vietnam and Watergate people needed uplift. They needed to feel safe again.
I'll give you that, but...
Quote from: mutinycoThey're JUST MOVIES!
Just the three largest grossing movies of the 70s, which happened to occur in succession at the end of the 70s, and happened to be followed by a decade of complete crap movies.
In "A Decade Under the Influence," they talk about those three movies (Star Wars especially) and how after them the media shifted focus to determining the success of movies from how much money they made. And when I say "they," I mean the people interviewed in the movie, who are all the revolutionaries from the 60s and 70s... so I personally think I can trust them.
Quote from: mutinycoAfter Vietnam and Watergate people needed uplift. They needed to feel safe again.
People needed to bury their heads in the sand and be blissfully ignorant... yes, true perhaps, but dull to the point of being grotesque. This is not aesthetic theory or movie-love talking; this is Faith Popcorn-style trendspotting, with no point of view, just lackadaisical observation. "The consumer base does this because the world is doing this." To me, that's robotic and defeatist if not cynical; it leads to the kind of bandwagon-hopping thought you get in the "lifestyles" section of your newspaper. Market research and demographic trend-shifts can be duly noted, but that doesn't mean the films that resulted weren't bad, or bad for movies.
Give me
Network over
Star Wars or
Jaws any day. I don't think it's too simplistic to say that, for whatever reason they were successful, the success of those two films put up barriers to the kinds of exciting films being made for and seen by mass audiences during that brief, happy window earlier in the decade.
Quote from: Jeremy Blackmanthe media shifted focus to determining the success of movies from how much money they made. And when I say "they," I mean the people interviewed in the movie, who are all the revolutionaries from the 60s and 70s... so I personally think I can trust them.
That is true, and goes back to what I was saying about the Spielbergian influence leading the nation (and much of the world) to look at movies as if they were a horse-race. David Mamet has written provocatively about how people used to discuss the MOVIES- now, they discuss the box-office. The media does influence how people perceive movies, and the media's line post the three late-70s blockbusters mentioned is that a "successful" movie, the "winner" of a movie you should take your wife and 1.7 smiling children to this weekend, is one that makes a lot of money, particularly if it breaks records or has some other quantifying characteristic to talk about instead of talking about the damn movie itself.
Quote from: godardianQuote from: Jeremy Blackmanthe media shifted focus to determining the success of movies from how much money they made. And when I say "they," I mean the people interviewed in the movie, who are all the revolutionaries from the 60s and 70s... so I personally think I can trust them.
That is true, and goes back to what I was saying about the Spielbergian influence leading the nation (and much of the world) to look at movies as if they were a horse-race. David Mamet has written provocatively about how people used to discuss the MOVIES- now, they discuss the box-office. The media does influence how people perceive movies, and the media's line post the three late-70s blockbusters mentioned is that a "successful" movie, the "winner" of a movie you should take your wife and 1.7 smiling children to this weekend, is one that makes a lot of money, particularly if it breaks records or has some other quantifying characteristic to talk about instead of talking about the damn movie itself.
anyways, that's not spielberg's fault...it's like blaming tarantino for all the cheesy bad made "cool crime" movies that came out after pulp fiction...
saying that spielberg doesn't deserve the audience and criticcal aclaim he has is blindness...the other great directors admire him too...only european angry persons like godard talk about the guy like he's some kind of conspirator against film as an art form...
I'm thankful for him and his movies, for E.T., the Indiana Jones movies, Schindler's List, A.I....I'm thankful for the movies he's produced, the Back to the Future trilogy is great entertainment, Who Framed Roger Rabbit...etc...Cape Fear was cool too...
it's useless to argue I guess
i like you
Quote from: Alexandroanyways, that's not spielberg's fault...it's like blaming tarantino for all the cheesy bad made "cool crime" movies that came out after pulp fiction...
Spielberg imitations didn't break the film economy... Spielberg did (with Lucas).
Quote from: Alexandroonly european angry persons like godard talk about the guy like he's some kind of conspirator against film as an art form...
Well, he kind of is. Not that I think he's a bad director.
oh whatever JB.
i like spielberg very much. so he's a rich jew, nodody's perfect.
i do too. i started w/ his movies. i grew up w/ them, and i still love them.
the misconception that anything big budget and mainstream is bad and anything low-budget/independent is good bothers me. u mostly see it amongst intro. to cinema freshman who think it's cool to hate the mainstream. why? there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of hollywood and there's a lot of bad stuff that comes out independently.
is this the argument here? i didn't really read the other posts.
Quote from: ©bradi do too. i started w/ his movies. i grew up w/ them, and i still love them.
the misconception that anything big budget and mainstream is bad and anything low-budget/independent is good bothers me. u mostly see it amongst intro. to cinema freshman who think it's cool to hate the mainstream. why? there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of hollywood and there's a lot of bad stuff that comes out independently.
is this the argument here? i didn't really read the other posts.
That absolutely was not my argument. Not at all. I never boiled anything down that black-and-white. I never mentioned budgets or supposed cultural category, really. I tried to be very specific about Spielberg and his work, and my displeasure with his elevation in the public esteem to some kind of creative genius when I think he's nothing of the sort. I think most people grossly overestimate the profundity, quality, and efficacy of
Schindler's List. It has nothing to do with its budget; I suppose it may peripherally have something to do with it being "mainstream" because we wouldn't be talking about it like this if it weren't so widely accepted and glorified, but I tried not to oversimplify my opinion when it came to that.
My reason for disliking it definitely is not just because it's "mainstream." I hope my approach is different from what Pants' was in days of yore, where everyone was wrong 'cos they were trying to be too cool and rebel against the "mainstream." I hope my view of things is a little bit deeper than that. Indie has its bullshit and mainstream has its bullshit, too. A really great work is pretty rare in either of those categories, or in between.
well like i said, it's my bad b/c i didn't really read the posts.
Watching Spielberg's movies, I have a feeling he's trying too much to manipulate viewers feelings, too blatant. Not bad, but just too much. It's his way, i guess.
Quote from: mollyWatching Spielberg's movies, I have a feeling he's trying too much to manipulate viewers feelings, too blatant. Not bad, but just too much. It's his way, i guess.
There's nothing wrong with manipulation, it's just that Spielberg's manipulation can be so... cheap.
Blah.