Windmills of My Mind

I'm Blogging Again.....

2011-01-25T01:56:00.000-08:00

...but not here. Not anymore.

Check out my new blog CINEMEMORIES.

A new year. A new blog. A fresh start. Hope to see you there.

COMING SOON: "Dancing With the Devil"

2008-07-15T17:17:00.001-07:00

"Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?"
--BATMAN, 1989

Alfred Hitchcock once said that a story is only as good as its villain and Roger Ebert echoed the sentiment in his review of Star Trek II. While such a notion may be an oversimplification (some stories simply don't have conventional villains), the basic principle is essentially true: namely, that the level of involvement and emotional investment audiences have in any given story is almost directly proportional to the degree of difficulty the main character must endure in said story's central conflict (since all drama is made of conflict). In other words, the higher the stakes, the greater the obstacle, the more satisfied we are when the protagonist eventually overcomes it... or, conversely, the more saddened we are when the protagonist fails or gets defeated.

Consequently, one could just as easily say that a hero is really only as good as his/her villain. The more challenging the opponent a hero faces, the more impressed/relieved we are when that hero eventually triumphs over the adversary. This is why throughout history storytellers have wisely paid particular attention to their villains. Great care has gone into fashioning suitably formidable and sinister antagonists and the result has been some truly great fictional baddies, in literature (Dracula, Simon Legree, Bill Sykes, Professor Moriarty, Inspector Javert, Voldemort, Iago, etc), in cinema (Norman Bates, Hanibal Lecter, Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch of the West, etc) and in all other mediums... including comic books.

In less than a week, the latest big screen incarnation of that renowned comic book hero Batman hits theatres. Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight pits Gotham's guardian angel once again against that dreaded foe known as the Joker (this time payed by the late Heath Ledger) and it is sure to be a monumental battle. Joker's appearance in this new series of Batman films has been highly anticipated since the final scene of 2005's Batman Begins (I recall a very audible reaction from the crowd when Batman turned that playing card over) and I think we all know why. Batman may be known for having an impressive rogue's gallery of memorable villains such as Penguin, Riddler, Two-face and so forth, but most people would agree that the Joker is easily his most threatening, and thus most popular, enemy. Some would even posit that the Joker is the greatest of all comic book villains (beating even Superman's notorious nemesis Lex Luthor). Well, not only do I agree with these opinions, but I'm going to take it a step further. I think the Joker is one of the best villains ever conceived.

Some might disagree with that statement, but I doubt anyone will disagree with the enormous level of fascination that we all seem to have with this character. Everyone--and I mean everyone, even non-comic book fans--knows who the Joker is. In the AFI's list of 100 greatest movie heroes and villains, Jack Nicholson's Joker came in 45th place and in a recent Movifone survey Heath Ledger's Joker came in 5th. There is no denying, I think, that there is just something endlessly engaging and appealing (yet simultaneously chilling and repulsive) about this character.

So, my question is this: Why? Why is the Joker a character that we so love to hate? What is it about him that continues to attract and repel (or otherwise captivate) us so completely? Well, in an attempt to answer these questions, and in celebration of the release of The Dark Knight, I thought I would devote three lengthy posts to this iconic character, examining his origins (both inside the world of Batman and outside of it in our world) in the first part, looking at the different actors who have brought him to life in various audio-visual media in the second part and, finally, ending with an examination of the "essence" of the character itself in an attempt to hopefully ascertain just what it is precisely that makes the Joker so damned special.

So, stay tuned. Or as the Joker himself would say, "Not laughing yet? Just wait 'til I get to the punch line. It'll kill you! HaHaHaHaHaHa!"

"People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out!"

2008-07-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I love America.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, EVERYONE!

DON'T call me "Junior!"

2008-06-15T17:15:00.001-07:00

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!*

*and welcome back, Indy. We missed ya.

"The name's Jones, Indiana Jones."

2008-05-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

The following post is my contribution to the Indiana Jones blog-a-thon over at Cerebrial Mastication. Some of the ideas I posit here were originated in a conversation I was engaged in over at Piper's Lazy Eye Theatre in a post entitled What Say You: Old Heroes.

It is no secret to anyone that Indiana Jones owes a great deal to James Bond.

Outside of the fact that both characters are prime examples of the archetypal male hero (they are both strong, capable and brave individuals who wage war against malevolent forces for the sake of the greater good) it has become a rather well-known footnote in film history that Steven Spielberg's desire to direct a Bond picture (or some form of globe-trotting adventure with a larger-than-life character at the center) helped bring into existence the imaginings of fellow filmmaker George Lucas. Thus, Indiana Jones was more or less "born" via a handshake between the two friends on a beach in Hawaii in 1980 and over the course of the next 30 years the two of them would be responsible for four Indy movies--the most recent of which opens this week--filled with even more associations to Bond. These include, among others, the character's collection of female companions, Harrison Ford's introduction wearing a tuxedo in Temple of Doom and the presence of former Bond girl Allison Doody in Last Crusade. Probably the most blatant homage to the world's most famous secret agent would be the choice to cast the first "official" 007, Sean Connery, to play Indy's father (thus acknowledging Indy as Bond's true "heir").

However, a closer inspection of both characters and their respective franchises reveals that while there are certainly a number of undeniable similarities, there are also many significant differences between them (and not just on the surface). It is those differences which are of particular interest to me right now; the qualities that make Indy and Bond appealing in their own unique ways. Indiana Jones and James Bond may be "cut from the same cloth," but they're not the same article of clothing (just as a Ford Model T and an Aston Martin DB5 may both be cars--with wheels, seats, an engine, etc--but they are certainly not the same car).

One of the things that can help illuminate their individual "identities" is an examination of the genesis of each.

Conceived during the Cold War by author Ian Fleming (who would be 100 years old this month) and captured in a writing style reminiscent of noir, James Bond was first and foremost a literary creation. In a time when people read more than they do today, Bond's introduction to the world came through the medium of the written word. Granted, Bond's main cultural effect--Bond-"mania" if you will--didn't reach its peak until producers Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman (with the help of the aforementioned Sean Connery) made Bond a "movie star," but to this very day Bond's big-screen adventures are supremely indebted to the printed page. Indeed, Bond's most recent excursion (Casino Royale) is directly based on the first Ian Fleming novel and the current producers (Cubby Broccoli's daughter Barbara and son-in-law Michael G. Wilson) along with actor Daniel Craig, are attempting to bring the character back to his literary roots.

Indiana Jones, on the other hand, might have been inspired by literature (especially the pulp kind) but was never directly adapted from it. In truth, Indy's heritage is almost purely cinematic in nature. A mere cursory look at the admitted sources of inspiration for Indy's first big screen adventure confirm this. Lucas has expressed that his intent was to create a thrilling experience akin to the Saturday matinee serials of the 30's and 40's (where frequent Indy opponent the Nazis were often the villians), Raiders screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan modeled his interpretation of the character after Humphrey Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre and even the affection for James Bond that Spielberg has expressed is directed quite noticably at the films and not the original books. There is simply no getting around the fact that Indiana Jones was specifically created to be a movie hero by men raised on the language of the moving image.

This leads to another major difference between the two characters. Since James Bond's existence pre-dates his big-screen debut, the character is consequently bigger than any one actor. Most folks tend to agree that Sean Connery was, is and always will be the best Bond, but since other actors have portrayed the dashing superspy after him (with varying degress of success) it is not inconceivable for audiences to see someone other than Connery uttering that immortal line: "The name's Bond, James Bond." Like Sherlock Holmes, Zorro, Superman and other heroes with literary origins, there is no one "definitive" James Bond.

With Indiana Jones, though, there were no preconceptions concerning the character prior to the release of Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Nobody had even heard of Indiana Jones before his emergence from the shadows in the film's opening scene. Thus, the connection between the character and the actor who brought him to life (Harrison Ford) is inseperable. Harrison Ford is not just the temporary "vessel" of Indiana Jones. He IS Indiana Jones. Period. Nobody else can play that part.*

Because of the character's identification with a particular actor, Indiana Jones can do something else that James Bond can't do: he can age. In the latest Indiana Jones adventure, there are apparently numerous lines of dialogue referencing the fact that Indiana Jones is much older (not to mention how many reviews mention that Ford himself is much older). This allows the filmmakers to explore the themes of the passage of time and how it can make on feel "out of place" in the world. In fact, two other recent entries in ongoing movie franchises to have successfully dealt with this subject (Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard) also happened to feature heroes who have been indelibly linked with the actor playing them. Just as Harrison Ford IS Indiana Jones, Sylvester Stallone IS Rocky and Bruce Willis IS John McClane. In some ways, Indy may have more in common with these characters than with Bond (although not in the area of popularity or cultural import naturally).

While Indiana Jones grows older, James Bond has remained more or less the same age (late 30's to late 50's) for more than 40 years. Because it's been established that audiences can accept a different face as Bond, the filmmakers are able to re-cast a younger actor in the role every decade or so. Bond's perpetual youth (his "immortality" if you will) almost makes him more of a symbol than a character. The fact that Bond's adventures always exist in the present lends credence to this. A passing reference to Bond as a "relic of the cold war" in Goldeneye is probably the only indication made in the entire series of his antiquity. Bond continues to stay relevant because the purposeness of his existence is not restricted to the Cold War. It might have given birth to him, but it by no means defines him. Bond's adventures continue to be successful and resonate with audiences long after the fall of the Iron Curtain (with him tackling a very contemporary and very real threat in more recent films: namely, terrorism). There has, of course, been one attempt to depict an older Bond on screen (in the "unofficial" Never Say Never Again) with the one actor who could possibly be most identified with Bond (if there were to be one), Sean Connery, but again the success was minimal compared to other Bonds.

There are many other differences between Bond and Indy that I could mention, and I'm sure I'll find even more after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (a film I've been looking forward to for quite some time). In fact, I already know of one major difference based on a spoiler that I unfortunately stumbled across on the internet (don't worry, I won't reveal it here) concerning the film's ending. Furthermore, the new Bond film Quantum of Solace comes out later this year and will no doubt provide even more fodder for discussion on the similarities/differences between these two iconic heroes. For right now, however, I am content to leave it at these few brief remarks about aspects of each character.

So, I will conclude this piece with a bit of a personal statement: in addition to becoming important characters in the modern cultural concsciousness, both Indiana Jones and James Bond are very important to me. I grew up watching these movies (Spielberg and Lucas, in particular, were essentially the filmmakers of my generation; they helped me fall in love with movies in the first place) and they were seminal in my development not only as a cinephile but as a human being. These two characters happened to be among my all-time favorite fictional heroes (some others being Superman, Batman, Spider-man, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes). In fact, they still are. As I have gotten older and tried to leave "childish" ways behind, I find that their significance in my life has actually increased rather than decreased. Their strength, intelligence and tenacity are still qualities that I admire and try to emulate, but it is their flaws that resonate with me more than ever. Their weaknesses reflecting their humanness, giving them depth and making them all the more compelling. We need heroes. We've needed them for thousands of years to help inspire us to do good, to try hard, to fight the good fight (even though we can sometimes fail in that endeavor). James Bond and Indiana Jones are just two of the latest creations to embody an idea that goes back as far as Odysseus, Hercules and others.

We need heroes... or at the very least, I need them.

*Incidentally, I do realize that Indiana Jones has also been played by such actors as River Phoenix, Sean Patrick Flannery, George Hall and Corey carrier, but that doesn't affect my point that Harrison Ford is the standard by which any interpretation of the character is measured. It is striking, I think, that none of these other actors play Indiana Jones at the same age that Ford plays him. They're either extremely young or extremely old. It demonstrates, I believe, that the filmmakers realize audiences wouldn't accept another actor as Indy if Ford were able to do it. Also, none of these other actors were widely embraced as "real" incarnations of Indiana Jones. Phoenix would be the only possible exception and he is, significantly, the most like Ford of all of them.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

2008-05-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

"I love you, honey."

"I know you think you do, Mother."

Hamlet, Prince of Youtube

2008-04-28T15:03:00.001-07:00

This amused me.

Tomorrow is Today!

2008-04-15T16:57:00.001-07:00

This is a big week for my sister Debra. Not only did she get married on Sunday, but her third album Tomorrow Another Day officially gets released today. I know it's impossible for me to be objective, but I think this CD features some of Debra's deepest and most mature work in her career as an artist so far. Here is a rather favorable review of it by Northwest Noise.

Anyway, give it a listen and if you like what you hear, feel free to order it either from Debra's website or from CD Baby.

The "Ultimate" Wedding movie

2008-04-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

"I used to think a wedding was a simple affair: a boy and girl meet, they fall in love, he buys a ring, she buys a dress, they say 'I do.' I was wrong. That's getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition." --Steve Martin, Father of the Bride

Tomorrow afternoon, on the stage of the Majestic Theatre in Corvallis, my baby sister Debra stands up there and gets herself married. She's the first member of my immediate family to undertake this commitment (well, aside from my parents) and I get the honor of running the lights for it. I know that in the past few months my sister has been working very hard organizing this event and a few weeks back she came into the video store to check out the Steve Martin comedy Father of the Bride (the remake of the 1950 film with Spencer Tracy and Liz Taylor). I suspect that Deb did this because she needed to laugh at the sight of someone on screen enduring the horrors that she is currently experiencing in real life.

At any rate, she reminded me of a phenomenon that I've observed in my many years in the video business: namely that Father of the Bride is generally considered to be the "ultimate" wedding movie (or at least ultimate wedding research movie). People only seem to want to check it out when they or someone they know is preparing for a wedding. I jest not. In the fifteen years I've worked at a video store, I have personally seen Father of the Bride go out at least a couple dozen times and whenever a customer brings up the box to the counter to rent it, I always ask the same question: "So, who's getting married?" Everytime--and I mean EVERY time, without fail--they have an answer. "Oh, it's my brother" or "my daughter" or "my cousin" or "my friend."

It's certainly not be the only film to deal with the subject of weddings (just off the top of my head I can come up with Betsy's Wedding, My Best Friend's Wedding, Muriel's Wedding, The Wedding Crashers, The Wedding Date, The Wedding Singer, The Wedding Planner, Runaway Bride, 27 Dresses, etc), but somehow, somewhere along the way, Father of the Bride became the cinematic "authority" on weddings. Does it deserve such a position? Sure. I don't see why not. I mean, I've watched the film numerous times and I still think it's utterly charming. I like the way it finds humor in the process of putting on a wedding (and they go the whole thing too, from beginning to end), highlighting the foibles, the frustrations and, not least of all, the finances of it all, while still maintaining a sweet and sentimental tone. True, some would characterize it as being "saccharine", but Father of the Bride is funny and, at times, poignant without being edgy or cynical and that alone makes it somewhat of a rarity among Hollywood comedies nowadays.

Bunnies! Bunnies Everywhere!

2008-03-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

A few of the more famous rabbits to appear on the big screen:

"Falling Hare," 1943

Harvey, 1950

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

Watership Down, 1978

A Christmas Story, 1983

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1988

Donnie Darko, 2001

Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit, 2005

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

Gimme a break. It's not easy being green.

2008-03-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY, EVERYONE!

Incidentally, I realize this image has nothing whatsoever to do with St. Patrick's Day. I just didn't want to be like everyone else and post something about Darby O'Gill and the Little People. Plus, I just saw the trailer to the Hulk sequel and thought it showed promise. I wasn't the biggest fan of Ang Lee's original (although I didn't hate it) but this one certainly looks different and possibly superior. Here's hoping anyway.

They don't make trailers like they used to

2008-02-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I posted a short blog about my reaction to the new Indiana Jones teaser trailer. Since then a newer "version" of the trailer has been brought to my attention by Ted Pigeon of Cinematic Art in his piece Indiana Jones and the Trailer of Digital Nostalgia. This version has taken most of the footage from the real trailer and re-edited it in the style of a 1980's trailer. Here is the "old school-style" trailer:

Ted's observations about the difference between these two trailers, and which one is more "effective" in capturing the spirit and aesthetic of the original movies, has gotten me thinking about a few things. First of all, Ted's piece reminded me of another fan-made trailer I once stumbled upon which was produced well before any footage of Indy IV was released. In fact, given that the trailer promotes it as Indiana Jones and the City of Gods, it's clear that it was created before the movie's official title was even revealed. When I first saw this on youtube, I actually thought (for about half of it) that it was the REAL teaser because it's almost exactly how I imagined the teaser would look (shots of a bullwhip, a gun, etc). When I finally saw the official one, I was mainly just pleased that we got to see any new footage at all. Bizarrely, though, this teaser still manages to (for the most part) work for me.

While it eventually becomes obvious that this is a fan-made trailer employing only amatuer footage (those are clearly not Harrison Ford's hands), the mere fact that this so closely resembles a professional-looking trailer could be seen either as a testament to the creativity of these young filmmakers or an indictment of the movie marketing industry as a whole. It's almost as if they're saying: "Hey, we know how you guys get us to WANT to see a movie. We understand the tecchnique for selling a product: the tricks, the 'formula,' etc. So, here's what we realize your teaser trailer is going to look like. We're just gonna do it first." They even predict (with eerie accuracy) the shot of Indy picking up his signature fedora, dusting it off and placing it on his head. Granted, Spielberg's staging includes a more artistic "Michael Curtiz-style" shadow of Indy donning his hat, but the idea behind both is exactly the same and it clearly didn't take a genius to think of it.

Secondly, as someone who has always been interested in movie publicity (particularly posters and trailers), it has long been apparent to me that trailers look, sound and just plain feel different than they used to. I realize, of course, that this is not news to anybody, but Ted's piece made me realize that while the primary intent of trailers is (as it always has been) to promote the films they represent, they really do function differently in our culture than they used to. We, as moviegoers, seem to perceive trailers and their significance quite differently than we did 20 or 30 years ago (let alone 50 or 60 years ago). Ted makes an excellent point about the release of trailers themselves now being "events." In 1989, I heard stories about people buying tickets to whatever movie they heard would feature the Batman trailer beforehand and then walking out before the movie itself had even started (apparently folks did the same thing up until as recently as the Phantom Menace trailer). I happened to catch the Batman trailer on the big screen as well, but in my case it was purely by accident. Thus, I didn't leave the theatre after the trailer finished because it played before a movie that I actually wanted to see (although interestingly, and probably significantly, I don't recall what film that was). Here is the trailer I saw as an adolescent:

I also remember that when I was working at the video store in high school, one of my favorite practices was to stick in a copy of the latest release and see which trailers were at the beginning of the tape. Of course, in the digital age, when trailers are available for free on the internet, such behaviors are unneccessary and unheard of, but they nevertheless clearly demonstrate a shift in the way people approach trailers (particularly trailers for big "event" movies which audiences are so eagerly excited to see). Nowadays the trailers are anticipated with as much fervor as the films themselves. I don't know that anyone could've ever predicted that trailers would, like movies, have actual "release dates." In a documentary on the special edition Batman DVD, excitment that surrounding the film's trailer in 1989 is discussed and Kevin Smith makes an excellent point. He says that it really could've been just a guy walking out and writing Batman on a chalkboard and everybody would've still freaked out. In point of fact, the teaser for the upcoming Dark Knight movie is little more than that.

In a way, films like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dark Knight don't even need trailers. As continuations of incredibly successful movie franchises they more or less of "sell" themselves (anyone who has seen the teaser trailer for J.J. Abrams' reinvention of the Star Trek series knows exactly what I'm talking about). So, one can't help but wonder then how we arrived at this place. How did we get to a point where our teasers are essentially just the title of the film appearing on screen with music behind it? Where we consider ourselves "lucky" if we get to see actual footage from the movie itself? Where hordes of people scrutinize every millisecond of a trailer rather than simply getting a general "impression" of the film it promotes? Where anyone can make a trailer that is just as good (and sometimes even better) than what the professionals are putting out?

I'm not sure, but it's worth thinking about and discussing. I suspect that in the coming days I will continue to pontificate on the ever-changing nature of trailers and share my ramblings here. I may even take the opportunity to mention one or two of my favorite (as well as some of my least favorite) trailers and what makes them so. Through the process, a topic that will no doubt be broached (as it was in the comments section of Ted's post) is whether a trailer can be a work of art or not. This question will, of course, be a divisive one (just as Ebert sparked a huge discussion about video games with his assertion that they're not art) because it inherently leads to the more fundamental question of "What is art?" and we all have different ideas on that. I'm not sure I've satisfactorily answered that question for myself yet, but I will say that I am currently leaning toward the perspective that movie trailers (as well as posters and just about any aspect of movie marketing) are art... or at least, they can be. Granted, perhaps the majority of the time they're not, but just as I think a TV commercial or a music video can be a work of art, so can a movie trailer.

The "Indy IV" teaser trailer is here!

2008-02-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

The teaser trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom and the Crystal Skull, the fourth and no doubt final entry in the immensely popular and lucrative Spielberg-Lucas film series, was officially revealed on Valentine's Day. While there are admittedly one or two things about it that rub me the wrong way, my overall reaction was a positive one. To quote Allison Doody from Last Crusade I was "giddy as a schoolboy" watching it.

Even though it's only been a few days since its unveiling, the internet is aleady "abuzz" with talk about it. Bloggers are praising, critiquing and performing in-depth analysis of every second of this teaser. For example, over at his superb film blog Burbanked does a rather extensive evaluation of it, raising points of concern that no doubt hordes of fans and non-fans alike will have. As a fellow appreciator of film publicity, Burbanked not only examines the content of the trailer but the trailer itself. His opinions are perhaps a bit more critical than mine, but they're nontheless fair and lucid. Burbanked's point that he is not yet convinced it's a film that "needed to be made" is, I think, a particularly valid one. The truth is I'm not sure I feel convinced of that yet either, but having seen this trailer now, I do feel something that I haven't felt since word of a fourth Indy film first surfaced: optimistic. I had always known that Spielberg, Lucas and Ford could pull this off (if anybody could), but I wasn't necessarily confident that they would. My confidence, however, is building. Once the actual theatrical trailer is released, hopefully, it will build even more.

You might need a bigger boat, but you're never gonna need a better actor

2008-02-11T17:39:00.001-08:00

In his autobiography Born Standing Up Steve Martin shares a lesson he learned about doing comedy; namely, that "it was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the circumstances." I think Martin's observation is an astute one with regard not only to onstage performing but with any endeavor and I recall Martin's sentiment mainly because when I heard last night about the death of Roy Scheider I was struck by the fact that although I've never considered him a "great" actor (like, say, Marlon Brando or Daniel Day-Lewis), when I reflected on his body of work, I couldn't come up with a single bad performance.

I don't think I ever fully appreciated Scheider's ability to be, as Martin characterized it, consistently and reliably good. The fact is that he gave 100% to each film, he devoted himself equally to every part he played, whether it be in a masterpiece like Jaws or The French Connection a relatively forgettable family film like Disney's Tiger Town (which was actually the first time I ever saw Scheider in anything).

According to IMDB, Scheider died yesterday University of Arkansas Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. Though an official cause of death was not released at press time, a hospital spokeswoman stated that the actor had been treated for multiple myeloma at the hospital's research center for the past two years. Scheider is survived by his three children and his second wife, actress Brenda King. He was 75.

Scheider's film career was incredibly varied. He could play supporting roles in significant movies like Klute, Naked Lunch and Marathon Man or he could play the lead in a lesser-known, but still decent, piece of work like Blue Thunder, 52 Pick-Up or The Seven-Ups. One of his most memorable performances was as the screen incarnation of dancer/choreographer/director Bob Fosse in All That Jazz. The DVD features iterview with Scheider wherein he relates some rather profound stories about his working with the ailing Fosse and his awareness of who he was playing and why it was significant.

But the movie that first seems to pop into most people's minds whenever Scheider's name is mentioned anymore would naturally be Jaws. The character of Martin Brody, one of the first in a long line of Spielbergian "everymen," is a wonderful creation of Scheider's. While Richard Dreyfus has always been my personal favorite character, Brody is clearly unequivovally the film's "audience incarnate." Spielberg invites us all to experience the film's frightening and dramatic events through the eyes of Martin Brody and the humor, fear and just general humanity that Scheider embodies help makes that a plesant experience for the watcher. Finally, of course, the line of dialogue spoken upon Brody's first glimpse of the shark ("You're gonna need a bigger boat.") has become one of the most quoted* lines in movie history (Ted Pigeon beautifully describes Scheider's performance in that scene, as well as in another important scene, over at his blog The Cinematic Art). It is a declaration which has become identified with the reality of being faced with a situation where you feel ill-equipped and unprepared. Apparently, as it is revealed in the Laurent Bouzereau-directed documentary on the Jaws 30th anniversary DVD, the line was improvised by Scheider himself on the day of filming. How's that for being in the moment?

*It is also, alas, one of the most misquoted lines of movie history, ranging all the way from "We're gonna need a bigger boat" to "We gotta get a bigger boat." Scheider himself recalls it incorrectly in an interview for the aforementioned DVD "making of" feature.

So, rest in peace, Roy.

ROY SCHEIDER (1932-2008)

The Latest Movie Quiz

2007-12-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

Dennis Cozzalio has done another one of his splendid movie quizzes over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. I always enjoy filling these out (and reading how other folks have responded as well). Here are my latest answers.

1) Your favorite opening shot (Here are some ideas to jog your memory, if you need ‘em.)

There are a number of opening shots that I really love, but I don't know that any first image in a movie could ever possibly get much better than the simple, but enormously effective, ultra-slow reverse zoom on Bonasera's face as he relates his tale of woe to The Godfather.

2) Tuesday Weld or Mia Farrow?

Whichever one didn't call Spielberg the "Leni Riefenstahl" of the Olympics.

3) Name a comedy you’re embarrassed to admit made you laugh

I'm not embarassed to admit it, but the Don Knotts/Tim Conway comedy The Private Eyes always makes me laugh even though I often feel like I'm the only one in the world who finds it funny.

Best Movie of 1947

Not sure I'm qualified to pick the "best" movie of '47 but I think one of the most under-appreciated movies of that year is Robert Montgomery's experimental first-person POV adaptation of Chandler's noir classic Lady in the Lake.

5) Burt Reynolds was the Bandit. Jerry Reed was the Snowman. Paul LeMat was Spider. Candy Clark was Electra. What’s your movie handle?

"The Omen"

6) Robert Vaughn or David McCallum?

Bobby, baby!

7) Most exotic/unusual place/location in which you've seen a movie

I used to own a pocket television when I was younger and my introduction to a few movies (including Midnight Run as I recall) came from a black-and-white screen no bigger than a business card as I was tucked away in my bed late at night.

8) Favorite Errol Morris movie

The only one I've seen is The Thin Blue Line.

9) Best Movie of 1967

Well, continuing my theme of "most underappreciated" movie, I tend to feel that the cinematic value of In Cold Blood is somewhat overshadowed by the significance of its source material. Yes, it's a historic book, but (not unlike To Kill a Mockingbird,) it could also very well be a truly great film.

10) Describe a profoundly (or not-so-profoundly) disturbing moment you’ve had courtesy of the movies

Earlier this year I brought home a movie from the video store entitled Film Geek about a lonely, eccentric young man working in an Oregon video store whose whole life basically revolved around movies and who ran a website devoted to that very subject. I have to say that, while being well aware of the many similarities I shared with him, I was disturbed by how utterly pathetic I found the character to be. What disturbed me even more was later when someone whom I had never even met possessed sufficient enough inisight to liken me to this same character. In case you've never experienced it, there's nothing more unsettling than seeing yourself in a movie and not liking what you see.

11) Anne Francis or Julie Newmar?

Julie Newmar because she was in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

12) Describe your favorite one sheet (include a link if possible)

Again, there are so many great ones, but the sheer simplicity and raw emotional power of the Unforgiven teaser poster is hard to surpass.

13) Best Movie of 1987

As before I wouldn't say it's the best movie of that year, but 1987 was the 25th anniversary of the first James Bond film and the producers marked that occasion by releasing a very respectable entry in the series (called The Living Daylights) which featured the debut of a woefully undervalued Timothy Dalton as a tougher, more intense Bond. I remember going to see it opening night on my family's first day of vacation in Seattle and there was literally a line around the block at the theatre. EVERYONE wanted to see the new Bond. It's interesting to me that so many people now are praising Daniel Craig's grittier, edgier interpretation of the Ian Fleming character (and this is not to take away from Craig's performance at all, because I thought it was fabulous), but he's not exactly doing anything new.

14) Favorite movie about obsession

My usual answer would be Vertigo, but I recently re-watched The Prestige and can't help but think that that's also a pretty decent meditation on the destructive nature of obsession.

15) Your ideal Christmas movie triple feature

I'd probably start with two rather unconventional choices like Die Hard and Gremlins and then end with the more seasonally-appropriate and inspiring It's a Wonderful Life (I still tear up when Stewart cries "Please, God. I want to live again.").

16) Montgomery Clift or James Dean?

With all due respect to Dean (who was indeed great in Rebel Without a Cause), I don't know how anyone who has ever seen the performance that Montgomery Clift gave in his one scene in Judgement at Nuremberg could not pick him.

17) Favorite Les Blank Movie

I have yet to see one, but in scanning his list of films on IMDB I see he did a short about Huey Lewis and the News. Gotta go with that one.

18) This past summer food critic Anton Ego made the following statement: “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize that only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.” Your thoughts?

I remember when I saw Ratatouille in the theatre and I first heard that speech. I thought it was very compelling. I still do.

19) The last movie you watched on DVD? In a theater?

DVD: Blade Runner Final Cut
Theatre: No Country For Old Men

20) Best Movie of 2007

Of the relatively few film's I've seen so far this year, I'm going to have to say No Country for Old Men.

21) Worst Movie of 2007

That would be Transformers.

22) Describe the stages of your cinephilia

(most ages are approximate)

2 - 8: As a young child we had a lot of movies around the house (my father got into the video business in its beginning years) and I spent a lot of time in front of the TV. My parents also took me to see a fair amount of films in the theatre (my earliest memories are of seeing The Muppet Movie and The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen). I wouldn't say that I necessarily loved movies more than any other pursuits/activities. They were simply a part of my everyday life like food, clothes, etc. In other words, they were just... there. The pendulum wasn't even moving. It was resting motionless in the center.

9 - 16: One day my dad brought home a video camera and I realized that I could create products similar to the ones I had grown up watching. Thus, a fascination for the mechanics of movie-making was born and I began to devour as many movies, books about movies and even movies about movies (such as the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark) as I could. I also began collecting soundtracks and learning whole films by heart (including my personal favorite to recite: Back to the Future). My tastes ran exclusively to Hollywood movies (past and present). The pendulum finally swung to one side.

17 - 24: As I was beginning to leave my teen years and enter adulthood, my love of movies slowly shifted to a love of cinema. Works like Schindler's List introduced me to the concept of film as an art and not just as an enertainment. In college my friend Tucker broadened my horizons with silent, foreign and arthouse films and their directors (whose names I had never heard of nor could properly pronounce). I came to the painful realization that I was an "expert" in a subject that I really knew nothing about. While it was humbling it also, unfortunately, led to my becoming a "film snob." The more I learned about Truffaut, Kurosawa, Fellini, Bergman, et al, the more elitist I became. To borrow my friend Tucker's phrase: "If it didn't have subtitles, I wasn't interested." The pendulum swung way back to the other side.

25 - present: Eventually my cinephiliac arrogance tempered itself as I rediscovered my affection for the so-called "simple" pleasures of Hollywood filmmaking and realized that there was just as much artistic value in something made by Bryan Singer as there was by Louis Malle. I've also finally embraced the fact that I will always be learning about film. Indeed, I will be a lifelong student. Thus, the pendulum has found its way back to the middle once again, but unlike my early years it is still in motion and while I don't know where it will take me next I am eager to find out.

23) What is the one film you’ve had more difficulty than any other in convincing people to see or appreciate?

See #3

24) Gene Tierney or Rita Hayworth?

Laura is one of my favorite films.

25) The Japanese word wabi denotes simplicity and quietude, but it can also mean an accidental or happenstance element (or perhaps even a small flaw) which gives elegance and uniqueness to the whole. What film or moment from a film best represents wabi to you?

I miss being able to see both the chain below the bike and the tracks underneath the road signs at the bottom of the screen in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Those are two genuine mistakes that I think add a lot to the charm and artistry of that film.

26) Favorite Documentary

I think you've asked this question before, Dennis, and my answer's still the same. Clear Cut: the Story of Philomath, Oregon.

27) Favorite opening credit sequence

Once again, there are so many, but I think that the opening credits that Kyle Cooper designed for David Fincher's Se7en are truly extraordinary. I don't know that I've ever seen a main title sequence, for a film released in my lifetime at least, simultaneously prepare an audience so adequately for what they are about to experience, capture the "essence" of a film so succinctly or prove to be so innovative and (as can be seen from the number of imitators that subsequently followed) so influential.

28) Is there a film that has influenced your lifestyle in a significant or notable way? If so, what was it and how did it do so?

Now this I am somewhat embarassed to admit, but I am known by my friends for wearing a lot of black. Not because I like Goth or am a particularly morose individual, but because I think it's a very beautiful and elegant (not to mention easy-to-match) color to wear. However, it wasn't until I saw the Bruce Willis vanity project Hudson Hawk that it really occurred to me how striking all black can look on a person. It may not have turned me into a cat burglar, but when a single film can inform one's fashion sense to such a degree, I think that qualifies as influencing a person's lifestyle.

29) Glenn Ford or Dana Andrews?

See #24

30) Make a single prediction, cynical or hopeful, regarding the upcoming Academy Awards

Not a prediction really, but Oscar night is of my favorite days of the year, so I REALLY hope that it happens.

31) Best Actor of 2007

While I consider Daniel Day-Lewis and Johnny Depp two of our finest living actors (and I've yet to see There Will be Blood and Sweeney Todd), I watched Death Proof not too long ago and I think what Kurt Russell did in that film was beyond excellent.

32) Best Actress of 2007

This is going to sound terrible but I can't think of a performance by an actress that really stood out to me this year.

33) Best Director of 2007

At this point, I'm going to say the Coen brothers

34) Best Screenplay of 2007

I always feel it's unfair to answer this question without actually having read any of the screenplays.

35) Favorite single movie moment of 2007

I don't know if this qualifies or not because it didn't actually occur during a movie (it's a more of a favorite moment inspired by a movie), but it occurred to me about 20 minutes after walking out of the theatre that the first 2/3 of Bourne Ultimatum actually took place in between the penultimate scene and the finale of its predecessor Bourne Supremacy, thus providing more information on the conversation between Matt Damon and Joan Allen, seen in the previous film, and throwing it into a whole new light (an aspect of the film I didn't see anyone mention in any of the reviews). The pleasure of this moment of realization was further elevated by the fact that I sent my observation to David Bordwell--in response to a piece he wrote on the film--and he very kindly mentioned my name on his blog (despite my cautioning him that he might receive some flack for doing so). Anyway, it's probably my favorite "movie moment" of 2007 because it reminded me once again that I still do know a thing or two when comes to movies, something that I had sort of lost sight of during this past year.

36) What’s your wish/hope for the movies in 2008?

Add my voice to the chorus of eager/nervous fans who don't want the fourth Indiana Jones film to totally suck blubber.

The "Kidd" From Brooklyn

2007-12-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

Four days ago (just on the cusp of Chrismas Eve), the great Michael Kidd died from cancer in his L.A. home. He was 92.

Kidd was born Milton Greenwald on August 12, 1919 in Brooklyn, New York. Although he studied engineering in school, Kidd soon discovered a passion and talent for dance and would go on to become one of Broadway's greatest choreographers (working on such shows as Finian's Rainbow, Guys and Dolls, Can-Can, Lil' Abner, Destry Rides Again, Brigadoon and The Goodbye Girl) sulminating in five Tony Award wins. Kidd eventually emigrated to Hollywood where he worked both in motion pictures (choreographing films like Where's Charley?, Star!, Hello Dolly! and The Band Wagon) and television (directing episodes of All in the Family and Laverne and Shirley). Though he never won an Academy Award for his spectacular film work (nor, unbeliaveably, was he ever even nominated) Kidd did receive an honorary Oscar in 1996.

However, for most people (including myself), Kidd will always be remembered primarily for his amazing contribution to MGM's 1954 musical (and one of my personal favorite films) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a work which may very well feature Kidd at his most creative. The truly interesting thing about this story is how it almost didn't come to be. Initially, Kidd did not want to be involved in the film as he had just come off a Broadway project and wanted a rest. He changed his mind after hearing the splendid score but only agreed to be involved as a general "movement instructor" and not a choreographer as he could never make himself believe that seven strapping "backwoodsy" brothers could possibly dance at the level of a typical movie musical without it looking silly or incredulous. He feared audiences would either laugh at the antics on screen or storm out of the theatre in a huff (a la Singin' in the Rain) or perhaps worse. Director Stanely Donen agreed to include no dancing in the picture, but shortly after Kidd was brought on board, Donen promptly did an about-face saying: "Well, Mike, as long as you're involved in this movie we might as well have some dancing in it." At first Kidd was not pleased at all, but his commitment to the lack of believability in seeing big, strong loggers prance and twirl about like ballet dancers compelled him to come up with a most elegant solution.

His approach was to have the dance numbers centered around typical country activities like chopping wood, raising a barn, etc. Thus, the brothers movement, while still not perhaps technically dancing, are far more consistent with the world that the movie creates and the sequences that Kidd designed were (and still are) enthralling, exciting, funny and, at times, perhaps even a bit suspenseful. Nowhere is this more perfectly represented than in the brilliant six-and-a-half-minute dance sequence that serves more or less as the signature set piece of the whole film. It's a scene that I've watched at least twenty times and I swear I still never get tired of it. Note how the number starts out relatively simple and straightfroward but as it progresses, and the brothers try harder and harder to "one-up" the other suitors and win the affection of the ladies, the level of athleticism required for the feats builds and builds until by the end, in a remarkably adept bit of movement, Frank Pontipee (Tommy Rall) is flipping through the air without the use of his hands. Throughout it all, though, we as an audience accept its "reality" because of the subtle degrees by which it arrived at that point.

So, check it out. It's sheer perfection right down to the little spin and hop into the men's arms that the girls do at the very end.

So, rest in peace, Michael. Thank you for providing the world with some beauty while you were here.

MICHAEL KIDD (1915-2007)

"What's This?"

2007-12-24T13:22:00.001-08:00

It's a snowflake, Jack. Welcome to Christmastown.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!

P.S. I promise I will start writing again very soon. In fact, it's my New Year's resolution to "get back on the horse" and become a regular blogger again. Thank you all for your patience.

"You cut the turkey without me?"

2007-11-21T00:21:00.001-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!"

-Quote provided by Barry Levinson's AVALON (1990)

Faith & Suffering in Shadowlands

2007-11-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

"Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief."

Suffering is a part of life. At some point in our time spent on this Earth we are all confronted with this truth. Charles Grodin begins his autobiography It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here with the anecdote: "I remember crying once as a little boy (I forgot why) and thinking that if this was the best life had to offer, I wasn't so sure about going on." I mention this passage because it eerily reflects one of my own experiences. I also remember crying once when I was younger (like Chuck, I don't recall the reason or even the exact circumstances) and disliking it to the point that I wasn't so crazy about continuing on with this life if it was going to involve this. It's not that I was contemplating suicide or anything like that. I was just desperately searching for a way to "bargain" with life such that I wouldn't have to endure any more pain.

For some individuals this is where the dealing with the reality of pain begins and ends. My college professor once said that there are two kinds of people in this world: philosophers and drug addicts. The drug addict merely goes through life looking for the next distraction to keep himself occupied. The philosopher actually faces into the tough issues that life has to offer. He asks questions and seeks answers. Even as a youngster (though I was beginning to display "drug addict" tendencies in my desire to sidestep as much pain as possible) I was also already launching my tenure as a lifelong philosopher because in the midst of my tears I was asking a simple but vital question: "Why?"

"Why?" is a very important question. In fact, "Why?" may be the most important question a person can ever ask in his lifetime. The question of "Why?" particularly seems to surface in the face of extreme hardship. As the aforementioned college professor wrote once in a book: "Our questioning is not really from a desire to know the particular meaning of the particular event. More importantly, it is from a desire to be assured that it has any meaning at all." In other words, does my suffering serve some purpose? Is there meaning behind it? Or rather is it pointless and arbitrary? Is it simply another random occurence in a cold, unfeeling and ultimately absurd universe? Well, as a Christian, quite obviously I believe that there is meaning to suffering (and consequently to life) and some of my favorite stories deal with this very theme. That's why, when I heard a while back about RC's Film + Faith Blog-a-thon over at Strange Culture, I knew exactly which film I was going to write about... well, it was this one or The Mission.

Some of my real-life heroes have been extraordinary indviduals who stood up against incredible odds to fight for some form of liberty for themselves and their fellow man (Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Oskar Schindler, etc), but some of my other heroes happen to be a more mundane, less "romantic" historical figures. One in particualr holds a special place in my heart. This fellow didn't start any great revolutions. He didn't free or save millions of people. He was just an ordinary guy who dealt with what life threw at him in a very real and very forthright way. It is precisely the "ordinary-ness" of author C.S. Lewis that makes him, in my mind, heroic and noble. Ironically, when it comes to Lewis' writing, I am not necessarily his biggest fan. His fiction (primarily the Chronicles of Narnia series) is pleasant enough but a little too allegorical for my taste (I actually prefer the books of his friend and fellow "Inkling" J.R.R. Tolkien), but I love his more "philosophical" efforts (such as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, etc). Although I admit I haven't read as much of his work as I would like to, the reason I respect and admire Lewis has less to do with his achievements as a writer and more to do with his experiences as a human being.

Though raised in a religious family, Lewis became an atheist in his teen years. It was actually Tolkien who helped convert him back to theism and Lewis ended up becoming one of the great Christian apologists. Certainly no stranger to suffering (having fought in the trenches of WWI), Lewis wrote some thought-provoking meditations on reconciling the existence of evil and the reality of human suffering with the concept of a righteous, loving and omnipotent God in such works as The Problem of Pain. Lewis' theodicy was well-developed, intelligent and rational.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

Then something significant happened. Lewis met and fell in love with an American woman named Joy Gresham. Joy moved to England with her two sons (David and Douglas) and she and Lewis were married in 1956 and lived relatively happily together for four years. In 1960, Joy died of Bone cancer and a short time later, in 1963, Lewis himself followed. During the intervening three years, Lewis struggled quite a bit with the loss of Joy. Though it was not Lewis' first occasion doing so (his mother also died of a cancer when Lewis was very young), for some reason Joy's death seems to have affected him deeper than anythings else he had ever endured up to that point. This challenged Lewis' faith to an incredible extent and in his book A Grief Observed, Lewis lays out very honestly and openly not only the bereavement felt over the death of his beloved wife but the anger, the fear and the general questioning felt in the face of a possibility that God is not real or, perhaps worse, that He is not good. The text is such an outpouring of a person's emotions, doubts and vulnerabilities. To read A Grief Observed is to see a man lay his innermost being completely bare, to gain insight into a soul in turmoil.

"No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear."

Interestingly, A Grief Observed was initially published under a pseudonym and never mentioned his wife by name. Thus, a number of Lewis' friends recommended the book to him thinking it might be of some help to him. I find this scenario not only ironic but also extremely revealing because it suggests that Lewis' own friends didn't recognize him in his writing. This indicates to me that his musings in A Grief Observed were unlike any writing he had ever done before. Indeed, I first read it during somewhat of a dark period in my own life and found that it "felt" completely different from, say, Mere Christianity (which I had also recently read at the time). The Lewis who wrote before Joy's death and the Lewis who wrote after it seeemed to me like two completely different men. It's as if the first Lewis had it all figured out and the second Lewis wasn't quite so sure anymore. The Lewis who wrote a A Grief Observed is the Lewis whose perspective on pain was really put to the test, who was given more of an intense taste of the kind of acute, almost crippling, anguish and heartache that life has offer. Thus, he gained a deeper understanding and more profound appreciation of what pain truly is, what it does to us and, of course, whether or not it has purpose.

"Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."

Being that C.S. Lewis is one of my heroes and his story is an extremely moving one to me, it should come as no shock to people that one of my favorite films is Richard Attenborough's Shadowlands as it dramatizes the period in Lewis' life I have described above. Shadowlands actually began as a 1985 BBC-TV movie written by William Nicholson starring Joss Ackland and Claire Bloom (of which I've only seen bits and pieces a long time ago) and was then adapted by Nicholson into a stageplay. It was this stageplay that served as the basis for the 1993 film which features the great Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy. While I've been told that the earlier version is far more subtle, less "Hollywood" in its style and sensebilities and contains fewer liberties taken with Lewis' story (the two Gresham sons, for example, are combined into one child for the '93 version) it would be a mistake, I think, to dismiss the later version's "gloss" for lack of substance. Certainly the film is handsomely shot and exceptionally well acted but, in fact, there is quite a bit about it that is very "un-Hollywood." First off, while some might find it emotionally manipulative I find it to be very restrained and low-key. Also, while many films are content to simply use tragedy as a means for injecting "drama" into a love story (cancer almost always serves quite effectively in that capacity) without unpacking its deep and lasting effects on real flesh-and-blood human beings, Shadowlands faces directly into the provocoative complexities of dealing with suffering and death... especially in the context of spiritual faith.

Sometimes it seems to me that faith is perceived nowadays as a kind of unflinching optimism; a delusionary reassurance in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that "all will be well;" it amounts to little more than closing one's eyes, covering one's eyes and singing "LA! LA! LA!" in the face of any and all adversity. In this sense, the idea of faith is almost always associated with blindness or ignorance, a phenomenon with which I must admit I don't necessarily see a lot of virtue. In essence, that kind of faith is really just another way of distracting one's self, another drug for the addict to take to deaden the pain rather than actually deal with it. I'm not so sure that God wants us to be a bunch of "Pollyannas," only seeing good everywhere and not admitting that oftentimes things just plain suck, taking pleasure in our pain as if we were masochists. I think He wants us to look squarely into the darkness that exists and acknowledge it for what it is (this includes seeing the darkness in ourselves as well). A lot of the time this involves anger, sadness and a whole other range of sensations that really don't feel very good. If one can emerge from the other end of this tunnel of misery and still have hope, then I think one can be more assured of his faith.

This is where pain and suffering can serve a purpose. A faith that has actually learned to confront the harsh reality of pain seems to me to be a deeper and stronger faith. It's a faith that, as the book of James says, is "tested by fire." Naturally that doesn't make the testing process itself any easier. Lewis understood that but he didn't really come to grips with it until Joy was taken from him. He did not abandon his faith before his passing, but he did have great difficulty holding onto it. In the end, Lewis' faith was a well-earned one. He held his beliefs not because he simply refused to confront reality, but rather because he confronted reality. He did not have blind faith. On the contrary, he had eyes to see.

Just as I would recommend Lewis' book A Grief Observed to anyone going through a rough period in their life, I feel I can recommend Shadowlands to anyone who has ever asked "Why?" in the midst of a tough time. It may not make anybody's list of great films (although it did make the 100 Most Spiritually Significant Films over at Arts & Faith) but on the subject of faith, I happen to think it is one of the greatest out there. It doesn't provide any huge, enlightening answers, but it does ask some hard questions and poses some thought-provoking ideas. Like C.S. Lewis himself, the film is humble but passionate, warm but melancholy, terribly sad and yet simultaneously full of immense joy. As Jack (Lewis' nickname) and his wife discuss in a scene set in the beauty of a picturesque countryside (but with rain serving as an almost symbolic counterpoint):

JOY: It’s not going to last.
JACK: We don’t need to think of that now. Let’s not spoil the time we have together.
JOY: It doesn’t spoil it. It makes it real.... What I’m trying to say is that the pain then is part of the happiness now.

In closing, I want to briefly mention something that I think is interesting. As it does to all men, death finally came C.S. Lewis on November 22, 1963. If that date looks at all familiar to you it's because it was the same day that JFK was assassinated and from a global socio-political perspective that was naturally the more significant event. Thus, every newspaper the world over splashed across their front pages headlines of Kennedy's untimely demise. So, while everyone was in shock and mourning the passing of one of America's most handsome, most charming, most charismatic and, consequently, most popular presidents ever, an old, but great, man was quietly leaving this planet in a manner very befitting the time that he spent on it.

"You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.”

"Trick or treat?"

2007-10-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, ALL!

"Please, sir, I want some Moore."

2007-10-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

Although I am still in the process of writing the next two installments of "31 Days of Speilberg" (Schindler's List in particular is taking a long time), I wanted to very quickly acknowledge something that I think might be important.

The man who portrayed the debonair susperspy James Bond in more "official" movies than any other actor turns 80 today. Now, naturally I realize that Roger Moore has done other things beside Bond (such as the TV series The Saint and... ummmmm... Boat Trip?) but I knew him first as Bond and, perhaps more importantly, I first knew Bond as him! Moore was the first Bond I ever saw (in a story I relay here) and while it's true that Moore's decidedly humorous approach is not nearly as beloved nowadays as it was back when he played the character, I think that both Moore and his movies are rather--oh, how I hate this word--underrated. He's certainly not the best Bond (that's Connery obviously) and he's not even my personal favorite Bond (I actually happen to really like Dalton). Nevertheless, I still think he's better than a lot of people give him credit for (in my book, he's still far superior to the abominable George Lazneby). I happen to have a tremendous amount of affection for Moore. Perhaps we Bond fans can't help but find a soft spot in our hearts for our "first Bond," simply because, whoever he might be, he's the one who introduced us to the fantastic world of 007. As corny as most of them seem to us now, Moore's entries in the series were incredibly successful and his contribution to the Bond legacy was/is enormous. He was the Pierce Brosnan/Danel Craig of his time. He rejuvenated the franchise. He kept it going. Without his seven movies, we probably wouldn't still have Bond today (something which I know many people would probably prefer but which I would consider a tragedy).

So, happy 80th Birthday, Roger! Let's lift our glasses of vodka (shaken of course, even though you never actually ordered them that way) in your honor. I don't know how you plan to celebrate, but I intend to re-watch one of your movies tonight... just probably not a A View to a Kill. ;)

Real quick

2007-09-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

"I'm not dead yet... I'm getting better."
--MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

I only have an hour of internet time (I am at my local public library because my own internet has been down for over a week), so I'll try to make this brief and clear.

This blog is not dead nor am I.

I needed some time to get away and think about what had happened, how it happened and whether or not I planned to continue blogging. I also needed to, as Megan put it, "recharge my betteries" since this all took a lot out of me.

In the interim other things of a personal nature occurred in my life that were not much fun (when it rains, it pours sometimes) and which can certainly force one to realize that there is much more to life than just the "virtual world."

I eventually decided that I will continue to blog but I will not be rushed. I will proceed with "31 Days of Spielberg" as soon as I am able to (picking up where I left off with the entry on Jurassic Park) which will probably be when my internet is working again.

Hope that clears things up.

"31 Days of Spielberg" and plagiarism

2007-08-22T12:19:00.001-07:00

Before proceeding with "31 Days of Spielberg" (I'm already a couple days behind schedule but it can wait; this is more important and should be dealt with swiftly and directly), I wanted to take some time and address a rather serious issue that has arisen recently. In case you were unaware of the situation, I have been accused of plagiarism in my writings here on this blog, particularly in my early posts on "Eyes," Columbo and Duel and specifically with regard to a book called Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Hollywood Blockbuster by Warren Buckland (you can read the charges on a thread here at spielbergfilms.com where passages in Buckland's book and my blog are compared). Now, as much as I would like to simply deny the claims and say "No, I've never read Buckland's book! I don't know what you're talking about. It's purely a coincidence!" I can't do that. It's not that simple.

In fact, I have read Buckland's book. It was one of many sources I used in my research for this project before the month of August began. I found it to be a very helpful and very insightful text (and can recommend it to anyone interested in analysing the specific filmmaking techniques of Spielberg). I agreed with quite a number of Buckland's observations and consequently found myself adopting some of his conclusions. For the purposes of the blog I wanted to incorporate the ideas which we both shared (along with several ideas which I know arose out of me spontaneously since I take notes on the films as I view them) into the final essays. In the actual process of writing, and as all writers should (they teach you this when you write research papers in Jr. High), I tried to "put it in my own words," but I found Buckland's descriptions of what actually occurred on the screen were quite apt and as I tried to describe the same shots myself, I found it very difficult to not refer to him on more than one occasion. In the end, I probably "leaned" on his writing more than I ought to have (to the point that it became difficult for even me to tell where his ideas ended and mine began). I realize, of course, that copying someone else's phrasing but simply changing a word here and there does not qualify something as an original writing and I can assure you that my intent was not to plagiarize anyone nor to pass off another author's hard work as my own. I merely wanted to write as intelligent, well-informed and well-researched (but still personal) a piece on Spielberg as I could. It may seem like that should be easy to do, but when you're the one sitting in your chair staring at the blank computer screen, it can be quite a daunting task.

In retrospect, I see that my biggest mistake was in not citing Buckland's book specifically or even throwing out a simple acknowledgement in the form of a "My thinking on this subject has been heavily influenced by Warren Buckland" or merely quoting his passages outright (which, incidentally, I do with other writers/critics elsewhere throughout the project and I always try to explicitly mention the source) but attributing them to him. This is really about giving credit where it's due and in that regard, I admit that I failed and I am sorry. I can offer no excuse except to say (and this is not really an excuse, just an explanation) that it was very early on in the project and I hadn't yet found the "rhythm" by which I was operating. I lacked confidence in the approach I had planned to take toward the material. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't know how to get there at first. I was not fully comfortable in the writing process, but as the days continued (and with the help of a constant deadline) I found it became much easier to, as I mentioned in the beginning of my entry on Jaws, simply say what I wanted to say and not worry about whether or not it has been said before (and in no doubt more eloquent fashion) by someone else. The hardest part of anything is always getting started; taking that first step. Once you get going, however, the pressure and insecurity seems to ease off significantly.

In an attempt to prove that I am not trying to hide anything from anybody, I wanted to let everyone know that since the plagiarism claims first surfaced I have been corresponding with Warren Buckland (which is in itself a humbling turn of events; I never anticipated this project would bring me into contact with actual published authors who have written on Spielberg, even if it's not under the best of circumstances). We have discussed the matter, I have apologized for any wrongdoing for which I might have been responsible and I have agreed to temporarily remove the three posts in question ("Eyes," Columbo and Duel) and revise them so as to satisfy everyone (hopefully) that they have come from me alone and from nobody else. I will still continue with "31 Days of Spielberg." My commitment to that has not wavered in the slightest. In fact, the writing of the essay on Schindler's List (which immeditately follows this next one on Jurassic Park) is one of the reasons why I undertook this project in the first place since that film has been a hugely significant one in my life.

Finally, I wanted to apologize to my readers. I hope I have not disappointed you or betrayed your trust in any way. Many of you have been very kind and generous with your praise all along and even through this recent turn of events several of you have been very supportive and encouraging and I thank you for that. However, I am not doing--nor have I ever done--this for praise, for esteem, for glory, for fame and certainly not for money. One thing I have never lost sight of is that in the big scheme of things, I am a nobody. I am a thirty-one-year-old video store clerk who lives in Corvallis, Oregon. I make little more than minumim wage a year and I happen to love movies. I never intended for this blog to be anything more than an expression of one little guy's passion and affection for cinema. Thus, I began this "Spielberg" project because I admire Spielberg and his films and I wanted to share that admiration with other people and maybe--just maybe--even spark a little bit of discussion on him because I personally don't think that enough can ever be said about this great artist. I never, ever anticipated this thing would catch on as much as it has (and I am not saying that to relieve me of my responsibilities as a writer) nor did I ever expect to be mentioned in the same sentence as professional, educated authors who have contributed greatly to the conversation about Spielberg. In spite of the way things have turned out, I am still glad that I've been able to participate in the discussion, even if only in a very minor capacity. This has been a learning experience for me too and I can assure you that I am learning a lot from it.

Thank you once again for your kind attention.

Sincerely,

Damian Arlyn

DAY 19: Hook (1991)

2007-08-19T22:11:00.001-07:00

For the first twenty years that he was making movies, Steven Spielberg was often referred to as the "Peter Pan of Hollywood," a filmmaker who simply refused to grow up, telling fantastically fun and entertaining stories with child-like sensibilities. Though this perception eventually came back to haunt him later in his career, for a long time Spielberg himself proudly wore this label (going so far as to feature a passage from J.M. Barrie's book in E.T.) and even considered doing his own adaptation of the classic tale. When Steven did finally get around to bringing a version of the Peter Pan legend to the big screen, he himself was already trying to grow up artistically and the resulting film--pardon the expression--didn't quite fly. Like Always, another disappointing effort from his "professional adolescence," one can't help but wonder what Spielberg's Peter Pan would have looked like had he made it years earlier.

The idea for Hook originated in the home of screenwriter Jim Hart when he and his family were gathered around the dinner table one night playing one of their regular "What if?" games. It was there that Jim's son Jake asked the question that would later become the film's tagline: "What if Peter Pan grew up?" Hart used the premise of Peter Pan growing up as the basis of a screenplay which he then shopped around Hollywood. At one point Nick Castle was attached to the project but eventually Spielberg came on board and such big-name starts as Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Julia Roberts were all hired. The budget for Hook ended up costing around $70 million. Principal photography began in February of 1991 and lasted 116 days. With a few very brief exceptions, Hook was shot entirely on studio soundstages. The enormous sets were designed by the Oscar-nominated Norman Garwood (Glory, Brazil) and brought a definite sense of theatricality, even artificiality, to them. Perhaps this was an attempt to capture the feel of a classic Hollywood fantasy like M-G-M's Wizard of Oz, but many critics felt that the film looked like it was shot more at a theme park than a movie set. "Every day it was like going to work at Disneyland," said actor Dante Basco who played the lost boys' leader Rufio.

When Hook hit theatres in the winter of 1991 it was not terribly well-received by critics. The New Yorker's Pauline Kael complained that "its tricks feel strained; we're constantly aware of the backbreaking effort it's taking to produce them, and that's no kind of magic at all." David Ansen of Newsweek stated that the the "Neverland sets are a letdown; overlit, they have a cheesy artifice of a rundown Amusement Park... Hook is a huge party cake of a movie with too much frosting. After the first delicious bite, sugar shock sets in." Peter Travers wrote in Rolling Stone: "The film has been engineered for merchandising potential and the widest possible appeal. What's missing is the one thing that really counts: charm."

Once again, Spielberg's usually keen casting sense seemed to betray him. Rather than hiring the right people for the roles, Spielberg felt compelled to go with major "names" (perhaps as a means to recoup much of the film's balooning budget). Hyper-active comedian turned dramatic actor Robin Williams was cast as the middle-aged businessman Peter Banning who must re-discover his forgotten identity as Peter Pan. Since Robin Williams was by this point extremely well-known for his high-spirited antics and childlike demeanor, this is an idea that by all accounts should have worked but for some reason didn't. Indeed, Williams' best scenes were his earlier ones in the film (where he played Banning) rather than his later ones (when he became Pan). At one point Kevin Kline was set to play the part but was unable to do so because scheduling around conflicts with the film Soapdish. This is unfortunate as Kline would no doubt have been able to find the right balance between the two distinct personalities.

In the role of Peter's fairy friend Tinkerbell Spielberg cast Hollywood hottest new actress fresh off of her lead role in the surprisingly successful Pretty Woman: twenty-three-year-old Julia Roberts. Spielberg's decision to cast Roberts could only have been motivated by her star status since there is little or nothing in her performance to indicate she could ever have played a satisfactory Tinkerbell. Oftentimes she seems like she's in her own movie and indeed, in many ways, she is (having shot all of her scenes in front of a blue screen to be combined later with footage of the other actors). Apparently Roberts was so difficult to work with (even Spielberg admitted in an interview that he wouldn't work with her again; a rare claim for the usually easy-going director to make) that she was given the name "Tinkerhell" by the crew. To be fair, Roberts was a little distracted at the time having recently called off her impending marriage to Kiefer Sutherland (while entering a new relationship with Jason Patric) and checked into a hospital for "exhaustion" shortly before filming.

Not every actor, however, is miscast. The real delight of the film is Dustin Hoffman's deliciously over-the-top, but nonetheless brilliant turn, as the titular Captain James Hook. Hoffman seems like he's having such fun playing the famous villain that he almost singlehandedly walks off with the movie and makes it very clear why the film is called Hook. Of course it helps that Hoffman has a great partner to play off of in most of his scenes: British actor Bob Hoskins plays Hook's faithful, but none-too-bright, lackey Smee. Hoskins makes the perfect foil for Hoffman and their scenes together are among the best in the film. Finally, even though she's only in the very beginning and very end of the film, esteemed English acress Maggie Smith (as Audrey Hepburn did in Always) brings dignity, grace and a welcome degree of genuine emotion to her role of Granny Wendy (while the role of young Wendy, seen briefly in flashbacks, was played by a then unknown actress named Gwyneth Paltrow). While the presence of these actors isn't anough to compensate for the film's massive shortcomings, they do serve as fitting, at times almost painful, reminders of what Hook could have been.

While Spielberg's vision for Neverland may have been to create a very stylized and fantastic (read "unrealistic") world, it also comes as wholly unbelievable. The only glimpses we get of the magical land outside of the enormous sets are computer generated, cartoony-looking images. Neverland never feels like an actual place; it's as two-dimensional as the animated Disney version, perhaps even more so since this one is inhabited by real people. In fact, the only two places in Neverland we really get to see are Pirate Town and the Lost Boys' hideout: a ridiculously modern playground with a basketball court and skateboard ramps. As Leonard Maltin observed, "It feels more like something out of a McDonald's commercial." It's a sad state of affairs when the most interesting environments in a Peter Pan movie are not in Neverland.

Spielberg's usual knack for directing believable performances from his child actors also seems to fail him on this project. Most of the kids in the film come off as sickenly cute or just plain annoying. The Lost boys themselves, a rag-tag band of misfits resembles nothing like the energetic, imaginative kids of Barrie's original story. The worst offender would be their punk leader Ruffio, for whom we are supposed to feel a tragic loss when he gets killed by Hook, but who, unfortunately, inspires very little in the way of sadness. Peter Pan's daughter Maggie, played by Amber Scott, is endearing (and has a nice scene where she sings the Oscar-nominated "When You're All Alone") but a little too self-consciously precocious. The only child actor who comes off as natural and inspires any degree of sympathy is Charlie Korsmo, who plays Peter Pan's son Jack. Korsmo had previously appeared in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy and across from comic actors Bill Murray and Spielbergian collaborator Richard Dreyfus in What About Bob? Following Hook both Amber and Korsmo quit acting (although Korsmo did come back in to play a small part in 1998's Can't Hardly Wait).

As with Always, the main problem with Hook is Spielberg's tendency towards excess. He just doesn't seem to know when to quit (Spielberg himself seemed aware of this during filming as he confessed to Ivor Davis of the London Sunday Times: "Every day I came onto the set, I thought, 'Is this flying out of control?'"). He pushes every scene well past the point where it should end (the climatic fight goes on way too long), he milks every emotion well beyond our tolerance level and even stretches the film's running length well beyond its endurable limit: Hook runs 2 hour and 22 minutes, which may not seem like much in comparison to a Harry Potter movie but it's the quality, not the quantity that makes the difference. Worst of all, probably, is that Spielberg doesn't seem to know what he wants to say with Hook. Although the film contains some of his usual themes (light, flying, familial disharmony, an absentee father, etc), the main message of the story (which seems to be that it's okay to grow up as long as one doesn't lose touch with their "inner child") feels insincere. Since Spielberg himself was in the process of trying to mature as a filmmaker, Hook's moral (however well intended it may have been) just doesn't seem consistent with its style and tone. Again, had Spielberg made the film earlier in his career, there's little it doubt would have been a superior product.

Coming from a director who has a history of producing episodic movies, however, Hook is not without its moments. The entire first twenty minutes of the film (especially the eerie kidnapping of Peter Pan's children from their beds) is nicely put together. One scene in particualr shows a grown-up Peter walking into the same nurseryhe used to visit in his youth and looking at the murals around the room depicting scenes of his adventures, which naturally he doesn't remember. As Peter starts to get a chill he runs to the window and closes it (with a "hook" latch no less) as a visual reprsentation of his attempt to keep from remembering that part of his life. However, at that moment his wife Moira calls his name out from another room, Peter turns and strikes his trademark pose of standing with his hands on his hips. Williams plays it as a natural, instinctual move on Peter's part, as if he were ready for anything at that moment. It indicates that the little boy Peter is still inside there waiting to come out and in spite of the grown-up's best efforts to keep him buried, he will emerge. It's a wonderful little moment made all the more maddening by the fact that film doesn't dramatize these events satisfactorily. These early scenes, which featured prominently into the film's publicity, are so good precisely because they promise so much. It's a shame that the film doesn't deliver on those promises.

Finally, the scene that always manages to give me goosebumps when I watch it (which, incidentally, isn't that often) comes after a rather sweet little flashback sequence depicting the story of Peter's life. It's when the grown-up Peter finally finds his happy thought and sails out of the tree and into the sky (passing, in typical Spielberg fashion, in front of the sun) as the always reliable John Williams unleashes his music score in all its glory. When Peter finally learns to fly Williams' music soars. It's a great moment because it's a very long time in coming and for a brief seconds Hook becomes the movie that we hoped it could be. If everyone were completely honest wth themselves, they would admit that that was the moment that they all went into the movie to see: when the grown-up Peter Banning realized who he truly was and became Peter Pan again. Unfortunately, the elation is short-lived as Spielberg makes the mistake yet again of allowing it to go on and on and on.

After the dust settled, Hook didn't turn out to be a flop. It went on to gross $300 million worlwide ($120 million of which was grossed domestically) and receive 5 Oscar nominations, but the film isn't exactly beloved by and, in fact, is looked on today as another one of Spielberg's biggest disappointments. After two less-than-successful attempts at "serious" films, one hit sequel, and two , it was beginning to look as if Spielberg's "Midas" touch had left him. Some critics and filmgoers might have even been tempted to conclude that Spielberg was now "over the hill" as a director, that his days of making great and/or hugely successful movies were past. Spielberg demonstrated, however, with his next two films that not only they were not past, they were about to begin all over again.

TOMORROW: The dinosaurs return

DAY 18: Always (1989)

2007-08-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

In February of 1989 (shortly before the release of Last Crusade), Spielberg’s three-and-a-quarter year marriage to actress Amy Irving came to an end. The filmmaker who for so long had told stories about divorce, having endured the separation of his parents when he was younger, had now experienced one of his own. Needless to say, it was devastating to Spielberg, but he continued to pour himself into his work (as he had done for twenty years by this point) and his latest project was a remake of one of his favorite movies: Victor Fleming’s 1943 A Guy Named Joe with Spencer Tracy (glimpsed briefly on a TV in Poltergeist). As with every film in his career, the emotional tenor of Spielberg’s personal life affected his art and in this case, unfortunately, not in a positive way. Spielberg had wanted to remake Fleming’s film for a long time and it is possible, even likely, that had Spielberg made Always several years earlier it would have been a very different, and probably much better, movie.

A Guy Named Joe told the story of a WWII flyer named Pete (Tracy) who is killed and then comes back in the form of a ghost to inspire another young aviator (Van Johnson) but then has to watch as this new pilot falls in love with his former girlfriend (Irene Dunne). The film may be grossly sentimental and with strong propoganda intentions, but these qualities appealed to Spielberg’s sensibilities. If there were any filmmaker in the 80’s who could do a good remake of A Guy Named Joe, it would have been Spielberg. And yet, nearly every decision made during the film’s production seems to be the wrong one, his first mistake being the story’s setting. Always revolves around an aerial firefighter named Pete who risks his life to save his good friend during a flight gone wrong. Given Spielberg’s love for the WWII era, it is strange that he chose not to do Always as a period piece (like his Amazing Stories episode “The Mission”), which would have allowed Spielberg to re-create the forties in all its magnificent detail (as he did in 1941). For whatever reason, though, Spielberg chose a more modern setting. “It’s a contemporary movie.” he said. “It feels like it’s set in the forties, but in fact it is set today.” Unfortunately, by trying to give the film a timeless quality, Spielberg failed to make the story either believable or relevant. At one point in the film Pete’s buddy Al says: “What this place reminds me of is the war in Europe, which I personally was never at, but think about it. The beer is warm, the dance hall’s a Quonset, there’s B-26’s outside, hotshot pilots inside, an airstrip in the woods... It’s England, man! Everything but Glenn Miller.” While this dialogue is an attempt to explain why this contemporary tale has such an old-fashioned feel to it, it only works to further confuse the audience.

Another problem with removing the story from its original WWII setting is that the tragic death of Pete pales in comparison to the monumental sacrifice made by an American pilot giving his life for freedom and democracy. As Roger Ebert observed in the Chicago Sun-Times review: “It's one thing to sacrifice your life for a buddy in combat and quite another to run unnecessary risks while fighting forest fires.” Ralph Novak of People added: “Spielberg’s miscalculation was to forget that A Guy Named Joe spoke to a most particular need. Coming in WWII, when young lives were so palpably precarious and the need for comforting illusions so great, it had a ready audience. These were Americans who, if not more naïve than we, were at least more willing to suspend their cynicism.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone claimed the time shift was “calamitous—-Joe spoke to a nation’s sorrow; Always lacks a similar sense of scope or urgency.”

As further evidence that Spielberg himself didn’t seem to know what era the story was taking place in, he has a character utter an epithet like “Aw, nuts!” and then at another juncture in the film toss out a “Shit,” the inconsistency only heightening the film's schizophrenic nature. Also, as Pete’s girlfriend Dorinda makes a glorious entrance in a supposedly beautiful dress (when in reality it’s quite hideous), all the men stare as Pete whispers “Gosh!” The dance scene between Dorinda and Pete, incidentally, is another example of Spielbergian excess. Not only does it go on for far too long but at one point it descends into (literally) cartoonish humor with Dorinda telling the men desiring to dance with her that they must first wash their hands. They all immediately rush to the bathroom to accommodate her wishes. It’s a scene right out of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and might make more sense if it were believable that the men would treat Dorinda like a goddess, but there seems to be no reason to. Thus, their actions seem unbearably cute.

As David Denby noted in New York magazine, Dorinda’s entrance is “the most purely sexless moment in Spielberg’s long career as a boy, and it made me realize to what extent sex in his movies is a matter of dreams and idealization.” However, as author Doug Brode observes, “when Pete and Dorinda retire for the night, they do what a pair of lovers would do today: get in bed together, though they’re not married, something the couples in the forties film would never do. Their frank attitude about sex only makes the earlier idealistic attitude toward Dorinda seem all the sillier: it’s as if Spielberg can’t decide whether he wants to make an honest movie about today’s flying firefighters, whom he could easily observe firsthand at any Northwest outpost, or a sentimental film about the wartime pilots he knows from old movies and stories told him. Either approach would probably have been fine, but the combination in a single film is uncertain and all wrong.”

Another problem with the movie is the cast. Spielberg’s usual knack for picking exactly the right actors for the parts, bizarrely, seemed to abandon him on this one project. Spielberg friend and Jaws/Close Encounters collaborator Richard Dreyfus played the part of Pete, the devil-may-care pilot turned guardian angel. In fact, it was their mutual affection for A Guy Named Joe (discovered while working on their previous films together) that prompted Spielberg to want Dreyfus in the part originally played by Spencer Tracy. As fine an actor as Dreyfus is, he is no Tracy. As Pete’s girlfriend Dorinda, Spielberg hired the diminutive, but fiery, Holly Hunter. While Hunter has moments of wit and charm (particularly in a rather funny sequence when she’s trying to pretend that she’s spent all day in the kitchen preparing a meal which she really just bought ready-made), her usual tendency to over-act mars most of her dramatic scenes. Lest I get accused of being a "Holly-hater" I should probably beat everyone to the punch by adding that I have never been a big fan of Holly Hunter. Outside of the two Coen brothers' films (Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou?), I find her very unappealing, unattractive and, quite frankly, annoying... particularly her voice (I always found it interesting that the role she played that earned her an Oscar was one where she hardly said a word). If that makes me a "meanie," then I'm sorry. Finally, the role of Ted, the pilot whom Dorinda falls for after Pete's death, is played by Brad Johnson (no relation to Van Johnson, who played the corresponding character in the original film), a 6'3" male model with, alas, very little in the way of acting talent. He's certainly handsome but why Spielberg cast him remains a mystery to this day. It is difficult to believe that Dorinda could be interested in such a "big lug" for some reason other than his mere sex appeal. Johnson comes off as awkward and completely lacking in any grace or substantial on-screen presence. Granted, his character is supposed to be clumsy (as in the scene where he tries to douse a fire in the trash can and misses) but it is unconvincing and seems fake.

In fact, out of the all main actors, only two come off as anything better than mediocre. The first is John Goodman who portrays Pete's big-hearted friend Al. Although he plays little more than a variation of his usual screen persona (first established in the TV sitcom Roseanne), he is nonetheless eminently funny, charismatic and memorable. Goodman virtually steals every scene he's in. My favorite moments involve him dunking his chicken leg in beer and sucking the cream out of a twinkie through a straw. The other performer who positively shines in her scenes is the radiant Audrey Hepburn who plays Hap, the angelic "spiritual" adviser for Pete. Hepburn's last big screen movie role was in 1981's They All Laughed (though she did do a TV movie in '87), so the iconic actress practically came out of retirement for Spielberg's film, which proved to be her final screen appearance as she died of colon cancer four years later. Although her presence isn't enough to save the film from its own shortcomings, her two scenes are like a welcome relief from how "forced" the rest of the movie feels. She practically glides through her dialogue with an ease and effervescence that only someone of her class and elegance could achieve. When Audrey's on the screen, Always truly does fly. When she's not, it sinks.

The storyline of a fellow coming back after death provided Spielberg with yet another chance to exercise his abilities as a metaphysical filmmaker. Always certainly wasn't the first time Spielberg showed death to be less of an ending and more of a beginning (a la Poltergiest), but quite apart from seeing it as an opportunity to say something significant about either life or death, Spielberg seemed content to use it simply as background for something else: the real focus of the film is the relationship between Pete and Dorinda. Unfortunately, it's a relationship that is heavy on romanticism and sentimentality and very light on genuine emotion or depth. The fact that Spielberg was in such a vulnerable state in his own life no doubt played a big part in the bittersweet tone of Always. Why else would Spielberg sidestep the main storyline of the original film (a dead pilot becoming the invisible "guide" of a living one) in favor of the love story. The climactic scene of the original, which had Spencer Tracy guiding Van Johnson through a dangerous mission, is in Always changed instead to Pete guiding Dorinda through a tricky drop. While this might bring an interesting twist to the plot, it shows how unnecessary the "Ted" storyline is. What's the point of having Pete as the source of inspiration for the Ted character if he's not even going to function in that capacity when the moment of truth comes?

Always is the kind of film for which Spielberg is constantly being derided for making: essentially a two-hour version of "Kick the Can." A film dripping with self-indulgent, saccharine "sappiness" that has the effect of turning off audiences rather than engaging them. It's overkill. Vincent Canby of the New York Times complained: "Always is filled with big, sentimental moments [but] it lacks the intimacy to make any of this very moving. Though the story calls out for simplicity, it unfoleds in an atmopshere of forced laughter and forced tears. Gentle and moving as it means to be, there is barely a scene that wouldn't have worked better with less fanfare." Even these flaws might have been forgiveable were it not for the fact that Always (unlike E.T. or Color Purple) is extremely dull. This is probably the worst sin of all. Spielberg's indulgences can often be tolerated if he is involving us in an interesting story or fascinating characters. Always, unfortunately, has neither and so the film comes off as slow, preachy and (with a few exceptions) devoid of humor. It is, in other words, a bore.

As with all Spielberg's work, though, Always is not without its merits. In spite of its oppressively sweet-natured content, Always does contain a great deal of very striking cinematography by Mikael Salomon (especially impressive after the more conventionally shot, but far more enjoyable, Last Crusade). The aerial sequences, designed by future October Sky director Joe Johnston, are also extremely effective. The film was shot on location in Montana and Washington and features some spectacular plane choreography. The filmmakers even took advantage of the devastating 1988 Yellowstone Park fires to help contribute to the realism of the forest fire sequences. Finally, John Williams' music, which may seem melodramatic when heard accompanying the film's over-the-top images, is actually one of the most subtle, delicate and poetic scores he's ever composed. When heard on its own, the music's beauty and simplicity is easily apparent. It seems to have been written, as the Musichound Soundtrack Guide eloquently states, as if it “existed on glass.” Indeed, of all the movie soundtracks I own it is one of my personal favorites and a real delight to listen to when I am in a contemplative or meditative mood.

While Always may/may not be Spielberg's "worst" film, it is certainly a major disappointment. I still like it and would sooner watch it than 1941, but even the most avid of Spielberg fans can't deny its massive flaws and its (at best) extremely mediocre aspects. Although Last Crusade , released earlier the same year, was a big hit with critics and audiences and seemed briefly as though it might have brought Spielberg "back from the edge of professional oblivion," Always did nothing to help the situation... nor did Spielberg's next film.

TOMORROW: Faeries and pirates and Children. Oh my!

DAY 17: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

2007-08-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

For years after the divorce of his parents, Spielberg had a contentious relationship with his father Arnold (the resentment being reflected in his films through the recurring theme of an irrelevant, absentee or even abusive father). Finally, after many years, Steven and Arnold reconciled in what the director has called a “tremendous coming together”: a meeting of the hearts and of the minds between a father and a son. Thus, when the time came to make the third--and presumably final--Indiana Jones adventure, once again, Spielberg’s own life informed his work and he had the idea of including Indiana’s father in the story in a big way. Far from being a mere “gimmick” (as it was in Richard Donner's Maverick) this decision enriched the Indy character by providing more history than had been thus far (although Raiders did reveal some background too) and also creating another significant character in the world/life of Indiana Jones. As a result, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, while it may not have been the best, most balanced or even most exciting of the three Raiders films, was by far the most dramatic, the deepest and, from the perspective of Spielberg, the most personal.

Of course this presented the formidable challenge of casting the role of Professor Henry Jones, a part without whom the film simply wouldn’t work (since the father/son relationship serves as the basis for most of the film’s emotion). Lucas envisioned a fussy, fastidious scholarly type while Spielberg wanted a charismatic character with enough force and power to intimidate the tenacious Harrison Ford. What wound up on screen was a marvelous combination of the two concepts and the actor who ended up being cast was undoubtedly the perfect choice. Spielberg eventually had the inspired idea of asking Sean Connery... who agreed to do it. Since Indiana Jones was, in many ways, the cinematic heir to James Bond, it only made sense that the original 007 portray Indy’s dad. Of course, by this point in his career Connery was also a terrific actor (recently winning a Best Supporting Oscar for Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables), which he proved once again in his performance as Henry Jones. In reality, Ford and Connery are only about 12 years apart in age, but the actors' performances sell their relationship so strongly that it makes no difference. Spielberg also wanted to bring back members of the Raiders cast that he had "missed so much on Temple of Doom." Denholm Elliott returned as Marcus Brody (this time with more to do in the story) and John Rhys Davies played the larger-than-life Sallah.

Since jumpstarting the film with action had become a hallmark of the Indy movies, it was proposed that Last Crusade open with a teenage Indy embarking on his first adventure (replacing an earlier idea of Indiana in a haunted castle). The sequence would lay the groundwork for several future trademarks of the character (the leather jacket, the whip, the scar on Indy’s face, the terrible fear of snakes and, of course, the hat) as well as foreshadowing several important things that would occur later in the film itself. Once again, however, this meant the filmmakers had to find yet another actor to play a seminal role: that of young Indiana Jones. Spielberg had already admired River Phoenix’s work from Stand By Me and was delighted when Ford, having worked with Phoenix previously on Mosquito Coast, suggested him. In the role of the central villain, American egomaniac Walter Donovan, British actor Julian Glover (who had played a small part in Lucas’ Empire Strikes Back) was cast. Finally, as Indy’s leading lady in this particular adventure--an Austrian Art historian named Elsa Schneider--the filmmakers hired the strikingly beautiful Allison Doody (coincidentally, Doody, Glover and Davies had all appeared recently in Bond films; though this was almost certainly not deliberate, it further emphasized the kinship between the two iconic movie heroes).

While Doody's character is certainly a stronger, smarter and more capable woman than Willie Scott, she is by far the "blandest" of the three heroines. She constantly changes sides throughout the story and makes it difficult for Indy (and the audience) to tell whether she is an enemy or an ally. In the end she perishes, having been overcome by greed and a lust for power, but her demise feels less like justice than simply a meaningless accident. Credit should be given to Spielberg and Lucas for trying to achieve complexity in her character, but unfortunately they end up creating a character with hardly a personality at all, always being thrown where the screenplay demands she go. It would have been far more interesting I think if they had simply made her a villain (certainly the real world as well as the "Indiana Jones world" is ready to handle a female heavy for a change). Ultimately, the most substantial relationship in the film is the one between Indy and his father.

As with many Spielberg films, metaphysics featured so prominently into the previous installments that another supernatural/mythological object had to be selected as the item for which Indy was searching (Hitchcock used to call such plot devices “McGuffins:” items about which the details really weren’t that important but which the audience nevertheless had to accept as being significant enough that everyone in the movie would be after them; part of the genius of Lucas and Spielberg is that they always found ways to make their “MacGuffins” actually relevant to the ideas/themes of the story and not just incidental). For a while Lucas had been pushing for a story involving the Holy Grail and indeed it seemed like the perfect artifact for Indy to pursue in this adventure. Firstly, because it continued the practice of focusing each subsequent Indy adventure on a different religion (Judaism in Raiders, Hinduism in Temple of Doom and now Christianity in Last Crusade) and secondly, because it provided the filmmakers with an opportunity to bring Indy’s father into the adventure in a logical, plausible way. If Henry Jones were a Grail scholar who had spent his entire life looking for the symbolic cup, then Indy's search for the Grail was synonymous with the search for his father. This allowed Spielberg an opportunity to share his philosophy on the importance of familial love as Indy finds his relationship with his dad to be more precious to him than possessing the cup of Christ.

Another major element in Last Crusade was the restoration of Nazis into the plot. While they had served as the main opposing force to Indy in Raiders, they were selected primarily because they were the reliable villains in American movies of the 30’s and 40’s. Thus, in trying to make the film closer “in spirit” to Raiders than Temple of Doom (restoring the "fun" as he put it; indeed it's ironic that Last Crusade is the "softest" of the three and yet it's the only one to be rated PG-13), Spielberg decided to bring them back. This time however, there was a different tone to their inclusion. They were still quite far from representing real Nazis—-in fact, they could easily be called “Hollywood Nazis,” nameless, faceless and oftentimes rather comic henchman whose main function was to simply impede our hero from his goal-—but Spielberg’s developing respect and knowledge of WWII, and the many atrocities that occurred during it, seemed to be pushing him (almost unconsciously) in a much darker direction. Indeed, Last Crusade actually takes our main heroes into Berlin (“into the lion’s den” as Indy says) to witness a book-burning rally over which Hitler himself presides. It’s a surprisingly dark event to appear in a piece of escapist entertainment precisely because it is not fantasy: it is historically real and therefore even more frightening than any of the exaggerated dangers of Temple of Doom. Eventually Spielberg’s growing fascination (one could even call it an obsession) with the subject of Nazism and the Holocaust would culminate in his masterpiece Schindler’s List.

"Of all the Indy films," Spielberg has said, "Last Crusade was the one that went off without a hitch." Menno Meyjes (Color Purple, “The Mission”) collaborated with George Lucas on the film’s story and the screenplay was penned by Jeffrey Boam (writer of the Spielberg-produced, Dante-directed Innerspace). As usual, Doug Slocombe, Frank Marshall, Vic Armstrong, Mike Kahn and John Williams added their talents to this latest entry. Principal photography commenced on May 16, 1988, in Almeria, Spain. From there the filmmakers journeyed to Majorca and Granada. Following three weeks in Spain, Spielberg moved his crew to England for an additional ten weeks on the soundstages at Elstree and on August 7, Spielberg packed flew to Venice (a location which presentd some of the same problems shooting a period-set story as the city of “Cairo” for Raiders). Finally, they flew to Jordan to shoot scenes in Petra—-a marvelously ornate structure carved right into the stone—-which served as the long-lost secret temple, the final resting place of the Grail.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade "swung" into theatres in the summer of '89 (still remembered today as one of the biggest and most eventful summers in the history of Hollywood) and earned nearly $200 million at the box office. For the most part the critics, who had responded so negatively to the first sequel, were charmed by this third installment, though many felt that no more could be done with the character or the series. In her New York Times review, Caryn James summarized the reaction of most critics and audiences: "Though it cannot regain the brash originality of Raiders of the Lost Ark, in its own way Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is nearly as good, matching its audience's wildest hopes... Of the three Jones films, The Last Crusade may well become the sentimental favorite, the Indiana to end them all."

Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert observed: "As I watched it, I felt a real delight, because recent Hollywood escapist movies have become too jaded and cynical, and they have lost the feeling that you can stumble over astounding adventures just by going on a hike with your Scout troop... If there is just a shade of disappointment after seeing this movie, it has to be because we will never again have the shock of this material seeming new. Raiders of the Lost Ark, now more than ever, seems a turning point in the cinema of escapist entertainment, and there was really no way Spielberg could make it new all over again. What he has done is to take many of the same elements, and apply all of his craft and sense of fun to make them work yet once again. And they do." Interestingly, in Newsweek David Ansen proclaimed: "This thrice-told tale gives you your money's worth. Now it's time to hang up the bullwhip and move on."

Continuing the tradition of the first two, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade opens with the old Paramount logo and dissolves to a real mountain. This "mountain" is in fact a large rock formation in a John Ford-like desert range. The camera pans over to a wide shot of a troup of riders as the main titles begin to appear and the astute viewer might notice that the lettering is the same used in Raiders, signifying that this film is going to resemble the first Indy adventure more than the second one.

As we cut to a closer shot of the group of uniformed riders we see that they are really Boy Scouts on an expedition. They stop, the leader yells out "Dismount!" and all the young boys climb down from their horses and begin exploring some nearby caves. Two friends in particular slip off from the main group and discover a small band of diggers searching for something in one of the caverns. The leader, whose back is turned to us, wears a leather jacket and brown fedora.

Cleverly playing with our expectations (since we know that this is the normal wardrobe of Indiana Jones when he is on an adventure), Spielberg makes us wonder whether this will be Indy's "reveal" in this movie. When one of the diggers unearths a box and brings it over to the leader, whose face we still haven't seen yet, he opens the box and examines the item inside.

As he lifts the artifact (a golden cross) out of the box, we finally glimpse his face and see that it is not Indiana Jones.

In fact, as the heavy-set boy (Herman) indicates by speaking to his friend, Indiana Jones is actually one of the two boy scouts. It isn't until this moment that Spielberg employs a title card to tell us that we are in "Utah, 1912." Spielberg deliberately waited until the introduction of Indy to do so because audiences might have remembered that the previous two adventures took place in the 1930's meaning this fellow in the fedora couldn't be Indiana Jones, which would have ruined the surprise of discovering for ourselves that it isn't and subsequently meeting young Indy for the first time.

Indy informs his companion that the artifact being handled by the men is the Cross of Coronado. Immediately Indy's social conscience concerning antiquities manifests itself. "That cross is an important artifact. It belongs in a museum." he says. Indy orders Herman to run to the sheriff and tell him that there are men looting in the caves. When Herman asks what he plans to do, Indy's response is similar to his "making it up as he goes" line from Raiders: "I don't know, but I'll think of something." Indy then quietly sneaks down and snatches the Cross. The fact that Spielberg has chosen to make the artifact in this opening sequence a cross is significant because of the symbolic importance of the cross to Christianity, the selected religion of this particular Indy adventure. In fact, crosses will pop up a lot throughout the film.

As he tries to escape, Indy makes a noise alerting the men to his presence and a chase ensues. Indy flees the caves on his horse and the looters pursue him in vehicles (led by an older gentleman in a white suit and hat). As Indy rides on, he approaches one of the most common sights to be found in a Spielberg movie: a moving train. This time the train is a circus train, harkening back to the first movie young Speilberg ever saw (DeMille's Greatest Show on Earth). Then, in a shot very reminiscent of the dismounting from the horse onto the truck in Raiders, Indy leaps aboard the train followed by the looters. Indy runs across the top of the train trying to elude them and eventually ends up in the Reptile car. It is here that Spielberg explains the origin of Indy's phobia of snakes by having him fall into a box filled with hundreds of them. Indy also falls into a car with a lion at one point, but noticing a trainer's whip hanging on the wall nearby, he grabs it and uses it to keep the lion at bay. Not only does Spielberg use this sequence to pinpoint Indy's first exposure to the many uses of a whip but in his first crack of the weapon, Indy accidentally cuts his chin explaining the scar that marks adult Indy's face (In reality Harrison Ford was in a car wreck when he was 20 years old). Eventually Indy eludes his pursuers and as the man in the fedora watches the boy race away from the back of the train, a smile slowly spreads across his face. He might find it a terrible inconvenience to his own purposes, but he likes this kid. He admired his spirit, his passion, his conviction. He likes his "heart."

Indy races home, enters the living room and passes by the dog that we later learn is named Indiana (a reference to George Lucas' own dog that provided the inspiration for his character's name). Indy throws open the door to his father's study to tell him what has just transpired but dad is not interested in whatever his son has to say. He is busy copying a painting into a small book. Seeing his friend Herman out the window returning with the sheriff, Indy gives up trying to talk to his father and exits the room. Although, like the man in the fedora at first, we do not see dad's face we hear his voice as he utters: "May he who illuminated this, illuminate me." Not only will this painting he's tracing, as well as the book he is writing in, be significant later in the movie but it is here that the concept of "illumination" is introduced through the father's words. Spielberg's light theme is again being revisited and, like Close Encounters, it will be used in assocation with enlightenment. In this case it is spiritual enlightenment: the attainment of truth, knowledge and wisdom.

Herman enters the house followed by the sheriff and when Indy tries to tell him what has happened, the sheriff interrupts him asking if he still has the cross (grown-ups never listen to kids in Spielberg films). When Indy produces it, the sheriff takes it and hands it to one of the young looters. Indy watches helplessly as the fellow runs outside and hands the cross to the man in the white suit and hat, who is apparently its "rightful owner." Everyone leaves save the man with the fedora. He looks at Indy and says: "You lost today, kid... but that doesn't mean you have to like it."

He places the hat on Indy's head and pushes it down. Then, in one of those great Spielbergian transitions...

..he lifts it back up and we've now cut to the grown Indiana Jones smiling at someone. A fist flies into frame and punches our hero in the face. It is nighttime and clearly we are on a boat caught in a storm. A title card reveals that we are off the Portugese Coast in the year 1938. The same man in the white suit and hat descends some stairs and confronts Indy complaining: "This is the second time I've had to reclaim my property from you!" He pulls the Cross of Coronado out of Indy's bag as Indy yells: "That belongs in a museum!" Indy manages to fight his way out of the situation, eventually jumping overboard while gripping the cross. A freak accident causes the boat to explode (it's name revealed to be "Coronado" as it sinks) and as Indy clings to a lifesaver the white hat floats by signifying his enemy is dead. Throughout the series it has been a gag that in spite of the life-threatening ordeals that Indy endures, he never loses his hat. In this film, though, Spielberg elevates the importance of the hat. Not only does Indy never lose it, but if he does lose it he will die. When hats leave their owners it is an indicator that they are either dead or about to die.

What is also notable about this opening sequence, besides pinpointing the origin of many of Indiana Jones trademarks, is that it explains quite marvelously the duality we've seen previously in Indy's character. Because he was ignored by his father after the death of his mother, Indy found another "father" figure to admire and emulate. Not a good man, which his father was in spite of his shortcomings, but a "bad" man: a looter, a grave-robber, a mercenary. Thus, when Indy puts on the hat and leather jacket he is manifesting a form of rebellion against his dad, a kind of freedom from his father's way of doing things. And yet, his father's approval still matters to him as he has also became an educated professor in archaeology who wears three-piece suits and spectacles (as his father does). Despite his trying not to turn into his father, Indy is far more like his father than he cares to admit to himself. Likewise, as the film progresses Dr. Henry Jones will learn to do things like his son. Both men will become more like the other and in the process grow closer.

Back in the states, the scholarly Dr. Jones gives a lecture to a group of dreamy-eyed girls. He starts by writing the word "fact" on the chalkboard and telling them that it is the real goal in archaeology and not truth. "If it's truth you're interested in, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall." he says. Indy proceeds to discredit a number of misconcptions people might have about archaeology. "We do not follow maps to buried treasure and 'X' never, ever marks the spot." In fact, Indy's words are untrue. Over the course of the movie Indy will follow a map to a buried treasure, "X" will mark the spot and Indy will discover a great and profound truth. As he speaks, Marcus Brody enters the classroom and when the bell rings and everyone is dismissed, Indy produces the Cross of Coronado and proudly declares that Marcus will be taking him out to celebrate this accomplishment since Indy has been searching for this object all his life. This is significant because just as Indy has finally attained something which he has devoted his life to finding, soon his father will finally achieve his life's work. It should also be mentioned that this entire scene is staged, shot and edited identically to the corresponding scenes in Raiders, once again emphasizing the connection between them.

After checking his mail and discovering a package from Venice, Italy, Indy goes for a walk and finds himself accosted by some rather ominous-looking men. He is taken to a penthouse where he meets a benefactor of the museum, Walter Donovan. Donovan tells him that through the discovery of a tablet left by a knight of the first Crusade they are about to complete a great quest that began almost two thousand years ago: they are near to discovering the location of the Holy Grail, the chalice used by Christ during the last supper, the cup that caught his blood at the crucifixion and which gives the gift of youth to whoever drinks from it. Setting aside that this plot point relies on a serious misinterpretation of scripture (the eternal life that Jesus speaks of in the gospels is not an earthly one) this maintains the supernatural element of the movies and raises the stakes for Indy achieving success. Donovan asks Indy if he would pick up the trail from where his last project leader (who has since disappeared) left off, but Indy tells Donovan that he's got the wrong Jones and to try his father. "We already have," replies Donovan. "Your father is the man who's disappeared."

After rushing to his father's house with Marcus and finding the place ransacked, Indy realizes his dad has gotten himself into a real mess. Seeing that the mail has been opened, and remembering Donovan's statement that the last known location of his father was in Venice, Indy opens the package from earlier only to discover it's his father's Grail diary, a complete record of his search for the cup of Christ. "This is his whole life. Why would he have sent this to me?" he wonders. "I don't know," anwers Marcus, "but someone must want it pretty badly." Deciding to pick up the search for the Grail (with the real intent being to find his father), Indy tells Marcus to call Donovan and accept the ticket to Venice. Marcus tells Indy that he'll take two tickets. For the first (and last) time, Marcus is going to accompany Indiana on an adventure.

On the flight to Italy (during which Spielberg once again uses the familiar red line) Indy studies the diary and upon arriving in Venice is surprised to learn that the Dr. Schneider which Donovan spoke of is a beautiful blonde Austrian woman. Indy tries to flirt with her but to no avail. She seems immune to his charms. Elsa takes Indy and Marcus to the place Henry Jones was when he vanished: the library. When they comment that it looks more like a church than a library, Elsa informs them that is, in fact, the case. They are on holy ground. Indy recognizes the large stained-glass window from a drawing in the Grail diary (the same painting his father was sketching in the film's opening) and realizes that his dad wasn't looking for a book about the tomb of a knight but rather for the tomb itself. The tomb is located somewhere in the library. All they have to do is figure out the significance of three Roman numerals (III, VII and X) and they'll have their answer. They find the "III" and "VII" but don't see the "X" until Indy climbs a staircase and sees an enormous "X" on the floor. "X markes the spot." he says contradicting his earlier words to the class. "X" is also a subtle variation on the recurring cross imagery in the film.

After breaking through the floor and descening into the open hole, Indy and Elsa discover a series of catacombs beneath the library. As Roger Ebert pointed out in his review, the notion of there being and underground in Venice is ridiculous but it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the sequence. Indy and Elsa wander through the tunnels looking at the artwork scrawled on the walls. Elsa sees one drawing in particular and wonders aloud: "What's this one?" Indy answers: "The Ark of the Covenant." Elsa asks: "Are you sure?" to which Indy replies: "Pretty sure." This is a very funny exchange not only because it references Raiders, but because John Williams once again chooses to underline it with a brief quotation of the "Ark theme" from the first movie. Furthermore, unlike the sword/gun gag from Temple of Doom, this one actually makes sense since this adventure occurs after Raiders (in fact, the humor of the moment is dependant upon the fact that Indy has actually encountered the Ark before in person and not simply as a drawing on a wall). Back at the entrance, Marcus is knocked out and dragged away by unidentified individuals who follow Indy and Elsa into the cavern.

After encountering oil and moving through a passage filled with rats (this movie's equivalent of the snakes and bugs) Indy and Elsa find the knight's coffin. Indy gets the information he needs from the knight's shield, but hears noises coming from behind them. Their followers have lit the petroleum in the water and a huge column of fire is quickly making its way down the catacombs towards them. Thinking quickly Indy overturns the knight's coffin and motions Elsa to dive under it because of the air pocket. While inside Indy tells Elsa not to "wander off" as he searches for a way out. Having found one, he pops up again and tells Elsa to follow him. They each take a deep breath and submerge. Outside a group of gawking patrons are surprised when a dripping Elsa and Indy emerge from beneath their feet.

When the same unidentified followers run out of the library and start pursuing Indy and Elsa, the two of them climb into a boat and a chase ensues. Along the way several of the men are killed and when Indy and the last surviving member of his attackers square off, Indy asks why they are trying to kill him and Elsa. The man reveals that his name is Kazim and he is part of a brotherhood (the Cruciform Sword) dedicated to protecting the secret of the Grail. When Indy assures him that he's not after the cup of Christ but rather is after his father, Kazim informs him that his father is being held in the castle of Brunwald on the Austrian-German border. After telling Marcus, back at his hotel room to have Sallah meet them in Iskendrun, and subsequently having a little tryst with Elsa (which Spielberg naturally doesn't show), Indy decides to go after his dad.

A red line takes us to the castle and upon arrival Elsa asks Indy: "What are you going to do?" Indy repeats the line spoken by his younger self: "Don't know, but I'll think of something." Indy manages to get himself and Elsa inside the castle, where he discovers Nazis at work ("I hate these guys.") and locates the room that he believes his dad is in. Indy uses his bullwhip to swing in through the window where he is promptly hit over the head with a vase, his assailant being none other than his own father (who is introduced stepping out of the shadows, just as Indy was first seen in Raiders). The reunion is not a terribly happy one, however, as Indy is frustrated that his dad still insists on calling him "Junior." Aside from being an amusing running gag throughout the film, this is actually important to the story's themes. Henry Jones sees his son less as his own person and more as an extension of himself. His refusal to call his son by the name he prefers represents this, but before the film is done the two will come to an understanding. Henry will finally acknowledge his son's individuality. One of the things that Spielberg has always said he was grateful for was that his father allowed him to follow his own path of becoming a filmmaker rather than force Steven to follow in his footsteps. Arnold recognized his son's individuality in a way that Henry Jones must still learn to.

After returning to Elsa Indy discovers she is being held hostage by a Nazi Colonel named Vogel. He yells at Indy to drop his gun or he will shoot her. Henry tells Indy not to trust her because she's a Nazi. In a classic scenario where the main character is not sure who to listen to, Indy is forced to choose between his woman and his father. Eventually Indy chooses the woman and, as it is shortly revealed, makes the wrong choice. She is a Nazi after all. Indy and Henry are taken into another room where they meet the mastermind behind all of this: Donovan. He takes the book from them and in examining it discovers some important pages missing (including a map that leads to the Grail's location). Elsa realizes that Indy has given the map to Marcus Brody who, after Indy passionately tells them all that they'll never find him because he's able to blend into any environment all over the world, is seen wandering a train station in the city of Iskendrun with no clue whatsoever as to what he's doing. It's a very funny moment and demonstrates that Brody's character is becoming more comic in this particular adventure. Some have derided this decision saying that Marcus was very much a dignified character in the first Raiders, almost a sort of father figure to Indy, but since this film already has another father figure, Marcus needs to be used in another capacity to justify his presence. Furthermore, he was never seen outside of his comfort zone in the first film, so it is not inconsistent to see Marcus with two left feet when he tries to be the same kind of adventurer that Indy is. Finally, as Denholem Elliott has said in interviews, he could't have had more fun playing Marcus as a more of a buffoon this time around (if it didn't bother him, it shouldn't bother us). After Marcus meets Sallah, he is shortly taken by the Nazis.

Back at the castle, Indy and his father have been tied up back-to-back and left alone in a room (a classic B-movie situation). Indy has his father fish his lighter out of his coat pocket (with a shamrock, or four-leafed clover, on it; yet another variation on the cross imagery) and try to burn through the ropes. Unfortunately, Henry proceeds to set the entire room on fire. Indy and his father manage to escape through a revolving door in the fireplace and effect their escape on a motorcycle. A chase ensues wherein Indy and his father are pursued by Nazi soldiers but using typical ingenuity, Indy dispatches all of them (at one point using a flagpole as a jousting lance; this emphasizes Indy's identity as a "knight" of the last crusade). However, Henry is still unimpressed and Indy's frustration at never being able to satisfy his dad is apparent on his face. When they approach an intersection (a "cross"-roads), Henry instructs his son to go into Berlin to retreive his diary because there is still crucial information contained within (clues to surviving three deadly booby traps guarding the Grail). Indy finds the notion crazy and the two have yet another confrontation (at one point Indy curses and receives a slap in the face by Henry for "blasphemy"). It's one of many scenes between just these two characters and it demonstrates that the real drama of the story is in the interactions between them. They may stop the action for a period of time but they develop character and this is something that I personally think would be nice if more action movies did today.

Indy and Henry journey to Berlin ("pilgrims in an unholy land" as Henry aptly states) and Indy retreives the diary from Elsa during a book-burning rally, but comes face-to-face with Hitler in the process, who thinks Indy just wants his autograph so, ironically, he signs his name to the Grail diary (with his right hand; Hitler was actually a southpaw). Despite the rather serious tone of the scene, Spielberg still remembers that this is still essentially a piece of entertainment and so chooses to end the scene on a joke. Indy and Henry then flee from Germany on a zepplin. This provides an opportunity for yet another father/son interaction where we learn more about each character's personalities and details of Indy's childhood are further revealed. Their dialogue is interrupted, however, when Indy realizes that the zepplin is turning around and taking them back to Germany. Under the belly of the zepplin, Indy and Henry board a small plane (with a cross imprinted on it) and fly to safety but not before engaging in combat with some Nazi war planes. Eventually they crash land and try to escape in a car. When that doesn't work. They end up on foot. Indy stands on a beach looking around but seeing no cover, he pulls out his gun and finds no bullets in it. Up until now Henry's discomfort and lack of experience in this type of adventure has been apparent. Several times he has royally screwed up (setting the room on fire, shooting the tail of his own plane with the machine gun, etc), but he has also been a help at other times (when he sat in a chair and inadvertently triggered a secret door that allowed them to escape the castle). At this moment, Henry is about to prove his effectiveness once again, using his umbrella to frighten a flock of seagulls resting on the beach. As they all fly up into the path of the oncoming plane, they stall out the propeller and cause it to crash. Indy is stunned that his father has saved the day and as he turns to look at him, Henry casually strolls toward his son smiling, with his umbrella still up, mentioning that he got the idea from Charlamagne: "Let my armies be the rocks and the trees... and the birds in the sky."

The look on Indy's face as he turns toward the camera is priceless, because he's seeing his father in an entirely new light now. He is, for the first time, really proud of him and has such tremendous respect, affection and love in heart at this moment. The two are actually sharing something together. They are (pardon the pun) "bonding."

Once Indy and Henry reach Hatay, they meet up with Sallah and learn that Marcus has been captured. They head into the desert after Marcus, Donovan, Elsa, Vogel and a horde of Nazis. Of course three men are no match for hundreds of soldiers (not to mention a tank), but Kazim's brotherhood inadvertently helps Indy out by fighting the Nazis for him. Although Kazim is killed, Indy manages to steal four horses (their car having been blown up by the tank) while his father is captured and placed in the tank along with Marcus. Indy bravely rides out to rescue him and what follows is a spectacular action sequence that almost equals the truck chase from Raiders.

Indy leaps aboard the tank and while battling with Vogel on the outside of it, Indy's father tries to gain control of the tank from the inside. The father and the son are rapidly becoming more alike. Indy's father has stepped up and become almost the adventurer that Indy is. At one point he even uses the tank to blow away a whole truckload of Nazis. When Marcus says (as Henry himself did to Indy earlier): "Look what you did!" Henry responds: "Marcus, it's war!" The sequence ends with Henry and Marcus getting pulled off the tank as Indy angrily batters Vogel. In the fight, Vogel loses his hat signaling to the audience that he will shortly die. In fact, the tank is headed for a cliff and when Indy looks up and the camera moves in on a close-up of his eyes (another common Spielbergian image) his hat also blows off. This is Spielberg causing the audience to wonder if we might lose Indy at this moment too. In interviews everyone involved had said that this would be the last Indy film. Could it really end with Indy's death?

When the tank careens over the edge of the cliff and crashes into the rocks far below, Henry briefly thinks that his son is gone. "Oh God," he says, "I've lost him... and I never told him anything." In fact, Indy got off just in time and after a humorous moment where Indy stands behind the others looking over the cliff (not knowing what he's looking at), Henry grabs his son and warmly embraces him. "I thought I lost you, boy!" he cries. "I thought you had to, sir." Indy responds. Despite his fatigue, Indy starts to smile as he enjoys this rare bit of physical affection from his father. After a few seconds, a slightly embarassed Henry regains his composure, clears his throat and says, "Well,... well done." (in a way, this is like Spielberg trying to restrain himself in his films given that his critics say he is often too emotional or too sentimental). In a nice litte capper to the scene, Indy collapses as the other three walk away and the wind blows Indy's hat right back into his lap.

Indy, Sallah, Marcus and Henry sneak into the temple just in time to see one of the henchman literally lose his head. They are soon discovered and brought before Donovan. In a nice bit of visual storytelling, Indy and his friends (the good guys) stand on one side of the frame while Donovan and company (the bad guys) stand on the other. Elsa stands between them in the very middle, not belonging to either side. Donovan orders Indy to get the Grail for him and Indy refuses. Donovan helps provide motivation by shooting Henry in the stomach. Indy tries to stop the bleeding by removing Henry's hat (indicating, once again, that we could very well lose Indy's father) but it does little good. Donovan tells Indy that only the healing power of the Grail can save his father now. Thus, Indy is forced to brave the booby traps in order to retreive the Grail. Fortunately he has the clues from Henry's diary and by interpreting them correctly, Indy survives them. Throughout these scenes, Henry also tries to decode the clues as he lays dying. Showing once again how alike their minds work, both father and son come to the same conclusions independantly (or it could be viewed as the father figuring out the answers and then, like the telepathic link between E.T. and Elliott, passing that information to his son; it is the ambiguity of this that makes the sequence very satisfying).

Finally, Indy arrives at his destination and discovers an ancient knight who, having drank from the Grail long ago, is still alive to guard it. He assumes that Indy is the knight who has come to relieve him of his duty, to vanquish him and keep the Grail safe. The theme of fate, present in other Spielberg films, now comes to the fore in this scene. Oftentimes in his adventures, Indy is regarded as a predetermined messenger or savior sent to help solve a problem (as in Temple of Doom when the Indian shaman believes Indy was sent by their god). Although Indy is always skeptical about this, in a way the hopes of these other "believers" turn out to be true. This film will end, for example, with Indy causing the Grail to indeed end up in a safe place where it can no longer be sought after for evil purposes. When Donovan and Elsa enter, Donovan looks around at the dozens of shiny goblets and wonders which one is the real Grail. The Knight tells him he must choose. Elsa chooses for him and selects a glittering gold chalice. Donovan drinks from it and (in the movie's equivalent of the melting faces from Raiders) quickly ages to the point that he becomes a pile of dust. Hilariously, the knight dryly observes: "He chose... poorly." Indy then scans the cups and notices one that looks very plain and simple. "That's the cup of a carpenter." he observes. He grabs it and drinks from it. The knight informs him that he has chosen wisely (this goes along with Spielberg's philosophy of the extraodrinary being found in the mundane) and that neither he nor the Grail can pass beyond the great seal at the entrance. "That is the boundary and the price of immortality."

Indy quickly runs back to his father and has him drink from the cup. Miraculously, his wound heals and he stands up. Henry smiles at his son, happy to see him, and then looks down at the cup in his hand. Finally, he has found the very thing that he has been seeking his whole life. When Elsa tries to take the cup from the temple, however, the entire place starts to rumble. The ground opens up and the Grail falls between a crevice. Indy dives for Elsa and grabs her hand as she hangs over the abyss. Overcome with greed, she unwisely reaches out for the Grail with one of her hands (despite Indy's pleading with her to give him both her hands because he can't hold her) and finally falls to her death. Suddenly Indy slips over and is grabbed by his father. Now, the sitaution is reversed. Indy is within reach of the Grail and his father is losing his grip on his son. Indy reaches for the cup, overcome with the same greed, but when Henry calls him "Indiana" for the first time in his life, it gets Indy's attention. He turns to look at his father who says, "Let it go." At last, the two are equals. Indy gives Henry both his hands and is pulled to safety. He, Henry, Marcus and Sallah flee the temple as it is sealed up forever.

In the final scene, as the four men stand just outside the temple, Henry tells Indy that Elsa never really believed in the Grail, that she only thought she'd found a prize. Henry on the other hand, had finally found what he had asked for twenty-six years earlier when he first sketched the painting in his diary: illumination. This illumination, though, is more than just spiritual; it is familial. Henry has now attained some wisdom with regards to his son. He sees Indy in a new light just as Indy sees his father in one. As the two mount their horses, it is revealed that Indy's real name is "Henry Jones, Jr." and that "Indiana" was actually the name of the dog. Marcus announces that he knows the way out and clumsily rides off on his horse. Indy and the others take off after him as the now iconic "Raiders march" swells and, in an actualization of the old Hollywood cliche (and an image reminiscent of a shot in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia), the four men literally ride off into the sunset. It is the perfect ending for Indiana Jones.

So, where does Last Crusade hold up in the Indiana Jones trilogy? Well, that depends on what one expects from an Indiana Jones movie. If one prefers pure visceral entertainment, non-stop thrilling action scenes, then Last Crusade would probably be the least of the three and Temple of Doom the greatest. If one likes more drama and character devlopment emphasized (even if it comes at the expense of some of the action) then Last Crusade would be the best of the three. If, however, one likes a nice balance of the two elements (I happen to be in this category) then one would probably prefer Raiders (as I do). Although I personally love all three films and think that any one of them is superior to most stuff being produced by Hollywood today, I tend to go in the order of Raiders first, Last Crusade second and then Temple of Doom third. I know not everyone shares that sentiment and that's fine. It's just my opinion.

Finally, I should probably say something said about the upcoming fourth film.

Although at the time, Last Crusade was conceived as the final cinematic adventure of Indiana Jones, in the passing years Spielberg, Lucas and Ford all discussed the possibly of doing a fourth one. After many years of teasing people with promises to do it, in June of 2007 principal photography began and the still unnamed fourth (and this time for certain final) installment of the succesful series was underway. While I was skeptical for a long time that a fourth Indy film was a good idea, I have to admit that now I am, like a lot of fans, greatly looking forward to it. The filmmakers seem to be going in the right direction by bringing Marion Ravenwood (the only woman who could ever be a fitting macth for Indy) back into the story. Because Sean Connery has retired from acting, Indy's father will, unfortunately, not be appearing in this one (or so we've been told) but Indy will have a son (played by the talented Shia Lebeouf) and the cast will also include such fine actors as John Hurt and Cate Blanchett. Indy will no doubt be much older and more worn in this one, but as we all know, "it's not the years, it's the mileage." The film is scheduled to hit theatres in May of 2008 (exactly 19 years since the release of the last one and, coincidentally, the same summer that another Batman movie featuring the Joker will appear). Whether this will be a fitting send-off for one of cinema's greatest heroes remains to be seen but I will relish finding out (I'll be there opening night with everyone else). One thing is for certain though... if anybody can make it work, it's the people behind this movie: actor Harrison Ford, writer/producer George Lucas and, of course, director Steven Spielberg.

TOMORROW: Spielberg's love story

DAY 16: Empire of the Sun (1987)

2007-08-16T18:33:00.001-07:00

Continuing his artistic "adolescence" (a period where he tried to grow up but didn't quite succeed) Spielberg followed the controversial Color Purple with the epic wartime drama Empire of the Sun. Although the latter did not connect with either critics or audiences at the time of its release, and although it still suffers from some of his typical storytelling indulgences and occasional heavy-handedness, it nonetheless manages to surpass the preceding film with a more mature treatment of its subject matter and a greater congruity between its content and its style. Indeed, while it may not be one of his masterpieces, I believe Empire of the Sun is perhaps Spielberg's most underrated work.

In many ways the story of Empire of the Sun seems to have been designed for Steven Spielberg because it combines several of his signature themes with his filmmaking strengths. It concerns a young British boy (children) named James Graham who is living in Shanghai with his parents (family) in Shanghai when the Japanese invade (WWII). During the attack James is separated from his parents (divorce) and placed in a Japanese labor camp for four years before eventually reuniting with his parents. In addition to these common Story elements, Empire of the Sun also contains two Spielbergian trademarks. Firstly, there is light. As an immense lover of light, Spielberg uses it to great advantage throughout Empire. He even allows his ultimate symbol for light and life--the sun--to appear frequenty on screen (as he has done in many of his films), on the film's one-sheet (as it did in Color Purple) and, for the first time, in the film's title. Secondly, there's flight (a Spielbergian hallmark that we haven't discussed much before now). Although it has been featured in such films as Close Encounters, E.T., "The Mission" and even both Raiders films, Empire of the Sun not only works flight into the film as a major plot point but employs it in a symbolic manner, associating it with religious/metaphysical ideas (flight would also feature prominently into the plots of three of Spielberg's subsequent four films).

However, what makes Empire an especially significant entry in the ouevre of Spielberg (at least in the opinion of this critic) is that it manifests on screen what may be Spielberg's purest expression of his desire to "grow up;" to see reality through adult eyes and operate in an adult world. In the guise of the young Jamie (later given the more grown-up name of "Jim") Spielberg creates a character who views the events of war initially through the playful, optimistic and inexperienced vision of a child: seeing all of the battles and air raids as more or less games being played out for his own amusement. Eventually, through constant exposure to the horrific realities that war brings (the hunger, the death, the pain, the suffering, etc) Jim's fantasies are exploded (literally) and he not only becomes completely independant--learning to survive without the aid of any parental figures--but to think unselfishly, responsibly and maturely. Empire of the Sun is, at its core, a story about a boy becoming a man: a reality that Spielberg himself was desperately trying to achieve in real life.

When British director David Lean, whom Spielberg had always admired, contacted Steven requesting that he acquire the rights to an autobiographical novel by J.G. Ballard which he hoped to direct (with Spielberg producing), he was more than happy to comply. Unfortunately the story had already been bought by someone else and Spielberg had to return to the revered filmmaker with the bad news. When the rights did become available, Spielberg happily passed along the information to Lean who by that time had changed his mind. Lean then suggested that Spielberg himself direct the film since it was closer to his sensebilities anyway. This was music to Spielberg's ears who had admitted: "From the moment I read the novel, I secretly wanted to do it myself. A child saw things through a man's eyes as opposed to a man discovering things through the child in him. It was just the reverse of what I felt was my credo." Spielberg also recognized the Truffaut-like aspects of the project. "I was attracted to the idea that this was [about] a death of innocence, not an attenuation of childhood, which by my own admission and everybody's impression of me is what my life has been."

In the role of Jim, Spielberg cast (out of more than 4,000 auditioners) a 13-year-old Welsh newcomer named Christan Bale and once again coached an honest, natural and believable performance out of a juvenile actor. Of course, a lot of the credit must also be given to young Bale's enormous talent, which he has demonstrated many times in a variety of different roles over the course of the twenty-year career that followed. In the part of Basie, the clever American who takes Jim under his wing (for a time becoming a sort of surrogate father figure), Spielberg hired up-and-coming star/Academy Award nominee John Malkovich of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Rounding out the cast were a collection of Asian, American and English faces: some fresh (including a young Ben Stiller and Joe Pantaliano as other Americans) and some more familiar (Miranda Richardson as the long-suffering Mrs. Victor, Passage to India's Nigel Havers as the altruistic Dr. Rawlins and Pink Panther's Burt Kwouk in a small role as a Christmas party guest; author J.G. Ballard himself also made a cameo appearance in the party scene_. Playwright Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) helped write the screenplay and Spielberg, once again, used Allen Daviau as cinematographer, Michael Kahn as editor and John Williams (absent from The Color Purple) contributed one of his most lyrical and sensetive scores ever.

Wanting authenticity from the very beginning, Spielberg shot the film in the People's Republic of China (the first major Hollywood movie ever to do so). Since they were limited to twenty-one days, Spielberg ensured that only the scenes which absolutely had to be shot in Shanghai would be. Even working under such intense time constraints, Spielberg knew exactly what he wanted for each shot and was determined to get it. Several shots employed thousands of extras, thirty-five Japanese/Chinese translators to convey Spielberg's directions to the crowd and hundreds of policemen to keep order. It was Spielberg's most epic undertaking up to that point. After completing photography in China, Spielberg traveled to England to shoot in Sunningdale, Cheshire and Knutsford, Berkshire (as well as returning to Esltree Studios for interiors). Some filming was also done in Trebujena, Spain.

When it was released in theatres in 1987, Empire received lukewarm reviews. Although, as usual, Spielberg's stunning visuals were praised, his slick, stylized handling of a gritty topic, once again, rubbed people the wrong way. David Ansen of Newsweek observed that "this is a secondhand film, the war filtered through the sensebility of--and atsonishing technique--of Hollywood's greatest virtuoso. And that may account for both its greatness and its failings." Chicago Sun-times critic Roger Ebert wrote: "The movie is wonderfully staged and shot, and the prison camp looks and feels like a real place. But Spielberg allows the airplanes, the sun and the magical yearning to get in his way." In a more positive review Janet Maslin of the New York Times said that much of the film was "set forth so spectacularly that the film seems to speak a language all its own. In fact it does for its clear Spielberg works in a purely cinematic idiom that is quite singular. Art and artifice play equal parts in the telling of this tale. And the latter, even though intrusive at times, is part and parcel of the film's overriding style." It also perhaps didn't help that two other films (also based on true stories) were released that same year which dealt with the subject of WWII as seen through the eyes of a young boy: John Boorman's Hope and Glory and Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants. Although it could be argued that Spielberg's film might not hold up quite as strongly in comparison to these others, taken on its own merit it is rather extraordinary.

It can be seen as somewhat ironic that the director who for years had been attacked for not attempting more mature films was now being criticized for that very thing. Again, although the film does have its share of Spielbergian sentimental moments, the overall effect of the film is stunning. It really should be approached less as a traditional WWII story, a document of a particular time and place, and more as a "tone poem," a Terence Malick-like meditation on the sights, sounds and ideas that accompany war (except without the narration). Like Copolla's Apocalypse Now the film starts out with a conventional narrative style only to have it descend into a more psychological/spiritual experience; a glimpse into the mind and heart of the young boy who is witnessing these harrowing events and, consequently, gradually "losing touch with reality" as a result. It may be quite surreal at times but, unlike The Color Purple, that particular aesthetic is consistent with Spielberg's approach to the material.

Empire of the Sun opens with a crawl (and a rather unnecessary narration) informing us that "in 1941, when Japan and China were in a state of undeclared war, thousands of Westerners, protected by the diplomatic security of the International Settlement, were living in Shanghai." For the first time in a Spielberg film there are no opening credits. Only the main title--a beautiful piece of animation wherein the words "EMPIRE OF THE SUN" are lit from behind by a rising sun--appears underneath the crawl. A black screen fades up to images of flotsam and jetsam (including wooden crates containing bodies) floating in Shanghai Harbor (a shot reminiscent of the opening of Hitchcock's Lifeboat). The voice of a child starts to sing the lovely "Suo Guan" and we move in on a church where a boys choir has joined in the angelic voice of the solo singer. We are then introduced to Jamie, the soloist. He is looking around and yawning, bored by the whole affair. The juxtaposition of a child singing beautifully but coldly, with no apparent passion or interest in what he is doing, is an interesting one. It establishes Jamie's character as a skeptical participant in the religious rituals in which he finds himself.

Back at his home, his father engaged in some golf in the backyard while the mother plays paino in the living room. Jamie rides his bike around holding a flaming toy plane, much to he chagrin of the family's Asian female servant who chases Jamie frantically fearful that he will burn the whole property down. In this, and the following scenes, Jamie's spoiled, selfish nature is played out in none-too-ambigious manner. When the same female servant tries to obey the parents' wishes in keeping Jamie from eating before bed, he responds: "You have to do what I say." As his parents tuck him in for the night, Jamie starts to talk about God and why the reason we can never see him is because he's "always playing tennis." This scene and the earlier one of Jamie playing with the toy airplane establish the boy's love for and fascination with flying (his room also being filled with model aircraft). As his parents leave the room Jamie asks: "If God is above us, does it mean 'up'--like flying?" Thus, Jamie (and by association Spielberg) imbibes the act of flying with some metaphysical significance: associating flight with the divine.

One particular shot in this scene of an "idyllic" family is virtually identical to the famous painting by Norman Rockwell (a favorite artist of Spielberg's) depicting a father holding a newspaper in his hand as a mother covers up their sleeping boys with a bed sheet. Interestingly, the title of the painting is "Freedom from Fear." This very much applies to Jamie's situation right now. He feels warm and safe at this point in his life. There is no discomfort. There is no inescurity. His parents take care of his every need and, as a result, he has no fear. This will all change shortly however.

The following day, the family leaves for a Christmas masquerade party. Jamie is dressed in an Aladdin-style costume (his and his parents gaudy outfits serving as a stark contrast to the poor, dirty masses teeming the streets they must pass through in order to arrive at their destination) and carries a toy glider. Once there, Jamie plays outdoors with his glider, throwing it into the air and watching as it sails around freely in the sky. Before chasing off after it, the host of the party (Max) says: "I hear you've resigned from the scouts." to which Jamie replies: "I've become an atheist!" Like Indiana Jones before him, Jamie is unconvinced of the existence of God. Flying is perhaps the closest thing Jamie can ever find that approaches anything supernatural. What follows next is a fantastic sequence wherein Jamie stumbles upon a crashed airplane, climbs into the cockpit and pretends that he is engaged in air-to-air combat with the "enemy": namely, his glider which the wind whips and whirls around him in remarkably well-orchestrated manner (almost as if guided by an invisble hand). This is one of those scenes that tends to either turn people off to the conceit or engage their imagination and fully involve them in the world of the film. Personally, I'm in the latter category. I think the scene is a magnificent little ballet between the boy and the toy (aided in no small part by Daviau's lighter-than-air photography, Kahn's wonderful editing and Williams' ethereal music). It also foreshadows an incredible sequence that will occur later in the film where Jamie "dances" with real aircraft during a real air raid.

After his little "battle" with the glider, Jamie then steps down out of the plane and climbs a nearby hill to retrieve it where he accidentally stumbles upon a group of Japanese soldiers waiting for something. The mood has suddenly changed from whimsical to suspenseful, the harsh reality of the war intruding into Jamie's fantasy for the first (but not last) time in the film. Jamie's father and Max call out to Jamie to not run but simply turn and walk toward them slowly. Jamie does so and every soldier climbs to the top of the hill to watch as Jamie and the two men casually depart. Max suggests that as things seem to be heating up, his friend should take Mary and their boy and get out soon. On the car ride home, John announces they're going to spend the next few nights in a hotel.

In the early morning of the first night at the hotel, explosions rock the city and great lights fill the sky. Shanghai is under attack. John tries to get his family to safety but the commotion in the street is so intense that he loses the grip of his wife's hand and gets carried away by the crowd. "Hang on to Jamie!" are the last words he is heard crying out to her. Mary tries desperately to hold on to Jamie's hand, telling him "Jamie, don't let go." Like other Spielbergian mothers, Mary is committed to protecting her son. In fact, it is really Jamie's fault that the two will soon become separated.

Someone bumps into Jamie and he drops his toy plane. For a split-second he lets go of his mother's hand to retrieve it. It is a decision that will change the course of his life forever. When he turns back she is gone, having been swept away by the force of the crowd herself. Jamie climbs to the top of a car to try to find his mother and when he finally spots her she is already quite a distance away from him. He screams "MOM! MOMMY!" and she yells at him to go home because she'll meet him there. Immediately shots ring out as Chinese militia fire at the Japanese soldiers marching down the street. Miraculously Jamie avoids getting hit, weaving his way around the carnage with an almost immortal nature. He does, however, see a man get shot down right in front of him, almost within his reach. His expression is one of horror but also of fascination. He has never seen a man get killed before, so he almost doesn't know what to make of it. Before the film is done, though, he'll see many more.

Jamie returns home but finds the place abandoned. He runs up the stairs and notices a mess in his mother's bedroom, the floor being covered with talcom powder. As author Doug Brode observes: "Like Robinson Crusoe noticing Friday's footprints on the beach, a wide-eyed Jamie spots a footprint in the talc. He smiles, intrigued by this image, and steps closer. Slowly, however, the smile disappears from his face. His innocence becomes sorely tested when he finds more footprints and jagged lines, resembling the scraping of fingers across the surface of the floor, suggesting a struggle... perhaps even rape. As he stares at the evidence, Jamie becomes aware that somrthing terrible has happened in this house. Again, the painful reality has intruded into Jamie's safe universe. It is a metaphorical (as well as perhaps literal) violation and to keep that cognition from coming into being Jamie rushes to the window and throws it open, allowing the wind to blow away all the powder and its implications." He runs down the stairs and sees his former servants carrying valuable furniture out of the house. Jamie yells at them: "What do you think you're doing?" The woman turns, silently walks up to Jamie and slaps him across the face. Jamie is shocked. Nobody has ever done that to him before. He looks almost as if he wants to cry but is still too stunned to do so. The woman the goes right back to work, having done what she wanted to do for a long time.

After spending many days in the empty estate waiting for his parents to come, eating every last scrap of food available and rebelliously riding his bicycle through the house Jamie realizes he's going to starve if he doesn't so something. He rides his bike into town to try and turn himself over to the Japanese hoping to be put someplace where he'll get some food. He approaches the first group of soldiers he can find. As they are sitting around a table eating a meal, he gets their attention and holds up his hands saying "I surrender." They laugh mockingly as they mimic his words and actions. Jamie cannot seem to get himself captured. Nobody cares. He has become the boy that nobody wants.

At one point Jamie runs into an American named Frank (Joe Pantoliano) who nearly hits Jamie with his truck. Frank takes him back to his hiding place where Jamie meets another American named Basie (John Malkovich). Basie allows Jamie to share in his cooked rice and also gives him "a new name to go with his new life. He calls him "Jim." This name change is significant as it is the first step the boy will take toward maturing into a grown-up. If he is going to leave his childish ways behind, he must also leave his childish name behind. Jim happily adopts this new name. In doing so he is also giving tremendous control over his life to this new friend. Jim clearly admires Basie and wants to emulate/please him. Thus, Basie will become essentially a mentor to Jim. As a tough American sailor, he represents everything romantic and heroic. As the film progresses basie's true character will become more and more apparent to Jim.

After a series of misadventures result in Jim, Basie and Frank getting captured by the Japanese, they end up in a large warehouse with hundreds of other prisoners of war (including Max). It is here that Spielberg introduces three other significant characters: Dr. Rawlins, who will become an academic teacher to Jim and the Victors who will become sort of foster parents to Jim (if perhaps not very loving foster parents). Seeing that people are dying of disease by the dozens in this place, Jim realizes that the only way to survive is to get selected by their captors and taken out of there. Basie, Jim, Dr. Rawlins, Frank, Max and the Victors are all chosen and driven to Soochow Creek labor camp.

At this point the story leaps ahead four years and we pick up Jim in his new life. We first see him talking briefly with a Japanese boy who lives on the other side of the fence that surrounds the camp (this boy is seen playing with a glider very similar to Jim's earlier in the film; this sets up a kinship between them and also introduces the familiar Spielbergian theme of communication). Jim has grown accustomed to camp living, trading goods and services with a series of different people, running back and forth between various places (his "house," the hospital, the "mess hall", etc) and groups of people (the young children, the British, the Americans, even the head of the camp Sergeant Nagata). What is remarkable is that through make-up and acting Christian Bale really does look like he's aged four years even though clearly the filmmakers did not shut down production for that length of time allowing him to grow. He is starting to look like a new person: first the name, now the appearance. Little by little the old Jim is disappearing. One day Jim enters the hospital where Dr. Rawlins is trying to revive a female patient. He asks for assistance and so Jim starts pumping the woman's chest. Alas, it is to no avail. The woman is dead but Jim thinks he sees her eyes move to look at him. Excited that he could "bring her back" he starts pushing faster and harder until Rawlins tells him that he only pumped a little blood to her brain for a moment. That's all.

After visiting Basie and learning that he plans to try and escape at some point, Jim returns to his home and his new "family" (the Victors) who seem to resent having to take care of him. That night, as Jim hears faint explosions, he awakens and looks out the window to see lights in the distance, but his interest is soon grabbed by something else. His adopted "father" has started kissing his "mother" in her sleep. Jim's utter ignorance of and inexperience with sex causes him to regard this intimate scene with a keener interest than the spectacular battles outside. This is another indicator of Jim's gradual development into a grown-up. The formerly "romantic" appeal of bombs has now been replaced by a fascination for more "adult" activities.

The following morning, at the behest of Basie and in order to try and earn his way into the American group, Jim sneaks under the wire surrounding the camp to investigate whether there are really mines out there or not. This episode starts to reveal Basie's cold, calculating and manipulative nature. He may not, as he says, believe there are any mines out there but he is willing to put the life of a young boy at risk to prove it. Although a soldier almost discovers Jim, he is saved at the last minute by the same Japanese boy whom Jim established contact with from across the fence. The boy points the solider away from Jim and after he has left turns and smiles at Jim, indicating that he knew where Jim was but helped him anyway. Jim smiles back. He now has another friend in the camp. And so, Jim has survived his ordeal and become an honorary "American in the process." He moves out of the Victors' place and in with the Americans.

As Jim is now allowed to come into the American's bunker whenever he pleases, he learns that the time Basie plans to escape is getting closer and closer. Jim has made Basie promise to take him along with him and reminds him of his promise. Basie says he remembers and he will not forget. At that moment, Sgt. Nagata enters and finds that Basie has been stealing some of his belongings. He knock Basie to the ground, allowing him a quick second to tell Jim: "You're in charge of my stuff." He then proceeds to beat Basie horribly. In the following scene we see Basie lying in a bed, badly bruised and bloody as Jim tries to comfort him saying that when he finds his parents Basie could stay with them. Basie tries to make sure that Jim isn't feeling sorry for him because that would be terribly detrimental to his pride. After a brief silence, Basie turns to Jim and asks: "What are you doing here? I told you to look after my stuff." Jim guiltily admits: "They were bigger than me." Thus, all of Basie's earthly possessions have been taken by his fellow Americans and Jim, because of his youth and size, was unable to prevent it. Basie's utilitarianism become blatant here. His "stuff" is more important than his friendship with Jim and he clearly regrets putting a "kid" in charge of his things. After Basie recovers, he wanders quietly into the bunker and sits in his now bare room. Jim is waiting for him but he's so ashamed to have "let Basie down" that he silently grabs his suitcase filled with all of his belongings (paper clippings, toys and other childish things) and just leaves. What follows is, I think, the most extraordinary moment in this or any Spielberg film.

In the light of the early morning sun, Jim witnesses the initiation and maiden voyage of three Kamikaze pilots. As they sing their Japanese anthem Jim starts to sing the same song he did in the beginning of the film. The pilots climb into their cockpits and take off. As the song finishes the beauty and wonder of the moment is violently interrupted by one of the planes exploding in mid-air. American bombers are attacking the air base next to the camp. Jim runs to the roof of one of the buildings and watches as planes strafe the runways and hangars explode in great balls of flame.

Jim catches sight of one plane in particular (a P-51) and sees the pilot waving at him. What makes this exchange truly extraordinary is that to this day it is not clear to me whether Jim really saw the pilot wave or whether he only thought he did. The ambiguty is further enhanced by John Williams' score (which, as he did with Close Encounters, features a choir of voices) making the moment seem like a religious conversion, a beautific vision of sorts. Through the passing of this plane by him in flight, Jim is not only finally "seeing" God (which he wondered earlier in the film could even be done), God is actually waving at him. Jim shouts in ecstasy and leaps up and down exclaiming: "YEAH! P-51, CADILLAC OF THE SKIES!" as explosions shake the earth all around him. It may be Armageddon but Jim is in a state of grace.

It's as this point that the difference between the reality of war and the fantasy that Jim has engaged in for so long have become indiscernible. What is real and what is a hallucination? We don't know, but after four years in the camp, perhaps Jim is finally starting to "lose it." After all, it's hard enough for an adult mind to deal with the horrors of war. It only makes sense that a child's mind would eventually snap. The genius of Spielberg is that he puts the audience right in the mind of Jim with the subjective camerawork and operatic music. We know Jim is in danger up on that roof but we can't help but share in his elation. It is a sublime moment and a truly cinematic sequence.

After the attack, the Japanese move all the prisoners out of the camp and they make their long trek across the desert toward nowhere in particualr . Nobody knows where they are going. In fact, nobody even seems to care as long as they are getting away from the camp. Along the way Jim stops to throw his suitcase filled with the things that remind him of his former life into nearby water. This is, I would argue, a very significant moment. It is essentially Jim saying "goodbye" to his old life. For years he scampered to find things to connect him with his former self. Now he is completely abandioning it. Likewise, I think Spielberg (in the making of this film) is trying to shed the ways of his former "life." To put away childish things and become a new person, a grown man.

Eventually they end up in Nantao Stadium (in a very surreal scene) where it seems every item stolen by the Japanese has been placed, still in pristine condition. Jim notices what looks like his family's old limousine but he can't be sure. As he said to Dr. Rawlins after the attack on the camp: "I can't remember what my parents look like." He has been away from his old life for so long, he has forgotten it. In an interesting case of the child becoming the parent, Jim feeds water to Mrs. Victor (having been abandoned by her husband) as Max tells him that they're all moving up country because there's no food here. Jim tries to entice Mrs. Victor along but she resists saying "No, don't go. Better here." She wants to stay with her things. These trinkets, however worthless they may be to her now, remind her of her old life and so she is happy, even though she is dying. Jim tells her to pretend she's dead. They lie on the ground so everyone will go onward leaving them behind. The following morning, Mrs. Victor really is dead. As Jim looks at her lifeless body, his field of vision is suddenly filled with tremendous white light (revisiting Spielberg's light theme again). Unbeknownst to him, it is the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima thousands of miles away. Jim, however, thinks it is Mrs. Victor's soul leaving her body and going to heaven. When he later learns via a radio broadcast it was a bomb, he describes it as a "God taking a photograph." Again, like Indiana Jones before him, the atheist seems to have now become a believer.

Jim makes his way back to the labor camp alone at the very moment (somewhat unbelievably) that Basie has returned. Jim also encounters his Japanese friend, distraught that after much training he hasn't gotten the chance to fly either. The boy tries to give Jim a mango but his kindness is misinterpreted by Basie and his conhorts who shoot the boy dead. In anger, Jim yells at them: "He was my friend!" When Basie replies: "He was a Jap!" Jim yells back: "The war is over!" At that moment, Jim thinks that by witnessing the explosion of the atom bomb he has been given the power to bring back to life all the people who have died (as he did with the female patient earlier). In another rather heavy scene, Jim starts trying to resuscitate his friend repeating: "I can bring everyone back! Everyone! I can bring everyone! EVERYONE!" For a brief moment Jim sees his own face on the body of the boy he's trying to bring back emphasizing again that the "old" Jim is dead and he's never coming back.

When Basie pulls Jim off the body and tries to comfort him saying they can live together as Jim suggested earlier in the film, Jim wrestles free from his grasp and just stands staring at him. Jim no longer wants anything to do with Basie. He now seens him for what he really is: a selfish opportunist who cares for nothing or nobody other than himself. He's a man for whom survival is the only goal and Jim no longer sees anything in him to admire. As before, the tables are turned and the child has become more of a "man" than the grown-up. In a final gesture of his contempt, Jim rips off the dog tags Basie gave him and throws them away.

As "frigidaires" fall from the sky Jim rides around the camp on his bicycle laughing. He has now become so removed from reality that he doesn't even notice that the camp has American soliders in it. He rides right past them, not stopping until one steps directly in his path and grabs the handlebars of his bike. Jim looks up and whispers: "I surrender."

In the film's rather emotional final scene, a group of orphans are standing in a shelter waiting for their parents to come collect them. As a series of couples approach scanning the crowd looking for their own sons and daughters's Jim's parents walk right by Jim, not even recognizing him. Of course, Jim looks nothing like he did before. He looks like a veteran, a shell of his former self. Finally the mother catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye. She walks over to him and says: "Jamie?" Jim turns to look at her but recognition does not register on his face either. He doesn't remember her. Slowly, it starts to come back to him. He removes her hat and strokes her hair. He touches her lips, puts his hands on her arms (as E.T. did with Elliott at that film's climax) and slowly moves in for an embrace. He has found his parents again and although his mother and father are quite emotional over this reunion, Jim is merely tired; too numb to feel anything anymore. The final shot of Jim is a close-up of his eyes seen over his mother's shoulder. They are open and gazing upward before they slowly close. At last, after four years of hell, Jim can finally rest. We see images of people celebrating in the streets of Shanghai and the camera beings us back out into the harbor (where the film began) with the exact same song, "Suo Guan" playing on the soundtrack. Everything has come full circle, except that instead of seeing coffins with corpses in them floating in the water the camera rests on Jim's suitcase having traveled all the way there from where he first threw it away. In a way, though, it is a coffin with a corpse in it: the corpse of Jamie Graham. Jamie no longer exists. The older and wiser Jim Graham does. Jim is a boy no longer. Now he is a man. Demonstrating Spielberg's growing maturity, this finale is anything but a typically Spielbergian happy ending. There is a much darker, sadder tone to it; a melancholy undercurrent to what could have been a very sappy, saccharine reuionion scene. At best it is bittersweet. The family may be together, but it will never be the same family again.

In the end, it's a shame that Empire of the Sun (one of my personal favorite of Spielberg's films) was not received better because, after two so-called "failures" to make a successful serious film, it seemed to make Speilberg a little hesitant to try his hand at anything heavy for a while after that. Badly burned, Spielberg subsequently returned to more familiar territory: escapist fantasy entertainment.

TOMORROW: Keeping up with the Joneses

DAY 15: The Color Purple (1985)

2007-08-15T21:01:00.001-07:00

In reaching the halfway point of "31 Days of Spielberg" we arrive at a significant shift in the life of the famous director. As he approached his fortieth birthday, Spielberg felt the desire to want to tell more dramatic, character-driven stories free of any fantasy elements and special effects. If one were to characterize Spielberg’s career as a “journey” (which I have), that journey can be almost neatly divided into three distinct "phases" which, not coincidentally I think, correspond perfectly with three stages of human development. If the early period of his career can be called his professional “childhood” and the later part (from Schindler’s List on) his “adulthood,” then The Color Purple was about to bring Spielberg into his artistic “adolescence,” a time where he desperately wanted to “grow up” and be taken more seriously as a filmmaker but, in spite of his enormous talent, still lacked the maturity, perspective and responsibility of being able to deal in heavier subject matter with anything other than juvenile sensebilities.

The Color Purple began its long and eventful "life" as a Pulliter Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker. Basing it partially on the experiences of her own ancestors, the book told the story (through letters and diary entries) of a poor, uneducated black girl named Celie growing up in the American South of the early-to-mid 1900's and deals with the many trials and hardships she faces. Spielberg friend and producing partner Kathleen Kennedy read the book and, knowing that the director wanted to explore different kinds of projects, suggested Steven read it. He did and was so struck by it that he felt he wanted to try his at hand at bringing the story to the big screen. Learning that Warner Bros. had already optioned the rights Spielberg went about the task of trying to get hired as director. However, leery of Hollywood's track record depicting of African-Americans, author Walker had made sure that she retained approval of the script, actors and director. Thus, for the first time in a long while Spielberg had to "audition" for the job. He met with Walker and she was so taken with his enthusiasm (in addition to which she had seen and loved the movie E.T.) that she gave Steven her blessing. Shortly thereafter, Spielberg had second thoughts about being the right one for the job--thinking perhaps the story would be better told by a black director or a woman--and voiced his concern to Quincy Jones who encouraged Spielberg by claiming that he didn't have to be an alien to direct E.T.

As he had Peter Benchley do on Jaws, Spielberg asked Walker if she would be interested in adapting her own novel for the screen. Reluctantly, Walker agreed and penned a screenpla--which, interestingly, she entitled Look For Me in the Sunset--that she ended up being so dissatisfied with that she begged Spielberg not to use it (though she did end up very involved in the filmmaking process, being on the set quite a bit serving as consultant). The script was instead written by Dutch-born Menno Meyjes (who wrote the teleplay to the Amazing Stories episode "The Mission"). Once again, Allen Daviau served as cinematographer and Michael Kahn edited the picture but there was one notable absence from Spielberg's usual filmmaking "company": composer John Williams. Although it wasn't the first time Spielberg hadn't used Williams since Sugarland Express (both the "Kick the Can" segment of Twilight Zone and Poltergiest were scored by Jerry Goldsmith) it was the first--and as it turned out only--feature film directed solely by Spielberg to not feature a Williams score. Instead Spielberg employed the musical talents of co-producer Quincy Jones. The interesting thing about this switch, though, is that the result is still very "Williams-esque" in style and tone, which seems to suggest that regardless of who scores a Spielberg film, the material invariably inspires a uniquely "Spielbergian" sound.

In casting the film, Spielberg followed his usual philosophy of hiring the people that he thought worked best in the roles, even if they were relatively new and inexperienced. Comedienne Whoopi Goldberg (in her debut acting role) was given the seminal part of Celie, Witness and Places in the Heart star Danny Glover played the abusive "Mister," another first-time actress named Oprah Winfrey played the fiery Sofia, Willard E. Pugh played Sofia's husband Harpo (which, ironically, is "Oprah" spelled backwards) and Margaret Avery played the beautiful blues singer Shug Avery. Coincidentally, Spielberg had already worked with Avery over 12 years earlier in his made-for-TV movie Something Evil (in which she played a very small part).

Filming began in July of 1985 and even before production started, the film was surrounded by controversy. Legrad H. Clegg II, head of a group called the Coalition Against Black Exploitation, said: "The elevation of Alice Walker's book to the status of a movie will be devastating to the black community. The book's degradation of the black male and its subtle promotion of lesbianism as an alternative to failed heterosexual relationships conveys a negative message that is destructive to the black family." When Clegg's group demanded a prescreeing of the film and was turned down, there were demonstrations outside the offices of Quincy Jones.

On the other side of the controversy, however, stood passionate proponents of the book who were extremely skeptical that Spielberg (a white Jewish male known for his sentinemtality) was the best choice to direct a dark, gritty story of a victimized black woman. Despite his own doubts Spielberg took a defensive position: "The issue was not the color of my skin but whether I'd make a good movie out of the book." His comments about understanding the pangs of prejudice due to his own bouts with anti-Semitism as a child (though he tried to make clear that his childhood troubles didn't even come close to approaching the level of the character Celie's) probably didn't do much to ease the concerns of his detractors.

Another source of contention was the film's treatment of homosexuality (a significant element in the book). Feeling at the time that mainstream audiences would not be ready for a scene where a woman de-flowers another woman, Spielberg chose to stage the scene between Celie and Shug in a far more subtle and ambiguous (and in his words "poetic") manner. In the film the two merely share a kiss, but whether it is a kiss of romantic love or of simple affection is never made clear. While that approach might have appealed more to conservative theatregoers, while upsetting more liberal ones, it has been said that the decision was based less on Spielberg's discomfort and more on mere fiscal intentions, i.e. to make a PG-13 film rather than an R film allowing more people to see it and, consequently, earning the film more money. It definitely did little to allay the common criticism of Spielberg that his films were devoid of any kind of sex, straight or otherwise. Although at the time Walker was none too pleased with the end result, she eventually decided that she liked the way the scene was done (finding that it emphasized the "sweetness" of the relationship more). In an interesting twist of fate, Spielberg has regretted not going for a more frank and honest interpretation of that exchange.

Another problem Spielberg discovered in the filming of the movie was how hard it was to represent the actual color purple on screen (early on Spielberg had toyed with the idea of shooting The Color Purple in black-and-white but quickly decided that it wouldn't work). The opening sequence, set in a field of flowers, provided particular difficulty as the flowers that were planted were called purple on the packages the seeds came in, but ended up looking more pink. Enormous amounts of discussion occurred over what really was purple and what was pink. The filmmakers ultimately ended up spray-painting a number of the flowers that were closer to the camera (a problem that could easily be solved today digitally) and Daviau had to go into the lab and "re-time" everything to get it to turn out right. In the end, Spielberg was never completely happy with the result.

Despite the tremendous difference between the film's intense subject matter (rape, incest, abuse, racism, etc) and Spielberg's usual fare, it does contain a few of the director's recurring themes. Certainly family is central in The Color Purple (particularly family dysfunction which is probably more potent here than in any other Spielberg story). In fact, in a fascinating bit of providence--of life imitating art--on the day Spielberg shot the film's birth scene, his then wife Amy Irving went into labor and eventually gave birth to Spielberg's firstborn child Max (later, Spielberg used the sound of his own son crying for the newborn infant in the scene). There is also a very strong motherly thread running through the entire story as Celie tries to find the children that she had by her father. Finally, Celie's talk of God and the afterlife (she addresses all of her letters to him) as well as Sofia's eventual affirmation of God's existence near the end of the movie both come back to the religious/metaphysical themes that appear in numerous Spielberg films.

Though the movie was heavily criticized upon its release, it was nonetheless nominated for 11 Oscars. Interestingly, it didn't receive a single one (tying it with 1977's The Turning Point for the record of the most nominations without a win). One of the most bizarre exclusions, though, was the ignoring of Spielberg as director. This was a particularly harsh snub and caused yet another stir for a film that already had its fair share of controversy. While people who worked on the film expressed disbelief and sadness that Spielberg wasn't recognized for the rather sizable part he played in bringing The Color Purple to the big screen, they all still felt priveleged to have been involved in it and even now speak very highly of Spielberg as a director (with Danny Glover actually expressing admiration for Spielberg's "courage"). The experience seemed to be a pleasant one for everyone involved. Many years later, in fact, Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones chose to revisit the story of Celie, Shug and Nettie in a Broadway stage musical version of The Color Purple that they produced. The show has won numerous awards and still tours the country today.

After all the accolades and criticisms, all the love and controversy, all the behind-the-scenes stories and the passage of over twenty years, the film today is itself a bit of a mixed bag. It's a good--though certainly not a great--Spielberg movie. As usual, it cannot be faulted at all from a technical standpoint (Spielberg's use of transitions between scenes are among the best he's ever used). The staging of scenes, though many feel mechanical in nature, is at times impeccable. The moment when Danny Glover's "Mister" throws young Celie's sister out of the house is particularly effective (Spielberg's direction to the young actress playing Nettie was simply: "Whatever happens, don't let him separate the two of you."). It even resulted in a powerful and unscripted moment where the girl playing Nettie screamed out "WHY? WHY?". Also, the look of the movie is quite stunning and gorgeous. In fact, it is almost too beautiful given the nature of the film's content (it feels at times sort of surreal) and Spielberg's abounding optimism and necessity to be positive make for a very confused finished product. His heavy-handed sentimentality, appropriate perhaps in fantasy films like Close Encounters and E.T., comes off as more pedantic and preachy and despite some strong character development at various points in the story (Spielberg did want to make a movie that was only about people after all), several characterizations come off as exeggarted and cartoony. Nevertheless, there are many moving moments throughout. The finale, where Celie and Nettie are reuinted, is actually quite extraordinary. Roger Ebert wrote about the scene: "The affirmation at the end of the film is so joyous that this is one of the few movies in a long time that inspires tears of happiness, and earns them... It is one of the great heart-rending moments in the movies." Indeed, upon reviewing it recently I still found myself (in spite of my own reluctance and the numerous glaring flaws in the film) tearing up once or twice.

Many have spoken about the important impact the film had on the inclusion of more African-American actors and black-themed stories in major big-budget Hollywood movies and that is certainly nothing to be dismissed. The film also represents, in my opinion, the best acting work ever done by both Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey (of which they are, to this day, very proud) who were both included among the many Oscar nominations the film received. As far as the impact of the film on Spielberg's life/career, The Color Purple represents his first attempt to "break out" of his normal comfort zone. Spielberg took a tremendous risk with The Color Purple and although it might not have completely worked out at the time, one can't blame him for trying to challenge himself as an artist, to strech his cinematic talents and push himself into new and provocative areas. It was the first step in a direction that would ultimately result in some of his best work, which lay not too far ahead.

TOMORROW: Spielberg's Empire

DAY 14: Amazing Stories - "Ghost Train" & "The Mission" (1985)

2007-08-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

By the mid-1980's Steven Spielberg had become more than just another director. He had become an institution. Many of the films directed and/or produced by him were among the highest-grossing of all time and his own production company Amblin--named after his amatuer short film--allowed him to develop projects not only for himself to direct but for other filmmakers. Furthermore, as with Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney before him, "Spielberg" had come to represent a certain kind of product: namely, slickly produced, predominately family-friendly fanatasy entertainment. Spielberg's latest venture would fit into that category quite nicely.

In 1985 Spielberg returned to the medium that had halped launch his career: television. He produced a Twilight Zone-like anthology series called Amazing Stories (inspired by a popular science fiction magazine Spielberg loved as a kid). Although the show was nominated for 12 Emmys Awards (resulting in 5 wins) it was unfortunately not a hit and NBC chose not to renew it after the contractual two seasons were up. This was particularly distressing to me as I loved the show when I was a kid. To this day I can hum the John Williams-composed main theme (while seeing the computer-generated opening credits sequence in my head) and like to revisit several of my favorite episodes ("The Main Attraction," "Mummy Daddy," "The Sitter", "Dorothy and Ben" and the Brad Bird-directed cartoon "Family Dog") which I still think hold up rather well tweny years later. My reason, however, for including Amazing Stories as part of "31 Days of Spielberg," is that two episodes (the debut "Ghost Train" and the hour-long "The Mission") were directed by Spielberg himself and therefore are worth a quick look.

"GHOST TRAIN" (broadcast 9/29/85): While living in a house in New Jersey a young Steven Spielberg would lie in his bed at night and hear train whistles blowing in the distance. Spielberg channeled that memory into this story about an old man named Daniel Globe (Robert Blossom of Spielberg's Close Encounters and the upcoming Always) who as a child innocently caused a terrible train wreck that took the lives of everyone on board. Now living with his grown son, his daughter-in-law and his grandson (Lukas Haas), all of whom affectionately call him "Old Pa," Daniel awaits the night that the train will return to finish what it had left undone 75 years earlier. The problem is that the house in which they live is built right over where the old tracks used to be. In the episode's spectacular climax the Highball Express number 407 crashes right through the family's living room and takes Old Pa away to his final destination.

Blossom's gentle, sensetive performance as the grandfather is both sweet and touching (particularly when he recalls the day of the accident with great emotion) and Lukas Haas, fresh off his starring role opposite Harrison Ford in Witness, plays the loving, imaginative grandson. The characters of the mother and father, unfortunately, aren't nearly as strong or interesting. Consequently, the relationship between the old man and the boy is the real heart of the story. The episode was shot with Spielberg's typical warmth and gloss (E.T.'s Allen Daviau served as cinematographer) and John Williams provides a whimsical score but wisely chooses to leave the show's signature set piece, the exciting finale where the train bears down on the house, unscored. The very least that can be said about "Ghost Train" is that it is far superior to the segment Spielberg produced for the Twilight Zone movie.

"THE MISSION" (broadcast 10/3/85): The second and final episode Spielberg directed for Amazing Stories is not only better than "Ghost Train" it's actually better than a few of his feature films. Based on a short story by Spielberg called "Round Trip," this hour long episode (the only one of the first season) written by Color Purple screenwriter Menno Meyjes, involves a WWII bomber flight crew who encounter a major problem when one of their gunners (a cartoonist named Jonathan whom they consider their "lucky charm") gets trapped in the plastic turret on the underside of the plane. With the landing gear refusing to come down and the plane rapidly running out of fuel, the pilot knows he's going to have to to bring the plane down as soon as possible on its belly but in the process Jonathan will be crushed. At the last possible second, something miraculous occurs that saves Jonathan's life.

"The Mission" is notable for several reasons. First, it features a few soon-to-be major stars. Kevin Costner plays the ship's captain, a young Keifer Sutherland plays radio operator "Static" (whose real name is Arnold, a reference to Spielberg's father) and Casey Siemaszko (of Stand By Me and NYPD Blue) plays the pivotal role of Jonathan. Second, it gives Spielberg an opportunity to revisit one of his favorite themes: World War II. Indeed, although it has a touch of fantasy in it, "The Mission" has a very serious tone--at times almost unbearably tense (aided in no small part by Williams great score)--throughout most of it and marks Spielberg's first dramatic handling the subject matter professionally (1941 being a comedy and Raiders being primarily an action film). Although, like "Ghost Train" the plot ultimately builds to its fanciful climax (which I don't have the heart to give away here), the real emotional core of the story is the comraderie between the men on the plane. The scene where they all rub Jonathan's head for the last time is very moving. One can clearly see Spielberg's developing respect for the subject matter, an attutude that would ultimately culminate in his combat masterpiece Saving Private Ryan.

Since part of Spielberg's motivation in creating Amazing Stories was to bring big-budget cinematic sensibilities to the small screen (an endeavor that might seem strange to young people today for whom there is essentially no difference between TV and movies), it only makes sense that he would helm a few of the individual episodes himself (while others were handled by the likes of Clint Eastwood, Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis, Danny Devito and Marty Scorsese) and while they may not perhaps be among his best work, they are nonetheless very strong material for television and worth checking out for any Spielberg completist (the first season is available on DVD).

TOMORROW: The Color of Spielberg

DAY 13: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

2007-08-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

When George Lucas captivated Steven Spielberg with his concept for the action-packed Raiders of the Lost Ark on the beach in Hawaii, Lucas also told his friend that he hoped it would be the first installment of a trilogy. The subsequent success of Raiders ensured that Indiana Jones would have another big-screen adventure and, once again, Spielberg stepped behind the camera as director. It was the first time in his career that he made a sequel to one of his own movies (he had been offered Jaws 2 but declined). What the two ended up creating was certainly a very different--though no less exciting or commercially successful--product than Raiders , but it also turned out to be a rather controversial--not to mention divisive--entry into Spielberg's body of work.

One thing that Lucas was adamant about was that he wanted this second Indiana Jones adventure to be much darker than its predecessor (just as Empire Strikes Back was darker than the original Star Wars). Although Spielberg agreed, he was never fully comfortable with the lengths to which the story went. It has been observed that the clashing visions of producer and director on this project (as opposed to how “in sync” they were with the first one) contributed to its schizophrenic nature. Spielberg has described himself as basically a “hired hand” on this particular film, using his technical skills to help make it as good as it could be but ending up ultimately "less-than-pleased" with the final result. As for why Lucas was pushing for a much darker, stronger tone to this movie (with strong, graphic violence and a narrative involving black magic, torture and slavery), he was going through a divorce at the time and has said that he just simply “wasn’t in a very good mood.” Without indulging in too much Freudian psycho-analysis here, it is interesting to me that at a point in his life when Lucas’ wife was leaving him, he felt compelled to include a scene in the film where a man has his heart ripped out of his chest.

The first thing the filmmakers did in conceiving of the story, that would come to be known as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was to re-insert the set pieces that they were forced to cut from Raiders due to time and budget. To write the script Lucas approached Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (whom he had worked with on American Graffiti and who would later write the Lucas-produced Howard the Duck) in all likelihood because the two had a fascination for India, where this adventure was primarily to be set. Once again religion featured prominently into the film’s story but it was a different religion this time around. The Judaism of Raiders was set aside in favor of Hinduism (with nods to Voodoo). Again, Spielberg planned to put his comfort in telling metaphysical stories to good use.

Most of the original crew from Raiders returned (cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, second unit-director Mick Moore, casting directors Judy Feinberg, Mike Fenton, Mary Selway and, of course, regular Spielberg collaborators Michael Kahn, John Williams, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy). Notably absent were writers Lawrence Kasdan and Phillip Kauffman and replacing Norman Reynolds as production designer was Elliott Scott. The cast was composed almost entirely of new faces. Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones but John Rhys-Davies’ Sallah, Denholm Elliot’s Marcus Brody and, probably most heartbreaking of all, Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood are all absent. A whole series of new characters were created for Temple of Doom. Some of them appealed to audiences, some of them didn’t and, through the experience, Spielberg learned the inherent difficulty of making a sequel “is that you can never satisfy everyone. If you give people the same movie with different scenes, they say: ‘Why weren’t you more original?’ But if you give them the same character in a fantastic new adventure, but with a different tone, you risk disappointing the other half of the audience who just wanted a carbon copy of the first film...” Regardless of what we may think of the final product, credit at least has to be given to Spielberg and Lucas for trying to be original.

Spielberg shot the film in Sri Lanka, Macao and in soundstages at London. Once again, Spielberg came in under schedule and on budget. At one point during principal photography, though, a rather scary problem arose. During a fight scene, Ford severely injured his back to the degree that he could barely work (having to lie on a bed in between takes). He was quickly flown to America where he had a controversial papaya enzyme back surgery performed. Fortunately, it was successful and Ford’s recovery was swift (helped by the fact that the actor was in ridiculously good shape to begin with). Nevertheless, Spielberg did not have Ford for three weeks and since the character of Indiana Jones is in practically every scene in the film, continuing shooting was very tricky. Spielberg basically ended up using famed stuntman Vic Armstrong during that time, shooting mostly in "wide shot" or from the back of the head (when looking at the film carefully, one can tell when it’s truly Indy and when it isn’t) and simply inserting Harrison’s close-ups later. The sequence that most relied on this practice was the fight between Indy and the large Thuggee guard on the conveyor belt. As a result the editing of the sequence is not quite up to the usual Michael Kahn standards. This is understandable given the limitations, but other portions of the film also seem rushed and sloppily put together. Despite several brilliantly cut scenes, Temple of Doom is not edited nearly as well as Raiders.

Although the film did very well at the box office, the critics were not terribly kind to Temple of Doom. David Denby of the New York magazine wrote that it was “heavy-spirited and grating. The frivolous treatment of child slavery makes you slightly sick. This lurid and gloomy trash goes on and on, without a joke anywhere, and it’s not only sadistic and dumb, it’s oppressively ugly. That Spielberg should devote himself to anything so debased in imagination is unbearably depressing.” While it is perhaps a rather apt observation about the sadism and ugliness present in the film, Denby’s passionate critique is still somewhat harsh. It is inaccurate, for example, to suggest the film has no humor. In fact, the film is loaded with humor, albeit arch humor (including corny slapstick gags, sophmoric "gross-out" jokes and cartoonish wide-eyed facial reactions) as Spielberg was desperately trying to counter-act the “opressive darkness” of the film. The problem with the Temple of Doom is not in the lack of humor but in the balancing of the contradictory elements. The perfect blending of scares, thrills and laughs that Spielberg achieved in Raiders becomes simply a matter of excess in Temple of Doom.

The same can be said of the film’s structure and pacing. Spielberg once commented that his worst fear was boring his audience. The breakneck speed and dizzying array of incredible stunts in Temple of Doom displays Spielberg’s desire to avoid such a cinematic "sin." Unfortunately, in attempting to keep from falling off one side of the horse, Spielberg falls off the other. Roger Ebert once wrote: "There is a theory that action is exciting and dialogue is boring. My theory is that variety is exciting and sameness is boring." This phenomenon is demonstrated in Temple of Doom where, once the film starts running from one action sequence into the next without stopping for so much as a breath in between, the effect is disorienting and ultimately uninteresting. Indiana Jones becomes less of a character and more of a prop or stuntman (in some cases literally) simply being pulled from one direction to the other. As Author Douglas Brode writes: “It’s as if he and Lucas convinced themselves that most people would have enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Ark far more if all the human intrerludes had been taken out.”

Another major source of criticism was the film's main female character: the spoiled, gold-digging American nightclub singer Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw). In attempting to do something different from Raiders, Lucas and Spielberg decided to pair Indy with a woman who is not only far from his equal but really does not even belong in an Indiana Jones adventure (hoping, I guess, that the dynamic might provide humor). Throughout the film much of the intended comedy surrounding Willie's character comes from "fish out of water" scenarios. Willie's reactions to these situations, unfortunately, had the effect of not only getting on the nerves of the other characters (as she spends much of the film whining and getting scared by/screaming at just about everything she comes into contact with) but apparently grated on audiences as well. Some criticism came not just from a place of annoyance but from an offended perspective, a contention that Willie was a stereotypically weak and frivolous (always worried about her clothes and her nails) "male-fantasy" version of a woman: beautiful and sexy but with no real mind of her own. This reality was only aggrevated by the fact that the previous heroine was such a strong, independant character. Being a male, I don't pretend to fully understand or appreciate the concerns of the feminists who found much to dislike in Willie Scott. I will say (whether it to be to my credit or shame, I don't know) that I actually thought a fair amount of what she did in the film was pretty funny. I don't necessarily see Capshaw as "representing" anything--I always just took it all as a complete work of fiction and her wildly exaggerated character as just that--and while I absolutely agree that she is not the fleshed-out, interesting and engaging leading lady that Marion Ravenwood was (nor nearly as able a "partner" for Indy), I still prefer Willie to the extremely bland "heroine" of the third film (a woman who, as near as I could tell, had no character whatsoever but simply changed due to the needs of the screenplay). I'd take an obnoxious personality over no personality anyday.

Finally, one of the film’s most lasting impacts on the motion picture industry today is that (along with the Spielberg-produced, Dante-directed Gremlins, released that same summer) it was responsible for the creation of another movie rating. Parents with small children were particularly displeased with Spielberg, whom many saw as a sort of “Walt Disney for the 80’s.” The level of violence and horror in Temple of Doom seemed extreme to many, even coming from the man responsible for Jaws and Poltergeist. Although the movie was given a PG, it was becoming clear that the gap between “family” fare and so-called “adult” entertainment was wider than had been anticipated (Spielberg’s previous clashes over the ratings of his films proved this). Spielberg himself said that he didn’t think Temple of Doom was for anyone under the age of ten and he approached Jack Valenti (then head of the MPAA) asking if there could be another rating designated as midway between PG and R. Valenti acquiesced and, for the first time in decades, a new classification was added. Thus, PG-13 was created and to this day it’s is the rating that most studio executives aim for with their films (“grown-up” enough to appeal to young kids but not too “childish” to turn off teenagers and adults).

An interesting facet of Temple of Doom which I discovered recently (Thank you, Dennis Cozzalio!), is that it's yet another Spielberg film that seems to split people into two almost proportional and equally passionate groups (whereas something like Jaws is almost universally loved). Many regard it as the “black sheep” of the Indy family, not only the worst of the trilogy but perhaps even the worst of all Spielberg’s films (surpassing even the horrendous 1941, which it does bear some resemblance to at times). Still others--who oftentimes seem to be fans of 1941--find it an immensely exciting and thoroughly visceral piece of entertainment, the purest incarnation of Spielberg and Lucas’ desire to re-create the thrill-a-minute action serials upon which the Indiana Jones movies are based. Well, this may sound like a very diplomatic response, but I tend to fall about in the middle. I do agree that it is the least of the three (with Raiders being far-and-away the best and Last Crusade coming in second) but I do not think it is by any means Spielberg's worst film, nor even really a “bad” film. In fact, I think it's quite good and certainly superior to most movies made by Hollywood, either then or now. It may be rather dark and violent but that doesn't in itself bother me. I may not watch it with the same frequency as I do Raiders but every now and again I get a hankerin’ to revisit it (as I do with Last Crusade) and whenever I do, in spite of its many flaws, I always have a good time, which is (of course) all that the movie was ever intended for.

As Raiders of the Lost Ark did, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom opens with the old-fashioned Paramount logo. When it subsequently dissolves to a shot of an engraving of a similar mountain on a large gong, Spielberg is accomplishing two things. First, he is signaling to the audience that this truly is a sibling to the first film by opening it in the same fashion.

Second, he is sharing his usual affection for classic movies by referencing the opening sequence of George Steven's 1939 epic Gunga Din, which was in itself a parody of the J. Arthur Rank films that opened with an image of a gong being struck. Spielberg is essentially doing a "riff on a riff" while simultanesouly setting the stage for what will follow (like Gunga Din, the trio if heroes will battle India's Thugee insurgents, likewise taking place in a forbidden temple where the devil goddess Kali is worshipped).

The camera pans to a the head of large wooden dragon, out of whose gaping mouth a beautiful blonde woman in a red-sequined dress emerges. The main title appears behind her and the woman starts to sing a Mandarin-English version of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" (whose title more or less sums up the attitude of the film). The camera follows her back into the dragon's mouth and the opening credits roll over an elaborate Busby Berkley-style number featuring dozens of dancing women.

While Spielberg once again demonstrates his fervent desire to direct a full-scale musical one day, he is also establishing the "rules" by which this adventure will operate: namely, that there are none. What started out as a believable nightclub act has turned into a fantasy which can only exist in the movies. This is another difference between Raiders and Temple. While Raiders' story did contain impossible events, there was always a consistent logic or plausibility to them. This film will sacrifice verisimilitude in the name visceral impact.

When the number is finished we learn that we are in Shanghai in the year 1935 (which the astute viewer will realize makes this a prequel: a story that actually takes place BEFORE Raiders, though there is no good reason for it to) and we are introduced again to Indiana Jones, this time wearing garb we've not yet seen on him: a tuxedo (an image which emphasizes the kinship between Indiana Jones and James Bond). Indy sits at a table and starts conversing with a Chinese hood named Lao Che--as with Raiders we are dropped right into the middle of an adventure already in progress and which ultimately has nothing to do with the film's main plot--in which they negotiate an exchange of the remains of the gangster's ancestor. The singer, whom we learn is named Willie Scott and is Lao Che's girlfriend, finishes her act and comes over to meet Dr. Jones and immediately a contentious relationship is set up as Indy uses her for a hostage to avoid getting shot by one of Lao's two sons. Eventually Lao receives his reward while Indy is paid with a large diamond and unwittingly drinks a glass of poisoned champagne to which Lao flaunts the antidote.

Soon pandemonium breaks out and in a typically Spielbergian sequence, Indy tries to recover the antidote as Lao's men try to kill him and Willie scampers after the diamond. At one point Williams actually works the "Anything Goes" melody into the score creating an association between the earlier musical number and this elaborately choreographed action scene (the connection is a very appropriate one; in many ways Spielberg's set pieces are like immense dance numbers). Finally, in the commotion Indy manages to escape out the window with Willie (who has stuffed the antidote down the front of her dress). The two manage to land in a car that just happens to pull up to the right place at the right time and we meet Indy's other companion for the film: 12-year-old Chinese orphan Short Round played by newcomer Ke Huy Quan (who, as it turns out, was a lucky find since he didn't come in to audition himself but accompanied his brother who was auditioning; I wonder what Thanksgiving is like at that household).

After we get a glimpse of the name of the club we were just in ("Club Obi Wan!"), Shorty speeds away through the streets of Shanghai (i.e. a studio backlot) and ends up at an airport where Dan Aykroyd, in a quick cameo, tells Dr. Jones that he managed to secure three seats for them on "a cargo plane full of live poultry." As he boards the plane Indy smiles triumphantly at Lao Che, but fails to notice the name on the door he is closing. Lao nods at his employee pilots and the plane takes off to the music of the heroic "Raiders March." Inside, Indy has changed into his "real" outfit (the jacket, bullwhip and hat) and--after telling Willie, since he's allowing here to "tag along," to try giving her mouth a rest--goes to sleep. Spielberg then re-uses the red line seen in Raiders to track the course of the plane.

While over India, the two pilots dump the fuel and jump out of the plane wearing parachutes. A groggy Willie finds the cockpit empty and wakes Indy up. Discovering that there is no fuel left and they are rapidly descending toward a snowy mountain range, Indy (straining credulity) convinces his two fellow travelers to jump out of the plane in an inflatable life raft. As The plane crashes into the side of the mountain, the three adventurers toboggan down the steep slope, over a cliff and into some rapids. Finally, tired, wet and cranky, they slow to a halt where they find an elderly Indian shaman standing on the riverbank, almost as if he were waiting for them.

He takes them to his village, an ominous, uninviting place where the inhabitants touch Indy and chant over him as if he were a savior sent to help them. Indy learns that the village has been under a curse since the maharajah of Pankot confiscated the sacred stone that protects the village. Ever since then the crops have died, the river has dried up and the children have all disappeared. Although familiar with the Sankra stone, Indy is skeptical a mere rock could have the kind of effect this fellow is describing. Indy is sympathetic to their problems but ultimately decides to travel to Pankot Palace not to help them restore their village to its former state but to retreive the stone--as he tells Shorty in a scene that features the trademark Spielbergian shooting star--for "fortune and glory." Again, the mercenary aspect of Indy's personality is brought to the fore.

After a long trek through the jungle via elephants--during which, Spielberg references a moment in David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai (a film shot near the same locations as Temple of Doom) with an image of thousands of bats sailing through the air--Indy, Willie and Short Round arrive at Pankot Palace and are greeted by the friendly well-dressed and well-spoken Chater Lal, prime minister to his highness. Lal is played by Roshan Seth, an Indian actor who appeared in Passage to India and Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, the film that beat out E.T. for Best Picture Oscar two years earlier (the fact that Spielberg not only cast Seth in this movie but later used Attenborough himself in Jurassic Park shows that clearly there were no hard feelings).

That night at dinner, a feast of unusual and rather unappetizing foods are served (including baked beetles, eyeball soup, and chilled monkey brains). This oddly adolescent episode--noted by reviwers as typical of Lucas and Spielberg but extreme even for them--jumpstarts the film's habit of pushing the situations to disgusting levels. Slowly the film is moving into "overkill" zone. Afterwards, the romance between Indy and Willie heats up. Unlike the relationship between Indy and Marion, there is no depth, sweetness or substance to this one (even Williams' love theme lacks the lyricism of the first one). It's difficult to believe that Indy is interested in Willie for any other reason besides sex. Still, as in Raiders, Spielberg never allows them the opportunity to consummate it. Their "affair" is interrupted by an attacker whom Indy dispatches with the help of his bullwhip and a ceiling fan. He then discovers a secret passageway in Willie's room which he and Short Round decide to explore.

It is here that the film's best sequence occurs. Like the various booby traps seen in Raiders, Indy and Shorty get trapped in a small chamber where the ceiling begins to lower on them. Soon spikes emerge from the ceiling and the floor and the two are forced to call out to Willie for help. It is a classic "race-against-time" adventure serial situation but Spielberg infuses it with a freshness and excitment that makes it seem new. He also, with the help of his editor Michael Kahn and composer John Williams, manages to perfectly balance the suspense and the humor. We are gasping practically at the same time that we are laughing. It is a masterpiece of timing; another example of a self-contained "mini-movie" existing in a bigger movie. At the last possible second, Willie manages to pull the lever that reverses the mechanism and save the day, getting completely covered with bugs in the process (the equivalent of the snakes from the first film). She runs into the now open chamber yelling to get them off her and Spielberg can't help but add a hysterical coda where, in her distress, Willie accidentally trips the wrong apparatus and the whole thing starts all over again (with John Williams' suspenseful music returning). This time, however, the three of them manage to escape the room before they are sealed inside and, in what has now become a legendary moment, Indy loses his hat but retreives it seconds before the door closes. It is the perfect capper to what I consider to be the most perfect scene in the entire film.

In the following scenes the occultish elements of the story are introduced and we see the main villain of the film for the first time: the Kali cult leader Mola Ram (Amrish Puri). Indy, Willie and Shorty all hide in a small enclave looking out over the Thuggee's underground temple (a hugely impressive indoor set lit very evocatively by Doug Slocombe with deep, sinister reds) and witness a horrific sacrifice. This is also where the film's most notorious moment occurs. Mola Ram casts some sort of spell over the victim, reaches into his chest with his bare hand and removes his beating heart. Impossibly, the man is still alive (once again demonstrating that this film bears no relation whatsoever to the actual world in which we live) and as he is lowered screaming into a fiery pit of molten lava where is burned alive, Mola Ram holds the man's heart aloft for the amusment of the crowd and laughs manically as it spontansouely bursts into flame. What makes this whole event particularly disturbing is that it is gratuitous. The sacrifice could easily have occurred without this extra added element and still been as potent. The "heart" scene, aside perhaps from revealing how evil the character of Mola Ram is, contributes nothing whatever to the plot or story and seems to serve simply as an exercise in sadism and ugliness for it's own sake.

When the worshippers vacate the temple, Indy emerges from his "hiding place" and starts to collect the three Sankra stones being displayed on the altar. As Indy holds them in his hands, Williams' music reaches intensely operatic (almost self-consciously so) levels. The look on Indy's face seems to indicate that he is himself under the "spell" of these rocks, thinking only of the power and glory they can bring him. He is about to leave but upon hearing a noise decides to follow it into another cavern--leaving Willie and Shorty behind to get captured by Thugee guards--where he learns the fate of the village children. They have been turned into slaves digging for the other two stones that the high priest Mola Ram needs in order to "rule the world." Seeing a guard beat a child, Indy angrily throws a rock at him. In doing so, Indy gets himself captured and thrown into a cell with Short Round where he learns from another young boy that he will be forced to drink the "blood of Kali," a magic elixir that will essentially turn him into a mindless zombie doing the bidding of his newly adopted deity. In what I think may be the darkest sequence in the film, Short Round is forced to watch helplessly as a reluctant Indy has the blood poured (from the mouth of a skull no less) into his throat and made to swallow. Gradually he gets "taken over" by the evil spirit and, with typical horror movie underlighting, starts to laugh sinisterly.

Short Round is put to work digging with the other children in the caves but while his captors aren't looking he hammers away at his own chains. Meanwhile, Indy stands idly by as Willie is prepared as the next sacrificial victim. Eventually Shorty manages to escape and make his way to Indy, but his pleading with him to wake up doesn't work. Indy strikes Shorty and causes him to cry. Soon Shorty emotionally sobs "Indy, I love you!" and shoves a lit torch against his bare skin thus breaking him from his slumber (how precisely Shorty knew to do this is never made clear). Awakened from the trance, Indy saves Willie, kills Chattar Lal, grabs the three stones and tenderly apologizes to Shorty (at this point Spielberg's "family" theme becomes apparent in the film; the trio have now essentially become their own little varaiation on a nuclear family). He then resolves to get the three of them out of there right after liberating all the children.

This would prove to be the last plot moment in the film. From the end of this scene to the finale, Temple of Doom literally jumps from one action scene to the next. First, Indy, Willie and Shorty free all of the children (who flee the cave in a mass exodus not unlike the Hebrews leaving their bondage in Egypt) before Indy "squares off" with the same large guard he encountered earlier, ultimately killing him with the aid of a rock crusher, and then escaping in a mine car. The ensuing chase was one of the sequences originally planned for Raiders but which the filmmakers were forced to excise. Through this sequence the film's identity as a metaphorical "roller coaster ride" finally becomes literal and it is a thrilling escapade indeed combining marvelous minature effects shots with actual footage shot on a full-size railway system constructed at Elstree Studios. At one point, near the end of the scene, the mine car leaps across a chasm and lands safely on the tracks on the other side proving, once again, that in this universe anything is possible. The laws of physics have no more reality than in a Warner Bros. cartoon.

The climactic scene of Temple of Doom involves a suspended rope bridge, to which Indy cuts the ropes causing most of the villians to fall into crocodile-infested waters below. This sequence is particularly spectacular as there are no miniature shots used at all (though there is some animation). The rope bridge was an actual bridge built over a real gorge (across which, incidentally, Spielberg could not go due to his tearrible fear of heights) and which the filmmakers had to actually destroy for the movie. Eight cameras ensured that the one-time stunt was properly captured on film. Eventually Indy defeats Mola Ram (with a little supernatural help from the stones themselves), retrieves one stone and climbs to safety. He then returns to the village with Willie, Shorty and a horde of children who are happy to be reuinted with their parents. Once again, Indy has beaten the bad guys, gotten the girl and lived to fight another day.

Although Spielberg has always expressed dissatisfaction with the film, calling it his least favorite of the three, he is nonetheless extremely grateful to have had the experience to work on it because of one supremely significant effect it had on his personal life. At the time of filming, Spielberg was with actress Amy Irving, who would soon become his wife, but before the end of the decade they would separate (bringing the painful reality of divorce into Spielberg’s life once again) and Spielberg would eventually fall in love and commit himself to someone else: actress Kate Capshaw, whom he met on Temple of Doom. When looking at the behind-the-scenes footage shot at the time, one can clearly see the two establishing a comfortable connection with one another and their enduring marriage (now approaching sixteen years) seems to be one of the precious few lasting relationships left in Hollywood. As Spielberg himself has said: “That’s the reason why I think I was fated to directed Temple of Doom. And so even though Indiana Jones wound up getting the girl... I really did."

TOMORROW: Spielberg's return to television

DAY 12: Twilight Zone, the movie - "Kick the Can" (1983)

2007-08-12T19:08:00.001-07:00

With two prior connections to the Twilight Zone (his first professional directing job being the Joan Crawford segment of Rod Serling's Night Gallery and his first major hit being the TV movie Duel, written by regular Twilight Zone contributor Richard Matheson) Steven Spielberg, a long-time fan of the show, was more than happy to bring the famous TV series to the big screen. Unfortunately, the resulting movie was a disaster of even greater proportions than 1941.

Since the series did not have recurring characters or a consistent storyline, it was decided that the feature film would be a collection of four different segments. Spielberg himself would direct one (a re-imgaining of one his favorite episodes), co-producer John Landis (Spielberg friend and fellow enthusiast for the Serling series) directed the film's only original story, The Howling's Joe Dante would helm the surreal "It's a Good Life" and Australian director George Miller (Mad Max) provided the fourth and final "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

As with all anthology films (Tales from the Darkside, Four Rooms, etc) some segments are better than others. Most tend to agree that Miller's segment--a suspensefully claustrophobic tale of intense fear and paranoia with the neurotic John Lithgow as the reluctant hero of a commercial airplane--is the best of the bunch. Joe Dante's contribution (my personal favorite of the four), a story of a young boy with extreme powers holding a "family" of strangers hostage, isn't devoid of interest either, filled with his usual collection of stunningly bizarre visuals and humorous in-jokes (the angry cafe patron in the segment's beginning is the same actor who played the boy in the original episode). The other two, unfortunately, have very little to recommend. Landis' segment is an utter mess and Spielberg's "Kick the Can" is a prime example of the director at his worst.

When Twilight Zone was released it did not perform well at the box office nor receive very complimentary reviews from critics. This had been rather expected, however, since the fate of the film was more or less sealed in the early hours of July 23, 1982. In a sequence intended for the Landis-directed story (concerning a bigot who sneers at minority groups, only to find himself mysteriously transformed into a Jew in Nazi Germany, a black pursued by Klansman in the Southern United States and Vietnamese hounded by American troops in Vietnam) actor Vic Morrow and two Asian-born children were fleeing from a helicoptor when an explosion turned out to be bigger than anticipated and it sent the helicoptor flying out of control. It crashed onto Morrow and the children killing them instantly. To make matters worse the children were not officially members of the cast (their parents having been paid in cash due to the fact that it's illegal for juveniles to work at that hour). This led to one of the costliest, most controversial and most highly publicized trials in contemporary Hollywood history. Spielberg was himself never tried and while Landis and four other crew members were eventually found not guilty of involuntray manslaughter, the damage had already been done. The whole endeavor now seemed to have a dark cloud hanging over it.

For a while, Warner Bros. executives considered shutting down the project altogether (something Spielberg would apparently have preferred; "No film is worthy dying for." he said in an interview with L.A. Times' Dave Pollock), but eventually insisted Spielberg and company fulfill their obligation. Spielberg began shooting his segment--a story about a group of elderly residents in a rest home who magically revert to their childlike selves while playing a game of "kick the can"--on November 26, 1982 (five days after Thanksgiving) and shot for six days. From the beginning, Spielberg's heart wasn't in it. Ordinarily almost obsessive in his desire to maintain careful control over every element of the film, Spielberg reportedly didn't attend preproduction meetings, allowed script supervisor Katherine Wooten to block scenes for him and had Melissa Matheson work with the actors on interpretations of dialogue. Spielberg was essentially "going through the motions."

It is no surprise then that the resulting product is pretty wretched, the kind of overly sappy piece of candy-coated sweetness which Spielberg has so often been criticized for creating. E.T. by comparison seems positively subtle. Pauline Kael called it a "lump of ironclad whimsy... the tone here is sentimental-comic, and horribly slick. It's as if Spielberg had sat down and thought about what he could do to make his detractors happiest." Indeed, the segment is everything "bad" about Spielberg (everything self-indulgent and shamelessly melodramatic) packed into a space of about twenty minutes. Some of his usual themes are present but they are given such an unapologetically saccharine and blindly optimistic treatment (with a, quite frankly, rather condescending tone) that they don't resonate at all. They feel forced and empty, lacking any genuine emotion or conviction. In fact, the only thing that saves it from being a total embarassment and annoying waste of time is the effortlessly engaging charm and charisma of Scatman Crothers, a blues musician turned actor (seen in such films as The Shining and Silver Streak) playing a character named Mr. Bloom, a sort of good-natured magician who travels from rest home to rest home teaching folks that stereotypically Spielbergian adage that "you're only as old as you feel." Seeing Crothers' bright, smiling face on screen almost makes the segment endurable.

Today the actual Twilight Zone movie (apart from its accompanying scandal) has been largely forgotten--which is probably best--and "Kick the Can" remains little more than a footnote in Spielberg's career as a director. Although I will confess to having some affection for the film (especially the humorous opening sequence with Dan Aykroyd and Albert Brooks discussing their favorite Zone episodes) and even find myself with a desire to view it again every once in a blue moon, simply trying to locate it proves difficult (as it has not been released onto DVD* yet; in reviewing it for the purposes of this project I had to resort to Youtube). Thus, I shall have to content myself with simply watching the original Rod Serling episodes in the meantime. Ultimately I'm probably better off anyway.

*EDIT: Since posting this essay I have discovered that Warner Bros. will be releasing Twilight Zone: the movie on DVD this October 9. At this point it doesn't say whether it will contain any bonus materials or not, but I would imagine a documentary on the making of this film would be a very interesting feature indeed.

TOMORROW: Indiana Jones Goes to Hell

DAY 11: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

2007-08-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

Dear E.T.,

I love you and want you to come to my house on Christmas Day and spend the night with me in case I get scared. E.T. I love you.

Love,
Heidi
(Letters to E.T., 1983)

While shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Francois Truffaut had the opportunity to observe Steven Spielberg’s direction of the five-year-old Cary Guffey. A well-known admirer of children himself, Truffaut later remarked to Steven “I see how you are with that boy. You need to make a film for and about children.” It would be another five years before Spielberg would direct the movie that the famed French filmmaker advised him to make. “In my heart,” Spielberg has confessed “E.T. is dedicated to Truffaut,” and indeed it is not difficult to see the parallels between E.T. and the film Spielberg and Truffaut worked on together (the themes of family, youth and innocence; a story involving alien visitors coming to earth and interacting/communicating with humans, etc) in addition to which, E.T.’s final shot is very reminiscent of the classic closing image of Trauffaut’s semi-autobiographical 400 Blows. Besides being Spielberg’s “love letter” to Truffaut, E.T. would also prove to be a landmark film in the history of cinema and in the life/career of Spielberg himself, the culmination of years of perfecting the craft of storytelling combined with his own growing sense of using cinema as a means of intimate artistic expression. To this day Spielberg regards E.T. as his most personal work and, along with Schindler’s List, one of the two movies that he’d most like to be remembered for.

The genesis of E.T. the “movie” began during the filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Spielberg would sometimes chat with his associate Kathleen Kennedy and Harrison’s Ford’s then girlfriend Melissa Mathison, two women who eventually became the producer and writer of the film respectively, about his idea for a story of an alien visitor who befriends a young boy. Both women became enamored with the project and work was begun on it as Spielberg’s next film. The genesis of the “idea” for E.T., however, dates back much earlier to when Spielberg was a lonely young boy dealing with the divorce of his parents. Desiring companionship of some kind in order to fill the empty “void” in his life, Spielberg imagined what it would be like if an alien creature came down and became his friend. Thus, E.T. had his humble beginnings.*

*Note: There has been some discussion over the fact that legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray previously planned to do a film with a premise similar to E.T. Though he was unable to get funding for it, he had completed a script before ultimately abandoning the project. Though Spielberg has denied even knowing about it, some folks have nevertheless presumed that Spielberg’s real inspiration for E.T. began with the idea (which by then had circulated around Hollywood) conceived by Satyajit Ray. Despite the fact that this accusation is pure conjecture, very few people seem to acknowledge that there is very little in the oeuvre of Satyajit Ray to indicate an enterprise of this nature whereas there is overwhelming evidence, from films of his youth and other childhood stories (told both by Spielberg and by other people who knew him at the time), demonstrating Spielberg’s long-standing fascination and intense affection for the subject. I don’t doubt that Ray wanted to make a film about an alien befriending a boy, and that E.T. might even bear striking resemblance to Ray’s story, but I think this is really just a case of two great minds thinking alike independently.

Before shooting could begin on E.T., though, much work had to be done in the pre-production department, starting with the casting. Since the main characters in the film were children, Spielberg had to find three very good child actors. More than any previous film, E.T. would thoroughly test Spielberg’s ability to direct children. In the central role of Elliott, the lonely ten-year-old who befriends the alien visitor (and Spielberg’s main alter-ego in the story), Spielberg cast Henry Thomas, a boy with virtually no previous acting experience but remarkable instincts and, most important of all, an active imagination. As his overbearing teenage brother Michael, Spielberg cast the more experienced Robert McNaughton and in the part of Elliott’s younger sister Gertie, Spielberg used a girl who was originally considered for Poltergeist, the precociously sweet and adorably cherub-faced Drew Barrymore of the prestigious Barrymore family. In the supportive, but no less important, roles of the adults Spielberg relied on his practice of casting whom he thought worked best regardless of their star status or bankability at the box office. Having admired her performance in Joe Dante’s The Howling, Spielberg put Dee Wallace Stone into the role of the abandoned, but once again typically Spielbergian protective, mother Mary and in the role of the head scientist searching for E.T, Spielberg cast the dignified, but still childlike-at-heart, Peter Coyote.

The film’s most important character, however, could not be cast. He had to be created from scratch. Spielberg knew that in order for the story to work, E.T. had to be a completely believable being. Just as he had brought “life” to inanimate objects previously in Duel, Jaws and Close Encounters, Spielberg would now have to make an audience believe that it was a thinking, feeling, breathing, living creature (surpassing even the subtlety and expressiveness seen in the Yoda character in Lucas’ Empire Strikes Back). Given the state of technology at the time, it was a hugely ambitious endeavor. To help him accomplish it Spielberg hired fifty-seven-year old Italian sculptor, builder and artist Carlo Rimbaldi. Working from Spielberg’s design ideas and incorporating elements from a variety of sources (including Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg and a human infant), Rimbaldi fashioned a creature that was both sad and hopeful, unattractive and yet loveable, inanimate and yet very much alive.

Deciding to rely on more than just animatronics (which required a team of about a dozen crew members to operate) Spielberg also, in several shots of E.T. waddling about, used an actor with no legs in a suit and for shots of E.T.’s hands, a thirty-year-old professional mime named Caprice Rothe wore special gloves. One result of this situation that was purely accidental but nonetheless marvelously effective was that Rothe, nervous about working on a Spielberg movie, drank a lot of coffee and then couldn't stop her hands from shaking as she tried to perform. Terrified that Spielberg woulds fire her, Rothe was stunned to learn the director actually loved it. “Things are new to E.T. so he is cautious,” he said. Finally, to do the voice of E.T. Spielberg had actress Debra Winger contribute but the majority of E.T.’s words was provided by an unknown sixty-five-year-old Marin County housewife named Pat Welsh. To this day, though, when I watch E.T., unlike Gremlins where I can recognize Howie Mandel in the mouth of Gizmo, I don’t hear anyone’s voice other than E.T.’s. In fact, although I can’t very well avoid seeing Debra Winger in things, I’ve deliberately tried to never, ever hear Pat Welsh in any other context (interviews or whatever). If you can tell me who is really speaking in which shot, then (as Roger Ebert said about Kermit riding a bicycle in the first Muppet Movie) you are much less of a romantic than I am. I prefer to think that E.T. simply spoke for himself.

Like Close Encounters and Poltergiest, E.T. returns Spielberg to the world of suburbia. Once again, the setting provides Spielberg an opportunity to work in an environment that is familiar to him but also connect the story with the majority of Americans who go to the movies. The neighborhoods of E.T., though striking in resemblance to the residential areas of Western states like California, Oregon or Arizona, is also effectively non-descript in nature and could easily be at home in just about any state in the U.S. (or even any country in the world). Spielberg knew that the more it seemed the events of E.T. could take place anywhere, the better chance it had to resonating with more people. Fortunately, to keep the film from having a small or claustrophobic feel to it (Spielberg wanted it to be intimate and yet epic at the same time) he had at his disposal, once again, the composing talents of John Williams who could “open the film up” to a degree that no previous of his score had. Indeed, although the events involved a relatively small number of people and occur in a very confined area, the music makes it feel at times like the fate of the world is at stake and the emotional (as well as physical) destinies of the characters are dependant upon the outcome. It is one of Williams’ most passionate, most heartfelt, most rousing and most beautiful scores.

Working again with his Amblin’ cameraman Allen Daviau (by now an established cinematographer) Spielberg shot E.T. in 50 days for a budget of around $10 million. It does not surprise me at all to learn that everyone who worked on the movie had a great time (with folks even dressing up on Halloween; Spielberg as a bag lady). Although by this point in his career he had grown accustomed to using storyboards--and although about forty percent of the movie had been sketched out ahead of time--Spielberg did not want the film to have a calculated “coldness” (the kind he was accused of having in Raiders) about it but rather a genuine sincerity and spontaneity. Thus, Spielberg decided to approach the film strictly on a scene-by-scene basis. “I always think five shots ahead. On this film, I couldn’t.” Spielberg has said. He also shot E.T. (for the first time in his career) in perfect continuity. This practice allowed him to see the story unfolding in front of his eyes and also helped make the performances of the children all the more real and believable. Since they each knew where they were emotionally in the scene before (i.e. the day before), they were not performing so much as they were simply “reacting” to the available stimuli. Nowhere in the film is this more apparent than in the section where the scientists have taken over the warm, safe environment of the house and turned it into a frigid, sterile atmosphere. In the scene where E.T. has expired and the doctors (played by actual physicians) work feverishly to revive him, little Drew Barrymore couldn’t stop crying even after the cameras had finished rolling. Spielberg has been quoted as saying: “We were bordering on child abuse at that point.”

In E.T. Spielberg’s themes of family dysfunction and divorce are at their most overt and, simultaneously, their most profound. And yet, while they are very specific in nature thay are also incredibly broad and universal in appeal. In fact, the theme of divorce/separation is really just a facet of a film that is about connection/togetherness and communication in general. As the events of the film unfold it is seen very clearly in the actions/words of the characters as well as in the external events that occur. It should be noted that, like Close Encounters, there is more than one version of E.T.: the original theatrical cut and the twentieth anniversary re-release version which features digitally enhanced visual effects (primarily on the facial expressions/movements of E.T.), the addition of two scenes initially cut from the film and the removal of several elements about which Spielberg was never happy, the most infamous of which would be the replacement of the guns used by the humans in the film’s climax with walkie-talkies. Both versions are available on DVD but for the purposes of this project I will examine only the original version.

E.T. opens, in typical Spielberg fashion, on a black screen. Eerie abstract musical sounds are heard as the main titles appear. When the credits end, the first shot is a beautiful, starry night sky overlooking a forest. We cut to a spaceship resting quietly on the ground and dissolve to images of a group of creatures gathering plant specimens. Although the creatures are shrouded in darkness, they are obviously not of this world. The fact that they are botanists, though, is important. These aliens are interested in the study of life in whatever form it may take. They are fascinated in their environment. They are “connected” to everything around them. These creatures are also extremely timid. When an owl hoots, every of one of them stops and their hearts glow a bright red (the color red, again, being a Spielberg staple). The heart is an indicator of extreme emotion, be it fear, joy, etc. It is also a sort of visual symbol of the alien’s connectedness to each other. When one of the creatures wanders off, it is called to by one of its fellows back at the ship, the glowing organ serving as a sort of “beacon” representing a telepathic exchange (revisiting Spielberg’s theme of communication).

The creature’s activity is interrupted when a truck pulls up and a group of men step out. The lone wandering creature fearfully hides in a clump of bushes as the men search the area and examine maps with their flashlights. These actions clearly reveal the men to be, like the scientists in Close Encounters, working for the state in an attempt to find the aliens. How they knew to look for them there is never revealed nor is it really important. Spielberg establishes the logic and reality of the situation without needing to go into any expository dialogue or backstory. Like the map room sequence in Raiders, the situation is relayed entirely through the use of images and music. Although Spielberg never shows the men’s faces (a practice he adopts through most of the film; the mother is the only grown-up we really see until the film’s final act, the movie being shot almost entirely from a child’s viewpoint) Spielberg’s camera does follow one scientist in particular. His name is never given but he is identified by a pair of keys that hang sinisterly from his belt. Throughout this whole opening sequence it is important to note that very little of anything is actually seen (the creatures, the people, etc). So much of the information is hidden in shadow or just off-camera and yet Spielberg is able to communicate very clearly what is going on to even the youngest and most unsophisticated viewer. It is pure cinema.

When the frightened creature can wait no longer he darts away screaming with the scientists in hot pursuit. He arrives at the ship but he is too late. The ship has taken off leaving him behind. The abandoned creature, whom we will later come to know as E.T., is now alone. The connectedness between him and the rest of his race has been severed. The scene ends on a sad note with E.T. making his way down the hill. Incidentally, throughout this article I will refer to E.T. as a "he" because the characters in the movie do, as did Spielberg at the time of filming. Since making E.T. Spielberg has said that the creature has no sex, that E.T. is essentially a “plant. E.T. is a botanical garden unto himself... or herself." It’s an intriguing idea but I think it’s just a case of Spielberg trying to please everyone again (since he admits his reason for saying this is because he gets “a lot of letters about E.T.” being a male).

In the following scenes we are introduced to the other major character in the film, Elliott (his last name is never mentioned in the film but the novelization reveals it to be “Taylor,” thus giving Elliot the same initials as his soon-to-be alien friend). Like the typical Spielberg “everyman,” Elliott is an average, ordinary American boy, wanting to participate in Dungeons and Dragons role-playing games with his older brother Michael and his friends, just starting to notice girls in school, etc. Elliott is also very lonely and seeking some sort of companionship. In this regard he very much resembles the young Spielberg, except that Elliott is also a very modern (for the 80’s anyway) kid, playing video games and using language a baby-boomer would have gotten smacked in the face for. Elliott is also, like the rest of his family, dealing with the painful reality of a divorce. The absent father (whose name we never learn, face we never see and voice we never hear) is simultaneously the least important and most influential presence in the film. Like the deceased titular character in Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca, he affects everyone in the movie through his absence. In a subsequent dinner scene (after having glimpsed E.T. for a split second) Elliott mentions that his “dad would believe him.” Given that the personality of the father is never made explicit aside from the fact that he is currently “in Mexico with Sally” (in all likelihood a much younger woman than the one he left behind), it is difficult to accept this as little more than a child’s desire to believe in a fantasy that doesn’t exist. When the mother excuses herself from the table to go cry without letting the kids see her and Michael threatens to kill Elliott because he doesn’t think of anyone but himself, it becomes clear that this family is really struggling. They may love each other but none of them knows how to deal with this new and frightening experience they have found themselves in.

Eventually, in spite of the fear he has for this unknown “thing” that has come into his life, Elliott bravely decides to seek it out (like the young Barry in Close Encounters) and finds that E.T. is just as scared of him as he is of it. Elliott brings E.T. into his house and in the scene where we see the alien creature clearly for the first time, establishes a “connection” that will not only be personal and emotional in nature but psychological and spiritual as well. E.T. starts to mimic Elliott, which amuses the young boy. In doing so he demonstrates that Elliott is the one through whom he has decided to experience this whole new world of sensations. Just as E.T. was connected to his own race and to his surrounding plant life (as is seen in his ability to resurrect a pot of dying flowers later) so E.T. will be connected to Elliott in a very real and very tangible way.

In yet another anecdote taken from Spielberg’s childhood, Elliott decides to fake sick by putting his thermometer against a light bulb while his siblings go to school and his mother goes to work. This allows him to spend the entire day with E.T. during which he shows him his action figures (Star Wars ones as it turns out), his toy cars, his peanut bank, his goldfish and (in an obvious reference to Jaws) his mechanical shark toy. In trying to communicate with E.T. Elliott first uses speech but this proves unsuccessful. Shortly thereafter, though, Elliott will learn that E.T. communicates in a much more powerful way. As Elliott frantically grabs food out of the fridge to feed to his guest, E.T. explores Elliott’s room finding an umbrella and accidentally opening it. Elliott screams in shock and surprise at the same moment that E.T. does but, unlike E.T., Elliott doesn’t know why is screaming. He rubs his heart and gazes up in surprise at the fact that he has just felt something that did not come from him. Elliott starts to understand that his feelings and E.T.’s feelings are going to be linked in a very significant way from this point on.

After Michael and Gertie come home from school, Elliott introduces them to E.T. (in a hysterical scene that involves a lot of screaming) and Spielberg utilizes an image that he would become heavily associated with: characters gazing at something offscreen in wonderment. Spielberg has employed this image in his movies so much that it has made him the victim of numerous jokes and criticisms (even his good friend Richard Dreyfus has affectionately stated that the title of the book he will never write is “Steven, Have They Figured Out What I’m Looking Up in Awe At Yet?”). While some people might find this trademark Spielbergian shot shallow, heavy-handed and/or manipulative, I happen to think it is indicative of everything that is right with Spielberg’s approach to moviemaking. Despite the argument that Spielberg focuses more on spectacle and special effects than on actual substance, I find his instinct to point the camera so often at people (aside from which I think it earns him a place among some of the great portraitists of cinema, such as Pasolini) reveals him ultimately as a “humanist” director, an artist whose stories are concerned primarily with human nature and the human condition. It also goes very much along with what I have mentioned previously about Spielberg’s under-appreciated ability to trust his audiences to think for themselves and not to always tell them what/how to think.

“Every actor has his or her own way of seeing and sometimes I often find it interesting to watch people thinking. I miss that in movies today: that they don’t show people who think. I like watching people thinking and that invites us into their thought process. That’s like a magnet. Once a character spends a little time not, you know, running his lines but just thinking, it draws us into the curiosity of ‘What are they thinking about?’ And, once again, it respects us. It allows us into the filmmaking process, to become participants in the story and not just observers.” --Steven Spielberg

After determining that this creature is, in fact, an alien from outer space, Elliott expresses dismay at not knowing what to do with it. Eventually Elliott has to go to school (where a faceless teacher instructs his class to dissect frogs) and leave E.T. at home. In what has now become a classic comic bit (actually conceived by Robert Zemeckis), the mother almost discovers E.T. in the closet where he is hiding among stuffed animals. E.T. then explores the house finding the refrigerator and downing several cans of beer. Because of the telepathic link between the two of them, Elliott feels the effects of it at school in a hilarious sequence that provides Spielberg yet another opportunity to engage in some more in-jokes by including scenes from two of his favorite films: This Island Earth and John Ford's The Quiet Man, which Spielberg actually recreates a scene from with children).

Upon returning home, Elliott discovers not only that his sister has dressed E.T. up in girl clothes (like her own private living doll), but that E.T. has learned to talk (something gertie takes credit for) and after exhibiting a series of toys and mechanical devices he gathered together earlier that day, E.T. utters the now legendary line: “E.T. phone home.” Elliott realizes that E.T. has found a way to contact his family telling them he is okay and to come pick him up. Incidentally, some have criticized the film for the utter absurdity of the notion that a super-powerful communication device could be made from common household items. Aside from the fact that one could make the argument the machine was built by an alien intelligence (who “sees” things differently than a human does), I always feel like responding to such criticisms by saying: “Tell me, what’s it like to have NO imagination at all? I wouldn’t know myself.” To view the events of E.T. with a doubtful skepticism rather than an openness to possibilities (seeing the enormous potential contained within the mundane rather than simply the limitations) is to not understand nor appreciate the spirit of Spielberg’s cinema, his intent to return cynical, “educated” adults to a period of their lives when the world was filled not with a collection of things that couldn’t be done but that could.

As Elliott and Michael search through the garage that night looking for more electronic apparatuses to help E.T. create his radar machine, the themes of connection and separation are again touched upon. First, in a very subtle manner that is rarely noticed by people and then in a far more explicit manner. At the beginning of the scene, the scientists—getting closer and closer to discovering the whereabouts of E.T.—are patrolling the neighborhood in a van listening in on the conversations taking place in people’s houses. Not only is the communication theme revisited in the situation but in one of the exchanges broadcast over the headset, a woman can very briefly be heard saying: “Fine, let’s just put a smile on our face and try to get through the evening. That’s all I want to do.” The element of divorce is thus re-introduced into the story and shown to exist not only in the lives of Elliott’s and E.T.’s familes, but as being ever-present everywhere. Whoever the anonymous woman was talking to in that house, it is clear that they are headed toward their own separation. Subsequenty, Elliott and Michael discover their dad’s old shirt and begin to reminisce about the good times they used to have at sports events. Michael says: “We’ll do that again, Elliott,” to which Elliott responds with a skeptical, “Yeah, sure.”

Before constructing the machine, Elliott and E.T. overhear the mother reading the story of Peter Pan to Gertie. It is the part of the story where Tinkerbell is dying and Peter’s belief in fairies (along with the belief of the reader) help bring her back. As Gertie’s mom is read the story, Elliott injures himself on a buzzsaw blade and holds up his bleeding finger saying “Ouch.” E.T. re-iterates the word, extends his lit finger (again, Spielberg’s fascination with light), touches Elliott’s finger and heals him. This scene is noteworthy for several reasons. First off, Peter Pan was already a character that Spielberg was often compared to in his unwillingness to grow up, to engage only in childish pursuits (later in his career Spielberg would produce his own variation on the Peter Pan story with Hook). Secondly, the passage of the book being read foreshadows what will happen later in the movie when E.T. himself will be brought back from death. Some have criticized the moment of resurrection as a “cheat,” a surprise that comes out of nowhere and left totally unexplained, but—-in addition to it being an event that any astute filmgoer should have seen coming on the basis of scenes like this—-one need look no further than the very themes of the film (togetherness and separation) to understand why it happens and how it is possible. The sequences ends with E.T. using his telekinetic powers to put the machine together. As he does so, Michael comments on how E.T.’s breathing doesn’t sound so good. The camera shows the potted flower plant, which we know was “brought back” from sickness by E.T.’s will, as looking unhealthy again. E.T. is also dying.

After a few funny scenes involving E.T. and the boys dressed up for Halloween (where yet another Star Wars-themed joke is featured; this time emphasized by the inclusion of John Williams’ “Yoda theme” on the film’s soundtrack), Elliott and E.T. ride out to a spot in the forest where they will set up the communicator. When they reach a point where they can ride the bike no longer and Elliott says they have to walk, E.T. suddenly takes control of the bike, rolls it toward a cliff and in a moment where Williams’ music soars to operatic heights for the first time in the film, the bike starts to fly. At first, Elliott is scared shouting “Not so high!” but soon his fear turns to elation as he lets out a terrific yell. At this point the audience, hopefully, shares that same sense of jubilation. They might not be shouting verbally but their hearts ought to be shouting inside just as loud as Elliott is. It is also in this scene that what is probably the most memorable shot in the film (and one of the most iconic images in the history of cinema, right up there with Harold Lloyd hanging off the clock in Safety Last) appears: the bike flying across the face of the full moon. As Elliott approaches the ground he whispers: “Don’t crash, please.” But, alas, both Elliott and E.T. crash-land in a very clumsy manner. Thus, Spielberg ends the sequence with a laugh.

After the communicator operates for several hours, and E.T.’s family still hasn’t returned, E.T. touches his heart and says the word he learned earlier for pain (“Ouch.”) indicating that he is hurt that they have not come back to pick him up. Elliott tries to comfort him by promising to take care of him. “We could grow up together, E.T.” he says. E.T. wipes a tear from Elliott’s cheek and tenderly touches his face. He even smiles at Elliott as if to show that he is touched Elliott cares about him enough to want to keep him around and also to put Elliott’s fears and concerns at ease somehow.

The following morning E.T. is gone. Elliott returns home where his mother has been worried sick about him (calling a police officer in to investigate). When he learns that E.T. is not there he pleads with Mike to go find him. Mike hops on his bike and rides out to the forest where he discovers a pale, withered E.T. lying motionless by a river. Apparently water is somewhat of a regenerative element for E.T.; this was established in a scene which took place in a bathroom but which was eventually cut from the film’s final version (though it was restored for the 2002 special edition). Back at the house, Michael decides to let their mother in on the secret and what she at first thinks is a joke, slowly turns to an awareness that it is real and it horrifies her. When the door is opened and E.T. sees her, he reaches out and calls her by the same name he’s heard the children use (“Mom.”). Although the mother has, throughout the film, demonstrated a very childlike spirit (clapping along with Gertie at the Peter Pan story, dressing up for Halloween herself, etc), at this moment she very much becomes the adult, seeing only the danger and fear in the situation. She immediately tells Michael to grab Gertie and take her downstairs. She picks up Elliott and pulls him away from a screaming E.T. When they reach the front door they are shocked to discover someone in a spacesuit forcing his way into the home. Soon, men in spacesuits are entering from every direction (even the window). I don't mind telling you that this sequence used to scare the utter crap out of me when I was a kid. Certainly there’s the freaky aspect of it, but mostly I think it was because it was so bizarre, so foreign, so (pardon the expression) "alien" to me). I didn’t understand why they were entering the house in space suits. Now, of course, it makes total sense. They weren’t deliberately trying to scare the family, they just didn’t want to expose the alien to any more germs than they had to (they read H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds). They were actually trying to help the situation, not hurt it. During this sequence there is another Spielberg hallmark: the model train set starts running by itself.

In the following scenes, the identity of “Keys” is finally seen in the face of Peter Coyote and in a nice bit of Speilbergian optimism, he is revealed not to be an antagonistic or hostile person (indeed there are no real "bad" guys in the movie). Although he's a grown-up he is just as much a child at as the three main characters having never lost his own sense of wonder and enchantment. As he talks to Elliott, for example, telling him that this is something he has been wishing for since he was ten years old, we realize that he is essentially the future incarnation of Elliott’s present self. The camera even shows Elliott reflected over Coyote’s face in the plastic mask. The two of them are linked, connected (much like the animated Wile E. “Coyote” character and Clovis Poplin were in the very similar shot in Sugarland Express). As the scientists question the kids Michael reveals the exact nature of Elliott’s and E.T.’s relationship: “He communicates through Elliott,” he says. Once again, the “educated” enquiring grown-up assumes an intellectual connection and posits: “Elliott thinks its thoughts,” to which Michael responds: “No, Elliott feels his feelings.” This emphasis of emotion over intellect is another common Spielbergian trait. Something can be known to be true because it is felt to be true, even it cannot be adequately articulated in the mind.

Eventually E.T. starts to slip away. Again, because the film was shot in sequence the children's reactions to the loss are genuine and heartbreaking. Why precisely E.T. finally dies is never made clear (some have speculated it was prolonged exposure to Earth’s atmosphere), but I believe, once again, that we need only look to the prominent themes of E.T. for our answer. If E.T. truly is connected to his “people” in the way that the story seems to suggest (they all share a common consciousness), then it makes sense that he be reliant upon them for the sustaining of his own existence. E.T. is not a self-sufficient, independent being. His life is contingent on being close to his family. The longer he is away from them, the more he fades away.

After E.T. dies and Elliott has a moment to talk to his lifeless body, he says: “You must be dead because I don’t know what to feel. I can’t feel anything anymore.” The connection between E.T. and Elliott has now been severed. Just as Elliott lost a father, now he has lost a best friend. Finally, Elliott express the precise nature of the connection they shared when he mutters: “E.T., I love you.” (the three little words that I have long felt are the most difficult for any movie to earn the right to use; this film definitely does). Elliott turns to walk away but notices the flowers growing healthy again. He rushes back to the coffin, opens it and an excited E.T. exclaims: “E.T., phone home!” Realizing that the very reason E.T. has returned from the dead is because the connection between him and his own people has been restored (they must have got the message and are already on their way) Elliott asks: “Does this mean they’re coming?” to which E.T. replies: “Yes.” Elliott literally jumps for joy.

The penultimate scene is one of the most thrilling climaxes I have ever seen in a movie. With the knowledge that their friend is actually alive, Elliott and Michael steal the van containing E.T. and drive to a children’s park where Mike’s friends await with their bicycles. The look on their faces when they see E.T. is priceless because they seem to demonstrate in their expressions that, without even having to be told what’s really going on or why they are doing what they’re doing, they “get” it and they’re willing to help. The boys lead the authorities on an elaborate chase through the streets of their neighborhood but also inbetween the houses, down the hills, through backyards, etc. The mobility of their bikes allows them to escape through places that the adults, in their huge vehicles, cannot follow. Again, it is a case of the children's ability to see more possibilities that surround them than to limit themselves to the “correct" paths they must follow to arrive at their destination. For a brief moment the boys think they have eluded their pursuers but they quickly learn that they are trapped. As a roadblock is erected up ahead Spielberg employs the same quick-cut to a close-up on Elliott’s face that he did in Duel. It is the height of tension and suspense at the last second before the eventual salvation. In the next instant, all of the bikes start to fly (as John Williams’ music soars once again) and the boys escape their captors. I swear, if there is a purer cinematic expression of sheer joy and elation than the moment when those bikes leave the ground, I don’t know what it is.

After the boys fly across that common Spielbergian symbol for light and life (the sun) and land in the forest by the communicator (this time, however, nobody crashes; it is a perfect landing for all) one of the most emotional farewells ever put on celluloid commences (I know I've used a lot of hyperbole in this essay and I'm sorry about that). It begins with a wonderful brief moment that beautifully captures the conflicting emotions of this sequence. Elliott is looking up at the landing lights of E.T.’s spaceship as it descends toward them. At first, he is smiling and it is clear what he is thinking. They did it. They accomplished their goal. They’ve reunited E.T. with his family. Rather quickly, though, Elliott’s expression changes. The smile fades and gets replaced by a look of sadness. It is also clear what he is thinking now. This means that E.T. is going away and he will never see him again. All of this happens in just a few seconds but the acting of Henry Thomas speaks volumes.

Both Michael and Gertie say their goodbyes and as Elliott approaches his fiend to say his goodbye, E.T. says “Come.” inviting Elliott to come with him. E.T. does not wish to be separated from his friend. Elliott regretfully replies with “Stay.” It is in this moment that the main difference between E.T. and Close Encounters gets manifested. As much as he might want to go, Elliott is basically saying that his home is here, his family is here, this is where he belongs. Staying behind is not the decision that Roy Neary made and it shows Spielberg’s growing maturity and sense of priorities in his own life. E.T. and Elliott embrace for a long time, knowing it will be their last time, and in one final gesture of wisdom, E.T. points at Elliott’s head with his lit finger and says: “I’ll be right here.”

Essentially E.T. is saying that although they will be separated physically, they will always be together in mind and in spirit. As long as they each remember the other, they will carry the other with them wherever they go. They have shared a connection far too special and potent for any possible distance to ever undo. These parting words is probably more than Elliott ever got from his own father (it should also probably be mentioned that by this point in the movie, whenever I watch it, I am totally gone; blubbering like a little girl). Elliot speaks the final word in the screenplay “Bye,” (interestingly the last line of dialogue spoken in Close Encounters as well), E.T. gets on the ship and it takes off leaving a rainbow behind in the sky. In fact, the colorful illusion is one of many different religious iconographic images used throughout the film.

There has been talk about E.T. as a sort of “Christ-like” figure (he came from above, he could heal people, he stayed for a period for time with a “mother” named Mary, he was hunted by the authorities, he died, he was resurrected, he ascended back into the heavens, etc). Although a lot of it could be coincidental, it seems pretty clear to me that Spielberg, like he did in Close Encounters, relies on a lot of deliberate religious ideas and symbols in the telling of the story (certainly the poster contains an overt reference to Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel of God’s hand reaching out to Adam’s hand). One moment in the film where E.T. looks particularly Messianic though—-to the point that I’m inclined to think it’s probably not accidental—-is when the back of the van opens up and E.T. stands there, his arms outstretched, with the white sheet draped over him such that it resembles a robe. At any rate, Spielberg decides to end not on the spectacular shot of the rainbow but on the close-up of Elliott’s face, proving once again that no matter how many special effects Spielberg may use, his films are ultimately about people. His being labelled as a mere “special effects director” is inaccurate and unfair.

Like a lot of people my age (I’m 31), E.T. and the Star Wars series were seminal films of my generation. Although I am unsure as to whether or not it was the first Spielberg film I ever saw (that might’ve been Raiders) it was certainly a monumental film in the development of my love for cinema. And yet, when I watch it now (unlike much of Star Wars), it holds far more significance than simply nostalgia. In fact, I think the film (like a fine wine) has actually gotten better with age. It means more to me now as an adult than it ever did as a kid. I see things in it that I never saw when I was young. I not only understand it more but I find it infinitely more complex, funny, deep and emotionally satisfying. It’s become a bit of a cliché to say this film is for the “child in all of us,” because (although it is clearly a film for and about children) I think E.T. film is for everyone, from age 4 to 94. I’ve done my best here to try and make it clear why I (also having come from a broken home) think E.T. is a masterpiece; the most financially successful, culturally significant and universally accessible art film ever created (because if there is one thing I am convinced of it’s that E.T. is a work of art) and, after Schindler’s List, Spielberg’s greatest film. What Spielberg was able to accomplish with E.T. was extraordinary. Through a story about connection, he was able to connect with people all across the world and turn the movie into another cinematic phenomenon. E.T. became the highest-gorssing film of all time in 1982 but it was more than just an "event" movie like Jaws or Star Wars. E.T. was a beloved film. It stirred people's souls and that is a rare thing to occur on such a grand scale.

Not everyone shares that perspective of course. Many people have found the film to be very sentimental (with even Lucas confessing it was a little “saccharine” for his taste), dripping with “sugary sweetness” and thereby causing them to resist the extreme highs and lows of the experience because they feel it is too manipulative. Well, certainly an unnecessary degree of sentimentality is a big stumbling block for Spielberg (and something he himself has acknowledged) but, as with a lot of things, it’s a sliding scale. One person’s genuine emotion is another person’s manipulated sentimentality. An important thing I think for people to remember is that a) cinema is by its very nature a manipulative medium and b) sentimentality is not in itself a bad thing. If one feels any sort of sentiment about anything than one is, by definition, being sentimental and Spielberg certainly knows how to evoke a visceral emotional response in an audience that is willing to submit to where he wants to take them. I find that a lot of the time blaming Spielberg for being “too sentimental” is like blaming Hitchcock for being “too suspenseful” or the Marx brothers for being “too funny.” Sentimentality is the vernacular in which Spielberg often likes to work and consequently he chose to tell this particular story in a very sentimental vein. This is not something he has ever denied. It is not something he is ashamed of (nor should he be I think). Spielberg tends to feel things very strongly and in finding the ability to “put himself out there” in his work in a way that he is comfortable doing, he managed to bring a lot of people along with him, people who also happen to feel things very strongly.

In spite of the passion of my opinions, I hope it's obvious that I don't think less of those who dislike the movie. I went through a period where I didn’t care for it either (when I was a teenager I was too “cool” to like E.T.) and I can understand people who feel it crosses a line of sentimentality. I would never want to bully anybody into liking E.T. (nor would I ever say that someone is devoid of humanity or has “ice” in their veins because they feel nothing when watching it) but neither do I care for the implication that just because I am one of the millions of people who happen to be very moved by the film, that I am somehow a mindless sheep, a deluded fool not sophisticated enough to realize when he’s been “played like a piano” or whatever. To the people that might make this elitist claim, I tend to want to respond in kind with my own personal brand of elitism that asserts I would rather be a "foolish" believer, a sensitive soul, romantic at heart able to see the good in something than a hardened cynic blinded to the immense riches and rewards right in front of them if they would only have the humility and willingness to “open themselves up” to it. I do hope that for such individuals there is something (perhaps even a film) that brings them a comparable degree of joy, sadness and just general affirmation of what they hold dear. I hope there’s something in their lives that they cherish as much as I cherish E.T. because if so, they’re very lucky people.

TOMORROW: “Zoning” out

DAY 10: Poltergeist (1982)

2007-08-10T22:36:00.001-07:00

Poltergeist is somewhat of an anomaly in “31 days of Spielberg” because it is the only film being examined that was not actually directed by the popular filmmaker. For this reason I debated whether or not to even include it in the project since it represents an occasion where, for the first time in his career, Spielberg served both as writer and producer of a film but did not step into director’s chair... or did he? Even before the film’s release there was dispute over just who the “real” director of Poltergeist was. Ostensibly, Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Tobe Hooper helmed the film, but there has been much documentation of Spielberg’s intimate involvement in every aspect of the production. Did Spielberg really just “direct over Hooper’s shoulder” (Spielberg did want to direct it himself but was already engaged elsewhere and union rules forbade him from working on two films at once) or did the two enjoy a friendly, and fruitful, collaboration that resulted in a film that does not solely belong to either artist?

The truth is, we may never know. Numerous cast/crew members that were present on the set have, over the years, offered different perspectives on the experience and, to this day, the matter seems to lack a completely satisfactory resolution. In a way, though, the question of who actually “directed” Poltergeist is not only ultimately irrelevant but begs the further question of what a “director” truly does and who the “real” director of any film is. As one anonymous crew member has eloquently stated, if the question were simply “Who yelled ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ the most?” it would be easier to answer, but the question of “Who directs a film?” is usually trying to determine who the main creative force behind that film is. In that regard, the answer seems pretty clear to me (and I would hope to anyone who has been paying attention throughout this project) to be Steven Spielberg. Poltergeist may not be, strictly speaking, “a Steven Spielberg film” but it is undoubtedly “a Steven Spielberg production,” to a far greater degree even than any of the other movies, directed by other filmmakers, that bear his name (Back to the Future, Gremlins, Young Sherlock Holmes, The Goonies, etc). The film is simply loaded with the ideas, the themes and the storytelling style (both from a narrative and a technical standpoint) of Steven Spielberg. Thus, I felt it was appropriate to include it in this discussion of Spielberg’s art.

Poltergeist takes place in a world all too familiar to Spielberg: middle-class suburbia (the same environment as Close Encounters). Into the folds of these quite, pleasant surroundings comes a terribly hostile force that will completely overturn the life of a typical, loving family (called the Freelings) with an series of strange, grotesque and frightening phenomena. It’s very much a contemporary "haunted house" story but instead of making the house in question one of those decaying Victorian structures (the kind so often seen in ghost stories) with massive doors and windows, creaking walls and secret passageways, Spielberg’s house is an all-too ordinary, everyday American home with all of the modern conveniences and appliances. Yet even in the seemingly safe and secure atmosphere of a warm, inviting house Spielberg manages to find the dread, the shadowy figures in the dark corners of the rooms, the ghastly goings-on in the child’s closet, under the bed and in the backyard. In the writing of the script Spielberg relied heavily on the fears of his own childhood including a large, sinister tree that loomed just outside of his bedroom window (in the film the tree snatches a little boy out of his bed and tries to eat him) and a clown doll that used to terrify him (again, in the film, the doll tries to strangle the boy).

One of the things Spielberg cleverly accomplishes in the story is to provide the family with an actual reason to stay in a house plagued by angry spirits. Oftentimes in “haunted house” movies, the audience finds it difficult to identify with characters who are so dense as to not see clearly what is going on around them and just get out of the house as quickly as possible. In Poltergeist the disturbed souls who occupy the Freeling home kidnap the small girl played by Heather O’Rourke via her closet (in a scene/situation reminiscent of the abduction of young Barry in Close Encounters) and pull her into another dimension where she cannot be seen but she can be heard and her presence can still be felt. Not only is this plot element consistent with the Spielberg theme of “believing is seeing,” it gives the family a logical motivation to remain in the house. As long as Carol Anne is “there” somewhere (alive in some form) they can’t leave without her, even if they don’t know precisely where she is and can only hear her voice through the television set.

The television is actually a very important character in Poltergeist. In trying to create the portrait of a normal family, Spielberg utilizes the television as a unifying element to their everyday life and simultaneously satirizes our society’s current addiction to and weird attitudes about it (one particularly humorous bit has Carol Anne gazing into the white static on the screen until the mother tells her “Oh, honey. Don’t look at that. You’ll wreck your eyes,” and then changes it to a channel showing scenes of combat; apparently watching images of people dying violent deaths is less harmful to kids than electronic snow). There is rarely a scene where the set is not turned on in Poltergeist. Even if nobody is watching it, it is always there, always present, always observing what’s going on (like an all-seeing eye) and at times even commenting on the situation, as in a sequence where a scene from the film A Guy Named Joe, wherein Spencer Tracy's character Pete learns that he is dead, is playing. This is both a private in-joke for Spielberg, since A Guy Named Joe is one of his favorite films (and the inspiration for his future remake Always), and a foreshadowing of the various conversations that will take place later in the film on the nature of “life” after death.

The film’s opening image, after the title appears over the familiarly Spielbergian black screen, is an extreme close-up of a television screen as the “Star Spangled Banner” is heard playing. The camera slowly pulls back to reveal it is a TV station “signing off” for the night (a practice probably foreign to today’s youth where most channels run programming 24 hours a day). After the song finishes, the image of white static appears and the camera follows the family dog as it runs throughout the house searching for food. Through this sequence every member of the family is introduced but only one character, Carol Anne, awakens. She approaches the TV set and, to the bewilderment of the family, carries on a conversation with voices that apparently only she can hear (at the end of the scene she reaches out to touch the screen providing the image most associated with the film). At the end of Poltergeist, after the entire family has been reunited and flees the house to stay at a Holiday Inn, Spielberg uses the opportunity to make one final statement about their new attitude toward television. The father, significantly named Steven (Craig T. Nelson), wheels their set outside the room and re-enters closing the door behind him, thus book-ending the film with shots of television screens. At the opening the screen was on. Now it is off and out of sight, unable to do any more harm.

Some have asserted that in making television the means by which the titular poltergeists are able to enter our world (in a scene that provides the film with it’s signature line: “They’re here.”) Spielberg is being hypocritical, since he got his start in television. While it’s true that Spielberg was growing more and more dissatisfied with the quality of television at the time, he was not expressing a problem with the medium itself (in fact, shortly thereafter Spielberg would become involved in television once again with the series Amazing Stories). Spielberg is not making TV the “bad guy” in Poltergeist. He’s simply saying that if one isn’t careful, it can suck you into it and out of reality. In this case it does so literally.

After Carol Anne is taken by the ghosts, the family calls in a group of paranormal experts, led by a Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight). After a few more freaky episodes (my favorite of which is a guy hallucinating that he’s tearing the flesh off his own face with his bare hands), and Lesh becomes convinced that she is witnessing real, genuine paranormal activity, a spiritualist named Tangina (the diminutive and eerily-voiced Zelda Rubinstein) is consulted. It is important to note that the bravest and most pro-active people in the film--indeed the three main characters--are all female. First, there’s the mother of the Freeling family, Diane (JoBeth Williams), who ends up eventually having to go into what could very well be the gates of Hell to retrieve her daughter and in the film’s climactic scene save both her youngest girl and her son from certain death (just as Spielberg emphasized the mother’s commitment to protecting her children in films like Sugarland Express and Close Encounters, so does he again in Poltergeist). Second, there’s the intelligent, but sensitive, scientist Dr. Lesh who provides answers to the behavior of poltergeists and even offers an explanation as to what happens to a person’s soul after death.

Finally, when Tangina appears at the beginning of the film’s third act she assumes total control of the situation and concocts an elaborate plan to rescue Carol Anne not only from the “other side” but from the clutches of an evil entity whom she calls simply “the Beast.” In fact, as author Doug Brode has elucidated in his book The Films of Steven Spielberg, "each character, when they are introduced, is notably older and more matronly in appearance than the previous one." Perhaps one of the lasting effects of spending much of his youth in a household with four females (three sisters and a mother) and no father, Spielberg developed a healthy respect for women and what they are capable of accomplishing through love. As he once said in an interview with Time magazine “I claim no profound understanding of women, but I have faith in them.”

The picture of death presented in Poltergeist is a fascinating one because it ultimately works to de-mystify what would otherwise be regarded as a supernatural (perhaps even “magical”) experience. As with Close Encounters, Spielberg employs religious imagery and ideas throughout the film but in the end, literalizes it with logical explanations. The things seen in Poltergeist may be metaphysical but they can also be scientifically observed and understood. Through the mouth of Dr. Lesh Spielberg voices a perspective of the afterlife that resembles a number of different religions without committing to any one in particular. Death is seen not as an end but more as a beginning of another phase of life, a passage from this plane to a different one wherein we approach a brilliant white light (revisiting Spielberg’s comfortable “light” theme) and enter another world. Carol’s Anne disappearance has come as a result of her being trapped between those two worlds.

Eventually the reason why the souls are, as Tangina put it, “at unrest” is explained near the end of the film in a scene where Craig T. Nelson’s boss at the real estate company, Mr. Teague (James Karen), reveals that when Cuesta Verde first went into development in 1976, it was built on a graveyard, which Teague insists was relocated. However, as the coffins emerge from the ground with corpses flying of them in the film’s finale, we learn that only the headstones were moved (this revelation is foreshadowed earlier in the film when the family bird Tweety dies suddenly and is buried in a cigar box in the Freelings’ backyard, only to be disturbed in the next scene by a bulldozer making way for the family’s swimming pool). Interestingly, Spielberg waited a long time in introducing what is essentially the villain of the picture. Teague is more or less a variation on Murray Hamilton’s Mayor Vaughn in Jaws (though not nearly as engaging), the hypocrite who corrupts everything he touches with greed.

After the completion of Poltergiest, another controversy arose in addition to the “director” question. The film was slapped an R rating. This was not the first time Spielberg had encountered this problem (both Jaws and Raiders received R’s initially but with some minor tinkering were eventually given PG’s). Studio executives were understandably horrified by this decision, so in early May Spielberg and MGM chairman Frank Rosenfelt flew to New York to lobby for a PG. Rosenfelt argued that Poltergeist was completely devoid of sex, relatively free of profanity and even any overt violence (indeed, reviewing it again recently I was struck by the fact that ultimately nobody in the movie really gets hurt; everyone who is dead at the end was already dead at the beginning). The opposition argued that the “cumulative effect” of terrifying moments and the “intensity” of images necessitated an R rating. In a way, the effectiveness of Poltergeist shows the ability of Spielberg to scare audiences without having to resort to gory violence (Hooper should also be given some credit, of course, but his Texas Chainsaw Massacre was not afraid to use graphic violence to create fear). Eventually it was awarded a PG. “I don’t make R movies,” Spielberg insisted, a statement that hounded him for much of his career.

When Poltergeist was released it received generally positive reviews. Everyone praised the special effects (which, it should probably go without saying, are outstanding) while some fixated on the utter ridiculousness and complete incomprehensibility of the events. The Variety critic complained: “The story is truly stupid. The houses are so close that [people] can’t even watch television without interference from the next-door remote control tuner. But nobody in the neighborhood ever seems to notice [anything that goes wrong]. Here you have a house in the middle of the street going berserk in Dolby Stereo and nobody ever calls the cops.” Doug Brode addresses these inconsistencies and offers a more sympathetic outlook on how to interpret the film: “To accept any of this, the viewer has to take Poltergeist less as a ghost story than a fairy tale set in modern times; common sense does not prevail in Poltergeist any more than it does in a story by the Brothers Grimm.” Indeed, there are numerous similarities to be seen between Poltergeist and the classic story The Wizard of Oz (with Carol Anne functioning as the Dorothy character).

Although he may not have "directed" the film, Spielberg's influence can be seen in every frame of the film and he certainly displayed his "darker" side with Poltergeist. Nevertheless, audiences seemed to like the film as it made $76 million at the box office. Today it is remembered as a good, old-fashioned scary movie (akin to the kind of tales told around the campfire at night), a prime example of fun 1980's horror thrillers--made by one of the men who knows how to scare people best--which spawned several sequels and even a television series. Poltergeist is also known for being fraught with strange difficulties that occurred during and after shooting. Just as weird stories surround the making of such films as The Exorcist and The Omen, Poltergeist had problems that were not only man-caused but which seemed to have arisen from other unknown sources. At one point it was discovered that the cadavers used in the swimming pool scene at the film’s finale were actually real skeletons (a fact which actress JoBeth Williams, who had to get into the water with them, didn't learn until later) and following an array of unfortunate accidents occurred an old Native American Shaman was brought in to “exorcise” the set, after which all problems presumably ceased. After principal photography finished, the young actress who played the oldest daughter Dana (Dominique Dunn) was strangled by an angry ex-boyfriend and before shooting completed on the third Poltergeist, young Carol Anne herself Heather O’Rourke bizarrely died from an obscure disease.

In the summer of ’82 though, what was perhaps most interesting about the release of Poltergeist was that it occurred only one week before the release of another Spielberg movie: the one on which he worked simultaneously with Poltergeist and which showed his much “softer” side. The film that Spielberg would shortly unleash on the world, one that he not only wrote and produced but actually directed himself, would not only dwarf the success of all of his previous films but the success of every film ever made up until that point. Spielberg was about to create what is to date his most personal statement ever expressed on film and cinematic history would once again be made.

TOMORROW: Spielberg touches the world