Shmuel Steven Allan Spielberg is known in the industry as one of the best movie directors ever. And also known for being overly sentimental. His films include such classics as Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, A.I. the Artificial Intelligence, Schindler's List and many other films. And though it looks on the surface that he is either overly sentimental, like in E.T. or overly serious about history like in Schindler's List or Lincoln, I believe that it's not a true way to categorize Spielberg. I think the truest form at which he has ever been is in his film 1941.
It should not be a surprise that I clicked on an hour long interview between James Cameron, J.J.Abrams and Steven Spielberg. What was a surprise though, was what they said. I bookmarked the section in my browser, here is the link.
Something Evil is a little known TV movie from 1972 directed by Steven Spielberg of all people. Steven had a few attempts at horror. Most of them turn out to be less horrific and more psychological in nature. He avoids torturing the audience, but likes to present ideas that are psychologically disturbing, like in Jaws, War Of The Worlds or Schindler's List. This movie is no exception.
During the making of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Steven Spielberg was already kind of a big man in Hollywood. But from the other side he was still young. Technically speaking this was his third theatrical film. He did work for television from the late 60s. At that time he already directed a number of feature length TV movies. One of them was the famous Duel. And then he did only 2 theatrical pictures: the 1972's The Sugarland Express and the 1974's Jaws. And now there is this movie.
Who is the best person then? The most influential one? Can we count Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un? They have plenty of influence. Okay, they are not pretty. And they aren't good people in the Christian sense. So who then? Steven Spielberg? He sounds like a guy who is both good and good.
There are not a lot of movies that would influence you directly. Some might suggest possible techniques. Like say watching a Steven Spielberg movie might inspire you to do very interesting camera moves. This movie though literally changed the direction I wanted to go into.
If you like either aliens, horror or Edgar Wright, I think it will be a good movie for you. If you are Steven Spielberg ( which would be very cool if he visited this website ), I don't know how should it feel to see this movie. On one end it feel like a sequel to Close Encounters. But then what the hell?
I reviewed a lot of films on this website and in almost every review I mention the name of Steven Spielberg. It's not because every movie I review is made by Spielberg. But it seem like every director can be viewed on a scale of Spielbergness. And the higher you go on that scale the better. At the top there is Steven Spielberg himself.
I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.
So I thought about a slasher monster horror film involving a bunch of teens. The movie would be about a group of teens who are killed by a monster one by one, untill everyone is dead. And in the end the monster should break the ground, rise to unbelievable height and then eat the two remaining characters, while they are confessing to each other that they love each other. As you can tell I was still very much influenced by Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds.
Anyway. I remember sneaking out of bed during one night and using mom's laptop to watch Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds. I even remember seeing a part of the movie in a toilet since I was so emerged in the story that I didn't want to press pause.
I was fascinated at that point with the story about the making of Dunkirk, the 2017 Christopher Nolan movie about World War II. It was rated PG-13, while everything else about this subject matter was rated R and a lot of people got upset that Christopher Nolan was afraid to show guts. But Nolan himself explained that in preparation to the filming, he watched Saving Private Ryan ( a very violent Steven Spielberg film about that war ) and saw that other people tend to close their eyes in moment of absolute horror. So they don't actually see the movie. And they miss on tension, immersion and ultimately they are not scared in the end. So to scare the audience about the war, he needed to show death and suffering without the death and the suffering being unpleasant to look at on the screen. And for that kosher approach he got the PG-13 rating.
Since long time ago I was fascinated with stories of success. And since long time ago I was arrogant enough believing that I was destined to success myself. Maybe some of it was my mother's fault. She used to tell me how utterly perfect I am. But since she died from alcohol poisoning I started to become way more sober and instead of success I have depression now. Imagine growing up thinking you will be the next Steven Spielberg, just wait and those dumb hoards of people will recognize your unstoppable talents, just to realize that you are a worthless piece of shit and nobody wants nothing from you.
First and for most I should probably address the elephant in the room. Not all Jewish people are successful! And not all of them are rich, even if they are successful. It would be tempting to talk about Steven Spielbergs all day long. But there are other Jewish-born people like Richard Stallman, for example, that aren't rich per se, but are successful in their own way. As you maybe know, Richard Stallman is quite a successful philosopher and a very good computer programmer. But not a very good entrepreneur. On the other hand I personally know very unsuccessful and pretty dumb Jewish people too. So the spectrum is quite wide. Though it does seem like at least statistically speaking a Jewish-born person is marginally more likely to succeed.
Often it is required of a storyteller to say less in order to say more. Steven Spielberg had to censor the most gruesome parts of the holocaust in order to make a movie that was actually watchable, and his intuition was arguably right. The movie ended up being a hit, exposing millions upon millions of people to the the holocaust. But it wasn't the horror. It was a watered down version, made so people would not be too upset watching it. The reality of the situation was so much worse that Spielberg didn't even think a movie showing the actual truth was possible. Nobody would be brave or masochistic enough, he thought, to actually see it. A similar story happened to Dunkirk, another World War II movie, this time by Christopher Nolan, who deliberately avoided the worst aspects of a war film to make a film which the audience could watch without taking their eyes from the screen, and as a result, a film that is arguably scarier because of that. Nolan's masterful management of tension is so good that the movie doesn't need violence and blood to be visceral. And yet, to some extent the movie is a watered down version of what war supposed to be. And some argue it is a lesser film because of it.
When it came to films. She herself liked war films a lot. So we watched them. There were other things. Like a series about Russian truck drivers that go into all kinds of trouble. It was not meant for kids. I remember nudity in it. I remember watching Total Recall on TV with her. And I remember being horrified by the ending where Arnold goes outside on the Mars surface and his eye blow up. The TV stations very liked to show Minority Report directed by Steven Spielberg. I really loved that film. And still love that film to this day. It is just littered with complexities. It's amazing.
Anyway, for the last few weeks or so ( roughly since I watched The Fabelmans in the cinema ) I've experienced a kind of intense writer's block which manifested itself in my utter inability to concentrate. At first I just thought I was upset by Steven Spielberg making a movie about himself which becomes popular. While I have less than a hundred views on a teaser for Moria's Race. Then I thought that I've overdosed on caffeine, but since then I didn't drink no coffee and the feeling is still here.
- I didn't let myself watch Steven Spielberg's "AI - Artificial Intelligence" ( aka the best film ever made ) until I finish I'm Not Even Human. And what a relief it was to finally ( some years later ) see AI when I finished I'm Not Even Human.
- People even spread rumors that Steven Spielberg, a director who recently made a handful of pro-freedom political movies, is some kind of child molester too.