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Re: I wasn't trying to change your view

Posted by TA (A) on November 25, 2002 at 11:23:09

In Reply to: I wasn't trying to change your view posted by mvwine on November 25, 2002 at 09:53:05:

It seems to me that films like "Ben-Hur", "North By Northwest" and "Stagecoach" are also impersonal. Their first order wasn't to get at something personal. I don't see how you can argue that Speilberg puts the box office in front of personal passions any more than someone like Hitchcock.

Speilberg has said that he makes the kind of films that he wanted to see as a kid. Certainly you can see how "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" or "E.T." have deep personal meaning for him. I mean, it's not god or death that he's fixated on, but those films capture a lot of the emotions and passions in discovery, friendship and childhood. As he's grown older, he's started to explore historical subjects with "Schindler's List", "Amistad" and "Saving Private Ryan". Some heady themes in there, but again there's a personal passion going on in his choice of films. (Not to mention the un-box office choice of using black and white.)

I do think that the personal connection and themes are there; he just doesn't present them as people sitting in a somber room talking about death. He just does it through the medium where his skills are: Louis Armstrong has his horn, but Speilberg has his camera.

Similarly, Woody Allen has his comedy. His most insightful, most personal films have always dealt with the issues through comedy: the joke that introduces Annie Hall tackles and sums up his world view more succesfully than the heavy-handed lecturing that he attempts in his Bergman-esque films. Given how you argue that Speilberg's films are pure audience-pleasing fare, it seems to me that you would have to say that Woody Allen is no more an artist than Jim Carey, and John Ford is no more an artist than McG.

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