My feelings about him are very conflicted. There is no doubt that he is one of the greatest and most visionary directors ever but on the other hand, he practically invented the formulaic summer blockbuster with movies such as Jaws that cheapen the art of film making. How do you feel about him and do you think history will look kindly on him? I think his legacy will remain an influence in film for a long time but not highly regarded in the artistic sense like someone such as Stanley Kubrick. In my mind Spielberg = Jay-Z and Kubrick = Nas.

"I hear there's rumors on the internets" - George W. Bush

Spielberg can at least tell a story in his blockbuster fare, in addition to doing "really cool things" on film (i.e. the alien contact in close encounters, not showing Jaws until the end).

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>not highly regarded in the artistic sense like someone such as
>Stanley Kubrick.

he has made MANY films that are extremely revered for their artistic value:

Schindler's List
The Color Purple
Saving Private Ryan
Munich
Minority Report

and although his blockbusters may have inspired lazy knockoffs, the his classics are mostly considered well made, very good movies:

E.T.
Raiders of the Lost Arc
Close Encounters
Jurassic Park
Jaws

Not to say that he hasn't made missteps (War of the Worlds, Artificial Intelligence), but he's probably got the best balance of art and box office that you're going to find...

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and its no ones fault but his own. His MEGA success in inventing and employing formulaic cinematic devices will always doom him to having some type of artistic asterisk next to his name.

Honestly, I think that Jurassic Park is one of the greatest films ever made, just from the perspective of how he used the effects to affect the audience reaction. Even more so than Star Wars, it felt like I was on a roller coaster or amusement park ride.

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One Hundred.

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one of the great movie-going experiences of all-time.

"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

Maybe he's made technical innovations but his film's only go one direction = the way he wants you to feel. There's no room for interpretation. The musical cues will see to that.

And nothing he's done is on the level of Kubrick. Nothing.

>And nothing he's done is on the level of Kubrick. Nothing.

we take for granted that all WW2 movies have that desaturated, shaky-cam look, but he invented that. and the staging, editing, shot selection of that scene are still fucking breath taking.

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FOH

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

for all the crappy knock-offs that are inspired by their orginal works. Is the complaint that they are too influential?


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"Play Your Game" (c) Stan Van Gundy

ESPECIALLY this sentiment:

>the
>formulaic summer blockbuster...that
>cheapen the art of film making.

The word “genius” is greatly overused, especially in regards to filmmaking, but I think that moniker is apt in this case. He is the Beatles. He’s by far the most universally acclaimed director by both the commercial movie-viewing population and the mochafrappalatte drinkin crowd. I’ll throw Munich up against any film made in the past 10 years, Close Encounters against anything in the past 25, and Schindler’s List up against anything EVER.



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Cause I'm comin...
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"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

>

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

Like somebody said earlier, he is a master manipulator, and the music cues are always very obvious. When he wants you to cry, you'll know it. And he could really leave the daddy issues alone at this point.

A lot of the way Hollywood is now (both good and bad) is because of him. He was not alone in starting blockbuster culture, for Lucas and even Coppolla have something to do with that, but he is at least one of the key figures.

That being said, the most depressing thing about Spielberg to me is the amount of autonomy he has within the industry, and what he chooses to do with it. He made his big money movies and his art flicks, but all Dreamworks does is just continue to do everything that is bad about Hollywood: it's just another studio. When an artist does enough quality work that is commercially successful to start a studio, and he uses his power to do this, it bothers me. I don't know what his role in Dreamworks is now, but I know he had a lot of influence at one time. Although he was always more of a commercial director than anything else, so it's not surprising.

Taking all of this into consideration, he still made Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's a life pass from me.

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Close Encounters is fantastic. ET is fantastic. Raiders of the Lost Ark is terrific.

Just because he knows how to utilize effects, and the studios realized audiences would forfeit a well-told story in lieu of more effects, doesn't mean that Spielberg's name should be lowered on the all-time list.

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Here's why I say that.

Think about the year-- 1993. 16 years later, the special effects are STILL breathtaking, at a time when our minds are far more jaded to the spectacle.

Think about the budget-- 63 million dollars. A lot for the time, but when you consider the advancements made in computer technology since, and the amount of money spent on big-budget bonanzas nowadays, and how LOUSY some of the effects are on money?

That is an absolute perfect model of getting bang for your buck, an absolute perfect model on how effects help the story instead of replace it, an absolute perfect model on how to shape the film so that your effects create wonder instead of just sit on the screen like lifeless CGI lumps, and an absolute perfect model for demanding nothing but the most realistic results from your effects work in order to make your on-screen product... well, absolutely perfect.

I'm not saying the dinosaurs are more realistic or wonderful than the effects of the Lord of the Rings films... but when you consider the year and the budget, Jurassic Park is just as or more impressive.

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Certainly not a career high point, but I was amazed how good the special f/x looked for the time. Planes flying through forest fires and what not. Also, I wonder if this was the last movie to have the signature Spielberg look.

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

We came up on Spielberg blockbusters, such as the Indiana Jones joints, and E.T., as well as produced a grip of other movies that had his stamp on them, such as Gremlins, Them Goonies, and the Back to the Future joints. Those movies spoke to us kids and appealed to our desire to have fun. It was cool watching grown-ass folks (and kids) do what we did every day after school...

Then Steve went on ahead and hit us with the "serious" event movies, like The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Amistad, Munich, etc. The grown man/adult stuff. Some may argue that these flicks are too schmaltzy, ie, "there's too many happy endings," but Spielberg never struck me as a "glass is half empty" kind of person, so any kind of "dark" and/or "realistic" ending that people clamor for would just ring false, as the stories he helps to shape don't lend themselves to the "logical" conclusion of an unhappy ending... with the exception of A.I.

Anyway, it's not his fault that he perfected the art of the summer popcorn movie and inspired others to try (and fail) to do the same...

Also, on a personal note, the Jay-Z/Nas analogy is weak and tired as fuck. Kubrick's one of my favorite filmmakers too, but I don't have to shit on a "commercial" director like Spielberg to prop up Stan's work. This isn't The Lesson; please do better.
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By influential, do you mean greatest, because that is a very anti-intellectual way to look at things. And besides America's greatest living director is Scorsese, and it's not even debatable, really. Spielberg for the most part made popcorn movies and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that the only movies with any artistic merit are depressing indie films, but when you see a film like Waltz With Bashir surpass everything Spielberg was trying to do with Munich, you can't help but think he can do a lot better if he just abandoned his dogmatic adherance to cheap thrills and entertainment over art.

"I hear there's rumors on the internets" - George W. Bush

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I guess what I don't understand is how this is relevant to the quality of this man's work. Hitler was also influential.

"I hear there's rumors on the internets" - George W. Bush

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I think even many people who prefer Scorsese would admit this. To say that it's not up for debate is a foolish foolish overstatement.

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FOH

The Departed screenplay > Spielberg's filmography

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>The Departed screenplay > Spielberg's filmography


But lets we not drift into hyperbole, yes?


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>The Departed screenplay > Spielberg's filmography

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It is a tribute to the first amendment that this kind of vile, contemptable nonsense is so freely propagated.

This fucking guy is good!

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"i smack clowns with nouns, punch herbs with verbs..."

I don't know if you can tell a story any better than Scorcese did in Goodfellas.

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

Scorsese takes more narrative risks, but his narratives are flawed far more often. Goodfellas is one of maybe four examples of flawless Scorsese storytelling. I do enjoy some of the flawed ones... but they are what they are.

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

since the early part of this decade, Spielberg has made consistently more interesting films. Scorsese has ceased to try anymore since Gangs of New York (which is an interesting hot mess). Aviator and Departed, though beautifully made, always seemed a bit soulless to me. It's devoid of any of the humanity that made his films like Raging Bull so incredible. Departed is a slick Hollywood gangster flick. That he won the Oscar

Meanwhile, Spielberg has been doing his most interesting work these past 10 years. Munich is the movie where he actually seems to embrace ambiguity. Im pretty alone in this but War of The Worlds is one of the more interesting films dealing with 9/11 that's been made so far. Spielberg's popcorn flicks (i.e.the last Indiana Jones) while his "artier" films are proving to be REALLY interesting.

we're both factory owners, we both made shells for the Nazis, but mine worked, dammit! Now go out there and win me that festival!

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Mar-A-Lago delenda est

and give the crowd a feelgood, nuclear family moment annoys the shit outta me.

You can truly say this of him and be taken seriously. May I take this opportunity to say he never gets credit for Empire of the Sun which I think is one of his best films. This movie was beautifully crafted. Not one award.

>>Expert on all things Cali