Edmund Kattak wrote: ↑Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:11 am
He's always been a Democrat - and I've never hated him or his work prior to this dogma spilling into the DNA of his work. At some point after his work with Eastwood on FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA something snapped.
AMISTAD actually showed the Africans being sold
by blacks into the slave trade -- something that few other movies or shows have bothered to portray. If Spielberg were making that movie today, would he still stick to the historical record, or would he be more concerned with the response from his Hollywood pals and the left's current politics? My money is sadly on the latter.
I agree with you Ed, something did change along the way. Spielberg was always apolitical when it came to movies -- religious undercurrents were occasionally present in his early work, and he often showed an appreciation and respect for Christianity even though he's a Jew. His more recent films, while not being overtly political, certainly have more of a left-leaning, overly political bent to them -- and he's really not very good at it either. When he puts that kind of thing on-screen, be it LINCOLN or a more contemporary work like THE POST, it's coming from this idealistic, "JFK era Democrat" POV that's far out of sync with today's Democrat party. Don't forget he made some political movie for Clinton didn't he that Williams scored? I can't remember, the music was on Williams' last Olympic album (the Salt Lake one).
Beyond politics, something else DID change with Spielberg's filmmaking over the years. It's evolved several times. The turning point for me wasn't so much SCHINDLER'S LIST -- it was HOOK. Instead of going on-location and shooting a movie in another place -- as he did so many times in his career before -- suddenly he's in Southern California, filming a big, expensive movie entirely on sets. And also with STARS. He went from shooting with capable actors like Dreyfuss and Ford (who weren't "superstars" when they were initially being cast in Spielberg's films) to suddenly shooting films with movie stars -- working with Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman and Julia Roberts was a precursor to years of shooting movies with Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise.
He clearly became anchored to Hollywood and its life style, and his films generally convey that, both in his politics, and also in terms of the movies themselves. They're just kind of "there," they don't have the power, intensity and grittiness -- that location feel -- of his '70s and much of his '80s work. Add in Janusz Kaminski's ugly cinematography and the fact so many of his "escapist" films have lacked a real verve -- and have for years IMO -- and he's someone whose name carries a rep...but I'd argue it's been decades since it's really, truly mattered. BRIDGE OF SPIES was an agreeable film but it's probably the best thing he's turned out in 20 years, and even then nobody thinks of it as some kind of classic. It's a perfectly
good movie, but nothing I'd revisit. Meanwhile the list of mediocre dramatic works -- THE POST, THE WAR HORSE -- to outright misfires -- from THE BFG to CRYSTAL SKULL -- is long.
