At least in Australia, Boxing
Day 2011 saw two new Steven Spielberg blockbusters open on the very same day.
And in typically Spielbergian fashion the two films would struggle to be more
different. War Horse (2011) is a serious,
‘Oscar-bait’ drama, a WWI-set love story between a horse and a boy, whilst The Adventures of Tintin (2011) is the
director’s first animated venture, a 3D mo-cap adaptation of Herge’s iconic
series of adventure comics (and was awesome – featuring in my top 10 films for
2011). This sudden output would be a surprise were it to have come from any
other director. But where Spielberg and big budget flicks are concerned,
nothing is a surprise, or at least shouldn’t be after all these years.
When you talk about blockbusters, not just by Spielberg, you
really cannot start off by not talking about Jaws (1975), which in many ways signalled the birth of the
big-budget ‘event’ picture. This is for a couple of very important reasons.
Traditionally, films opened gradually across the states. They would open in a
big centre or two and then expand out. The major advantage of this is that it
would slowly build hype as word of mouth spread. And by the time it opened in a
particular city, people would be ravenous to see it because of all they had heard
and read. Jaws broke with this
tradition with a mass release, being simultaneously released on something like
450 screens. Although this is commonplace now, why make such a change? Well for
starters it mitigates the effect of shit reviews because everyone (in theory)
just rushes out and sees the film on the first weekend. Whilst there were
concerns to the contrary, Jaws in the
end had very few poor reviews to counter, going on to become a cinematic
classic. But this approach works well when you have a modern day dog such as Clash of the Titans (2010) on your
hands. This approach also shifts the timeframe in which you need to generate
hype for the picture. So instead of post-release reviews hyping the picture, it
is achieved through a pre-release advertising and merchandising blitz
encompassing making-ofs, press tours, Happy Meals and a whole lot more. The
other major point to make about the release of Spielberg’s killer shark
thriller is timing. Summer in the states, had traditionally been a bit of a
dead period for releases. Awards season was still many months away so there was
no need to build any films for that (and this is I guess a bit more of a modern
phenomenon anyways). And more importantly it was summer surely everyone had
better things to do like lick ice creams on the beach rather than sit inside a
dark cinema catching a flick (this logic is foreign to me, but apparently some
people are into other things besides watching movies). But the summer release
of Jaws started a tradition that
lives on to the present day, with many massive flicks geared to capture the
summer blockbuster market.
Now onto Spielberg’s film itself. I thought I had seen it
before I sat down to watch it the other day, but I now suspect that I had just
seen part of one of the sequels on T.V. Whilst I was expecting a thriller, Jaws is really a horror film par excellence. With a young child being
one of the first to meet their maker at the hands of the man-eating shark, the
film immediately establishes that no-one is safe. The scene is beachside
holiday, with holidaymakers frolicking in the blue ocean under the bright
shining sun. The enjoyment of these frolickers helps to build the tension, so
when that music kicks in, the tension has been built to almost unbearable
heights. The swift transformation from peaceful calm to the terror stricken
atmosphere of a shark attack was for me reminiscent of a Nirvana song shifting
gear from quiet to loud. As for that music in the film, even though you’ve
heard the score 14 million times (surely one of cinema’s most iconic, up there
with the James Bond and Halloween (1978)
themes), it is still awesomely chilling. The film, whilst carrying this horror
streak throughout, also evolves generically. It increasingly weaves in dramatic
elements (Drahor? Horrama?), before finishing with a second half that is
classic closed setting thriller. Is there a more isolated setting than three
men, alone upon a boat, tiny against the comparative vastness of the ocean? Here
also, the final hunt creates quite the emotional event out of a hunt that could
have been in other hands played simply for action and machismo.
The film opens with a wonderful night-time scene which
allows Spielberg to dazzle with his expert cinematography. The combination of
light is managed perfectly so that the night is seemingly all-pervasive, yet
you can still actually see what is occurring perfectly. A number of the
characters in this film are much like archetypes of the Western genre. Roy Scheider’s
Martin Brody for example is a lone cop, fighting for the people he is employed
to protect, against the tyranny of bureaucracy and the tourism dollar. Surprising
depth is lent to the film by the depth and nuance of the relationship between
Brody and his wife Ellen played by Lorraine Gary. They have just moved from the
big smoke to Amity Island, thinking they would find peace. But struggles await
their relationship as the titular shark begins terrorising the town. Robert
Shaw’s fisherman Quint starts out as a saltydog caricature, but his character
too gradually builds depth. Before the final shark hunt, he prepares his
fishing gear like a cowboy prepping his gun, getting ready for battle, with Spielberg
showing this meticulous preparation in slow detail. He is a cowboy, getting
ready to track his foe, and his caricature gains much nuance, most notably
through an expertly delivered monologue aboard the boat recalling a famous
wartime ordeal that establishes his connection to sharks. Probably the film’s
best performance comes from Richard Dreyfuss as the young oceanographer Matt
Hooper. The friendship that gradually grows between him and Scheider’s Brody is
wonderfully drawn, being borne out of the mutual desire to get the powers that
be to recognise the seriousness of the situation. And his verbal sparring with
Quint on the final hunt has the dual effect of at times lightening the tension,
and other times heightening it.
It says much for Spielberg’s highly evolved storytelling
chops that in a film about a killer shark, the real villain is not the shark,
but rather the mayor of Amity Island. The mayor ignores numerous warnings that
there is a highly dangerous shark on the loose, preferring to put the almighty
dollar above all else. There is also a fantastic plot twist where one shark is
caught, but turns out not to be the one doing the killing. But the grubby mayor
will not listen to reason in this regard either. This back and forth between
the Mayor and Scheider’s Brody is reflective of current arguments over how to
deal with sharks that start to kill, arguments that seem to erupt every summer
in Australia. Should the shark, surely just doing what comes naturally, in its
natural environ, be left to its own devices. Or should it be hunted down to
protect swimmers? And what role does the tourism dollar’s importance to a
coastal town’s economy have to do with the final decision? At the end of the
day though, this is pulp horror/thriller, yet just like a Peter Temple or
Cormac McCarthy novel, it is elevated above pulp by the excellence of its execution.
In this vein, the discovery of Ben Gardner’s body is one of cinema’s great
frights. I had seen a clip of this scene before, yet it still scared the snot
out of me when it came.
There are numerous classic myths about the shark used in the
film. That the first time it was put in the water it sunk straight to the
bottom of the ocean, that they continually ballooned up, got caught in seaweed
and so on; the veracity or otherwise of these myths has often been argued
about. What is for certain though is that Spielberg is able to work brilliantly
with what he has, which is a physically imposing model that looks clunky and
fake as all hell, and I imagine would have to audiences in the mid-70s. The
first shots of the beast are delivered from an extremely high angle as it cuts
through the ocean, which makes the model look ok, and its size suitably
intimidating. The issue with the shark is really not so much what it looks like
but how it moves, and this comes out in the couple of close ups of the shark
attacking which in some ways are a little comical given the clunkiness of the
model’s attacks. Moviegoers can probably be thankful for the poor quality of
the model though, as it served to make the director consider deeply how much to
show the shark, and how much to just hint, however overtly at its presence. In
the end, Spielberg nailing that balance is one of the great joys of the film.
This is a wonderful film, perhaps in my top 10-20 favourite
of all time. This is big-budget, Hollywood at its best, and it shows that when
this type of filmmaking is done well, it is as worthy as any style in cinematic
history.
Verdict:
Longneck of Melbourne Bitter
The next blockbuster of Mr Spielberg’s that I am going to
examine will always hold a special place in my heart. Jurassic Park (1993) was one of the first films I remember seeing
in the cinema, and my Nan and Pop took me to see it with my sister. I remember
everyone jumping when that motherfucking Velociraptor sticks its head through
the wall (I still jump every time I see that). And I remember that, as a
dinosaur nut at the time, I absolutely loved it. I also remember my
grandparents not liking it, thinking it was a little too violent for my 7-year
old sensibilities.
I’m a little surprised that Jurassic Park’s opening scene has not become more iconic. It
immediately sets the tone for the whole film, establishing its sci-fi stylings
and soaring, classic adventure film soundtrack. It also has the brilliant close-up
of a mouth screaming “shoot her” as the dinosaur claims its victim uncontrollably.
The film does not look back from there. There are self-referential (in a good
way) nods to Indiana Jones, and I think in many ways Spielberg is here riffing
on and expanding upon his entire preceding oeuvre. The other thing the film
definitely does is create a wondrous world for the audience to lose themselves
in. From the moment Richard Attenborough lovingly says “welcome to Jurassic
Park” the audience is taken there, and the outside world is lost. The scenery
is visually spectacular and it is populated by numerous, huge creatures
rendered using effects that still expertly hold their quality today, 18 years
of advance down the road. They
still look so real, and there are no Jaws-esque dodgy models on offer here.
Script wise Michael Crichton has helped craft something both
more engaging and intelligent than the source novel he also wrote. It is great
that in a blockbuster such as this, the script maintains a level of scientific
enquiry, with guesses at how dinosaurs lived. What’s more the more scientific
aspects of the dialogue are actually incorporated into the overall screenplay,
rather than feeling like bits of a uni lecture which have been tacked on. Thematically,
the attainment of and profit from scientific knowledge is specifically
acknowledged in dialogue from Jeff Goldblum’s character, and the film explores
this on a broader level - especially through the relationships between the
characters and their underlying motives for finding themselves on this island
off the coast of Costa Rica. The creation of this scientific and inquisitive
tone to the film, results in the birth in a lab of a baby dinosaur being as
exhilarating to witness as a T-Rex attack.
But enough of all that, how about all the dinosaurs going
nuts and ripping people’s heads off? Well there is plenty of that going on here
too. I mentioned my first viewing of this film as a youngster, and my two most
memorable recollections of that screening fall into this category. The first is
the ‘toilet’ scene which sees the first major attack of the film. A man is
plucked from the toilet scene, and I have never forgotten that, or the Jeff
Goldblum quip that follows it. The second scene is where the Velociraptor bursts
through the wall just as Laura Dern’s character has restored the power. It’s
the film’s big shock moment, and I remember afterward my pop joking about how
hard my sister had dug her nails into his arm at this point. Just like in Jaws Spielberg uses calm as a
counterpoint to courage. Most famously the first Tyrannosaur attack is preceded
by a close-up of a glass of water, with the ripples in the liquid signalling
what is to come. The end result of Spielberg’s ability to render chaos and
destruction is a film that is really quite frightening and gruesome in parts.
Every so often there is a performance in a blockbuster film
that will have people up in arms about the lack of recognition these types of
films, and performances in them, get at awards time. Sam Neill’s turn in Jurassic Park is one such performance. It
definitely deserves plaudits as he conveys the role of grumpy yet brilliant palaeontologist
brilliantly. His character also evolves nicely into a morally upstanding dude
of a father figure when required. Whilst I am a fan of the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), it definitely lacked
something not having Neill on board. Richard Attenborough is terrific as the
scientific ‘visionary’ behind the creation of Jurassic Park in the film. This
character is part visionary, part mad scientist. Well he’s not mad, but
Attenborough brings to life a man who struggles to reign in his obsessions and
their illogicality. Then there is Jeff Goldbum’s chaos theorist, a man
diagnosed in the film as suffering “from a deplorable excess of personality”.
Goldblum really does bring that excess to life, playing a delightful nerd with
fantastic glee. Actors must love these characters which allow them to play it
up to excess but still be serving the purpose required by the film. And any
film with Laura Dern yelling SHIT! SHIT! Over and over again is fine by me.
Even today, the best part of 20 years later this film still inspires me with a
sense of awe. The same sense of awe I had for dinosaurs I had when I was a kid,
collecting Dino mags. An intelligent film that is one of the supreme
blockbusters ever made.
Verdict:
Longneck of Melbourne Bitter
Only one man could release a harrowing wartime blockbuster
about WWII Jewish Genocide in the exact same year as a mammoth budget, thrills
and spills dinosaur film. Schindler’s
List (1993) is that film. I think that in many ways Holocaust films are easily
dismissed these days as awards bait, and I think that in some circumstances that
assertion holds merit. Films on this subject should never lose their impact,
but I think that in some ways they have become a dime a dozen in recent years.
There is no such risk with Spielberg’s take on this
horrendous moment in 20th Century history though. The atypical
storyline ensures that the film provides a different view of wartime. The
narrative concerns Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson. Schindler is a
member of the Nazi party who arrives in Berlin, looking to make money from the
War. One good way to increase profits is to employ in his enamelware factory
Jews who are in detention nearby, given that there is no requirement for him to
pay them. The film tracks the relationship between this money hungry
businessman, and the oppressed people he employs. I have to say, I did not
think that Neeson was capable of delivering a performance of this quality. He
is mind bogglingly good. Schindler is an intriguing character, so he has much
to work with. Knowing the vague outline of the plot before seeing this film, I
assumed that he would be a somewhat one-dimension figure, a rogue Nazi white
knight who was morally pure, upstanding, could do no wrong and the film would adulate
him. Spielberg is too good a filmmaker to engage in that kind of glossing over
of reality though and what we get is a flawed man. Initially his motives are
quite unclear, and when they are finally revealed, they are not as idealistic
as one would have assumed. He’s a man who is hungry for money, who happily
swans around in bars and woos members of the Nazi establishment. A man who only
gradually comes to realise exactly what it is that he is witnessing before him,
and gradually summons the bravery and the means to do something about it at
great personal risk.
The most prominent member of the Nazis that Schindler
regular comes into contact with is Ralph Fiennes’ chillingly portrayed Amon
Goeth. Goeth is one of the great supervillains of film history. At times, the
character and performance threatens to veer into moustache twirling, arch
villain territory. But in the end the character works, as a representation and
ultra manifestation of the Nazi scourge. The film starts slowly, and I actually
found it a little confusing in the early going as it struggles for flow. Early
on, I think the film also grapples with how best to portray the atrocities committed
– should it be done graphically or more subtly. Both approaches appear in the
film, but I think the first such event which really hit me during the film
belongs to the latter camp. It is a scene of luggage being emptied, luggage
that belonged to Jews who had just been sent to the gas chambers. The luggage
is emptied and then painstakingly sifted through to locate anything of value.
Heartbreaking. Once the film settles, it is repeatedly horrifying, and still
has a massive impact to this day, showing the unmitigated horror of what
occurred. The most tense of these ‘horrors’ that is portrayed is the travel of
a train containing female Schindler Jews. The audience can only watch in horror
as the train takes them, not to the location of Oskar Schindler’s new factory,
but instead to Auschwitz. The notion of their looming location starts as a seed
of thought, and Spielberg slowly adds on layers, til it becomes shockingly
apparent where they are headed. The scene that follows in the ‘gas’ chamber is
the film’s most unbearable to watch. The black and white cinematography is
stunningly good, sharp and deep. I don’t know if cinematography is inherently
better when black and white or if it is just the fact that this particular art
form is highlighted more by the nuance that comes from shooting without colour.
Whilst I found the film achingly emotive, I did not find it
to be manipulative. The scenes of the Jewish people being rounded up are truly
horrifying, and it is during these Nazi raids that Schindler starts down his
eventual path. He spots a young girl, dressed in red (a bold splash of colour
by Spielberg) who he sees moving through this chaos. It is not a cheapened,
instant transformation but rather this moment triggers deep thought and soul
searching on behalf of Schindler which permeates the rest of his journey. The
pacing of this change is a good thing, helping to make it feel legitimate. A
film like this is always going to be a difficult one to finish in a satisfying
manner. Schindler’s evolution of sympathy is finely finalised. However some of
the ending is perhaps a little po-faced and sentimental with an abundance of
big speeches and a group hug. However the last shot of the real-life Schindler
Jews and their descendents visiting the grave of Oskar Schindler provides a
fittingly poignant end.
I have spoken above about the complex construction and
characterisation of the character of Oskar Schindler. It is worth noting that
there is a thoughtfulness of the representation of all those involved in the
War here. Whilst it is there, the film goes further than Nazis=good, Jewish people=bad.
One example are the scenes of young children throwing stones at the Jews as
they are corralled into ghettos, or making throat-slitting gestures as they are
transported by train. Spielberg is showing us the indoctrinated,
multi-generational hatefulness that pervaded Nazi Germany. Perhaps pondering how
you stop that hatred, or the transference of it from one person to another. Have
no doubt though, the sheer fucking evil of the Nazi regime is made abundantly
clear, especially through the character of Goeth.
The film does have its critics though. Perhaps the most
notable of them is Claude Lanzmann, the director of the 9 hour Holocaust
documentary Shoah (1985) who attacked
the film as melodrama and a deformation of historical fact. Whilst I have commented
on what I perceive to be the interesting and complex characterisation of
Schindler, it has been claimed that Spielberg overtly glosses over aspects of
his persona, namely that his womanising ways are minimised, as is the role of
his wife in the eventual saving of the Schindler Jews. The criticism has also
been made, reputedly originally by Stanley Kubrick, that the film is
celebratory about the fact that 600 Jews were saved by Schindler, yet 6 million
were exterminated by the Nazis and the film chooses supposedly neglects that
fact. This is a difficult one. I don’t know that the tone is particularly
celebratory, and despite the fact Schindler is lauded at the end of the film, I
think the portrayal of him is a nuanced one. I would think that no film could accurately
convey the true horror, and especially the true scope of the Holocaust; and I
don’t think this should stop aspects of these events being portrayed, if it is
done in a manner that is as respectful as this. I do not have the knowledge or
the first-hand experience to draw definitive conclusions regarding the
criticisms directed at the film. I just feel that I should let you all know
that people with both the knowledge and first-hand experience have both
praised, and attacked aspects of the film and its treatment of the Holocaust,
and that you should do your own research on these things.
The film is as powerful as the subject matter deems it
should be. Parts of the film left me crestfallen. It is difficult to think with
any depth about the Holocaust without feeling unbearably oppressed at the state
of the human race. Does the film provide hope? I’m not sure, and if it does, it
is not undue hope.
Verdict:
Pint of Kilkenny
Progress:
54/1001
