by Allan Fish
(USA 2001 146m) DVD1/2
Cirrus; Socrates; Particle; Decibel; Hurricane; Dolphin; Tulip…
p Kathleen Kennedy, Steven Spielberg, Bonnie Curtis, Jan Harlan, Walter F.Parkes d Steven Spielberg w Steven Spielberg story Brian Aldiss, Ian Watson, Stanley Kubrick ph Janusz Kaminski ed Michael Kahn m John Williams art Rick Carter cos Bob Ringwood spc Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Scott Farrar, Michael Lantieri
Haley Joel Osment (David), Jude Law (Gigolo Joe), Frances O’Connor (Monica Swinton), Sam Robards (Henry Swinton), Brendan Gleeson (Lord Johnson-Johnson), William Hurt (Prof.Hobby), Rena Owen (ticket taker), Paula Malcomson (Patricia), Jake Angel (voice of Teddy), Robin Williams (voice of Doctor Know), Meryl Streep (voice of Blue Mecha), Chris Rock (voice of comedian), Ben Kingsley (narrator),
It was Stanley Kubrick’s baby; one of many embryo projects he put on hold, this particular one because when he conceived the idea in the late eighties, special effects were not advanced enough to meet his vision. Seeing what one of his successors, Steven Spielberg, did with ILM in Jurassic Park, convinced him the time was just around the corner, but he still had doubts. Eyes Wide Shut took over, and went on…and on. In the moments when he did come back to Brian Aldiss’ short story, he was struck with the notion that perhaps he wasn’t the one to direct it at all, that his vision would be too cold. He thought it might be an idea for him to produce and write and Spielberg to direct.
We know with hindsight that announcing one’s plans is a sure-fire way to make the almighty laugh, and fate robbed us of the opportunity by Kubrick’s sudden and much-mourned passing. Spielberg was one of the coffin bearers at his funeral, and they had been close friends since the days when Spielberg watched Kubrick shoot The Shining while waiting to begin Raiders of the Lost Ark. When the notion came for him to take up the baton for his old mentor and friend, he could do no other. He even made the film not at his customary Universal but at Stanley’s home since 1971, Warner Bros. It would be the first time since Close Encounters that he would write the finalised script himself.
Spielberg took the story of a small boy, created scientifically, a robot for want of a better word, and mixed in elements of his own and Stanley’s career. It divided critics down the middle, with many seeing it as too dark for Spielberg, others as too light for Kubrick. One cannot help but wonder what Stanley would have made of it. Would it have been better? More ambitious, perhaps, and yet for all its faults, Spielberg’s film ranks among his best. It would have been near as dammit to a masterpiece if it had been left at the point where David is trapped ad infinitum under the depths of old New York staring at his Blue Fairy, but a last act is tacked on. It seems superfluous, a refusal to let it go perhaps, and yet linked with the opening narration there’s a wistful quality that’s unique. This is not merely another futuristic vision of the future, but a far off future’s looking back into the mists of time to what is to us, still a future. A future, as the opening words tell us, in the “years after the icebergs had melted because of the greenhouse gases and the oceans had risen along all the shorelines of the world.” The vision of a submerged New York is an amazing one, and the shot of the Twin Towers, many thousands of years later, all but submerged, carries a special poignancy that both betrays and upholds its doom-laden philosophy. One could write whole paragraphs on the effects and design alone – Rouge City with its barrage of neon and a building topped by the outline of a horizontal girl in hotpants and fishnets – and Williams’ score is his best in aeons, evoking memories of both earlier Spielbergs and Kubrick’s 2001. And at the centre, outdoing even Jude Law’s uncanny Gigolo Joe, is Osment, emerging into his new home like one of the aliens in Close Encounters descending in silhouette from the mother ship. Is there a more moving shot in 21st century cinema than of him shedding a tear – yes, robots can cry – at his mother finally telling him she always loved him. That’s his glimpse of the infinite, his Blue Fairy moment, his star child looking down on earth. Forget the faults, see the all-enveloping vision of one master film-maker’s paean to one of his icons.
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When I was reviewing films professionally for the now-defunct PhillyOut.com, I named “A.I.” as the best film of that year. It’s a dense, layered and insightful film featuring some rather amazing performances, all around. I disagree that the end is superfluous, however. Leaving David and Teddy in the frozen depths of the sea would hardly have resolved David’s longing to be a “real” boy. By giving him his day alone with his mother, Spielberg allows his audience to empathize with David and his quest for love. I am so happy to see that the film is finally getting the kudos it so roundly deserves.
Great to hear this Brian, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Thanks so much for stopping by!
Great choice and review, Allan! A.I. is one of those films you love, but can’t help but think that it could have been so much better. A film where the sum of it’s parts is slightly less than the beautiful individual scenes and iconic shots. Haley Joel Osment did a wonderful job both in this and Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense – two great films in a two years period.
Can’t wait for the eventual Blu-ray release of this film to give it a new look in hopefully glorious HD.
Great to have you here Jamie! I quite agree with everyone you say too.
Another wonderful entry, Allan, for a film that I have only recently become a huge fan of but now love nonetheless. I ranked it at #16 on my Top 25 and am glad to see it get a placement from you as well. The background of the project is also very interesting, one of those Hollywood stories that I love hearing. As intriguing as it would have been to see what Kubrick would have done with it, at least this is one of those tales that has a good ending, since Spielberg took the project and ran with it, resulting in spectacular results.
In terms of Spielberg’s overall body of work, I rank only Raiders of the Lost Ark and Schindler’s List ahead this one.
Aye, Dave, I know you’ve just discovered this recently, and that’s one exciting revelation!
So much can be said for this film. Of all of Spielberg, this is, singularly, his most haunting-it eats at you for days later. Kubrick’s spirit was alive and well here. However, though I DO consider this film one of the best of its year, I can’t help but imagine how much more haunting it would have been if Stanley had directed. Ultimately, though few, I feel Spielberg flaws the film slightly. His sentimentality invades the finale of the film in a way that makes it just less than sucessful whereas I feel Stanley would have embued it with hard truths about the coldness of technology and the misplacement of true love. The score by John Williams, while excellent, is also out of place here. Kubrick would have allowed silences to guide the themes and emotions. On the other hand, the visuals of the film are astounding and Spielberg/Kaminski are dead on in evoking Stan’s dicotomy for frame composition. The shot of David at pool-bottom is unforgettable.
Great response here Dennis. I’ve known your love for this since the day you first saw it!
I can’t keep too slilent about this film. The idea that Stanley intended, that this is an eventual future for us seen through the eyes of people from a time that even exceeds our fantasies is a profound story-telling device and one that dwarfs almost all of Science Fiction on the screen in 30 odd years (by no means should this come as a surprise from Kubrick who directed the greatest Sci-Fi film of them all). Its the story-book ending that truly bugs me about this film. And, although I agree with Allan that it could have ended on David’s long sleep at the bottom of the sea, I feel the need to go further into the infinite must happen. Perhaps the robots programing David to dream of Mom would have sufficed, from our view it would have done the job without the syrupy moment Spirlberg gives us on the bed at the end. Still, flaws aside, this is probably the most powerful film of its genre in many a year and can stand proudly with Stanley’s 2001 as a real meditation on what WILL come.
“This is not merely another futuristic vision of the the future, but a far off future’s looking back into the ists of time at what is, to us, still a future…” That could be one of the most perfectly composed and insightful sentences Allan has ever concocted. Its fitting that he highlighted it in one of his very best essays. Its the core of the review and, not surprisingly, the structure that fuels A.I. I think that line is, for lack of a better word, brilliant.
A. I. Artificial Intelligence, fueled by some profound philosophical themes and issues of motherhood, is arguably one of Spielberg’s masterworks, and for this writer it ranks with Schindler’s List, Empire of the Sun and E. T. on the short list of the director’s greatest achievements in cinema. Like the other three, it is extraordinarily moving, and it paints yet again a piercingly evocative view of childhood and of the human condition, tinged with an overwhelming sense of sadness. The film is based on a short story by Brian Aldiss entitled “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” published in 1969, and it draws considerable influence from Disney’s Pinocchio.
The setting is futuristic, and the narrative commences after a catastrophic global warming-induced flood that has ravaged the landscape and exacerbated population pressures. Couples are required to secure licenses to have children, and the technological advances have now reached the point where companies are producing mechanical humans that are veritable doppelgangers of the real children, even to the extent of expressing genuine affection. Children who are obedient and stay young forever is an ideal scenario for prospective parents. Of course the very concept that “human love” has been replaced by “machine love” serves as the ironic juxtaposition of a film that strives to portray hope, but instead in large measure presents a dire picture of family disintegration, and lost capacity to love. In effect, the film is made up of three distinct parts. In the first, David strives to assimilate in a human family, while in the second part we follow his adventures during his search, until finally in the third part, he confronts his dream. The first part is clearly the most psychological as it documents the struggle for affection. The second part above all showcases Spielberg’s satire of American society in the context of David’s discovery of the world around him, after he is stranded alone. David’s abandonment suggests a ‘saturation’ of American consumer society where everything becomes disposable and interchangeable, once the trend is past.
The film’s most omnipotent and wrenching scene may well be the aforementioned one where the mother abandons her son to the forest. To save him she had no alternative but to abandon him to survive on his own, as the father had threatened his dismantlement and destruction. The robotic boy’s never-ending search for his mother of course mirrors the plethora of adopted, abandoned, lost and abused children in today’s society who are enlisted in an eternal mission to find love, only to become entangled in harmful vices when it is unconsummated. Then there’s a circus where robots are publicly sacrificed, reflecting a modern-day spectacle that’s all the rage in America, where an ecstatic crowd contemplates gigantic robotic trucks that clash and are eventually destroyed. Gladiator, Kubrick’s Spartacus and Spielberg’s own Schindler’s List are all recalled here.
In the film’s final chapter David meets Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), a superman whose only apparent goal is to satisfy women. Recalling the show Sex in the City, Joe seems to be a direct reference to the increasingly significant phenomenon of unmarried and independent women who do not need men to survive. He brings the child to the red city, a town of a thousand lights where vice reigns in what is an obvious transposition of Las Vegas.
Ultimately, as per chronicled in the utterly arresting sequence near the end, the earth becomes mired in a deep freeze, which is brought about by a planetary collapse of climate. The subsequent melting of the Arctic ice sheets and submersion of the coastal cities ends a two-thousand year freeze, which ‘reactivates’ David and his stored memories of a human civilization that has long ago disappeared, but his quest for his mother and human love endures with the advanced computer life forms that have replaced humanity–shapeless, sexless, emotionless, yet with a degree of compassion, as they assist David in realizing his goal. The short passage visualizing this fleeting moment is one of the most beautiful codas in all of American cinema since the advent of the new millennium. The conclusion of A.I. hasn’t pleased a number of critics and moviegoers, but it’s in keeping with the film’s myriad themes, which also includes the nature of existence, the responsibility mankind has to the sentient beings that it creates, and the issues that arise when man’s technical reach extends beyond his moral grasp.
The film again demonstrates Spielberg’s gift with young children, as Haley Joel Osment, shifting seamlessly between a cold machine, a child in love and a dangerously obsessed creature. Francis O’Connor, who plays his mother, effectively conveys the ambivalence of her feelings, while Jude Law as the gigolo shines in his extroverted mode.
Spielberg alumni, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, composer John Williams and editor Michael Kahn all make major contributions to Spielberg’s futuristic parable. Kaminski’s elegiac canvasses are tinged with melancholy, and are perfectly accentuated by the bittersweet music. But it’s a film that stays with you largely because of its philosophical themes, which in the end question the validity of eternal life, the fleeting nature of mortality and how the power of love can transcend centuries. It’s a film of lasting and significant emotional resonance and it’s my choice for the best movie of 2001, and one of the top five or six films of the entire decade.
I actually like the ending to this film and, rather than find it sentimental, find it melancholy and somewhat depressing. I especially like the creatures (evolved robots, supposedly, rather than aliens) intriguing, both visually and conceptually.
The film’s ending with the “Supermechas” is definitely the best part. My only complaint was that it really isn’t made clear that they ARE evolved robots, rather than aliens.
I’m quite happy this film doesn’t place that high, I feared it would make Top 50- or egad(!) Top 20.
This movie has one of the worst morals in history, that’s why I don’t like it as much as any of the people who put it as one of the “best of the decade”. Spielberg had so much more interesting stuff this decade, even in the sci-fi genre, “Minority Report” is miles away from this.
I think the trouble of this movie is that it’s way too ambitious, it wants to show technology and at the same time have a “message” about human feelings and mortality. If it managed to even get one of those things right, it would have been better, but for me it didn’t even scratch me emotionally nor intelectually speaking.
In the “1001 movies” community this was also the last movie to be reviewed, my opinion is there too, so you can see my full view and also many interesting ones from other people. http://1001moviesyoumustseeclub.blogspot.com/2010/05/ai-artificial-intelligence-2001.html
I agree with you, though I really don’t care for Spielberg at all, as many around here know. I’ve said many times that I feel his best film is ‘Munich’ (which you sort of hint at with, ‘Spielberg had so much more interesting stuff this decade,…’), and I stand by that here.
So sorry Señor Grijalba that this isn’t Top Gun. That you think Minority Report (Blade Runner for amoebas) superior is not a recommendation but a condemnation.
Hey, hey, why the rough tone sir? Calling me “señor” as in a despective tone? Are you from Arizona, by any chance?
Sorry, hahaha, had to say that, it’s a joke, don’t take it too seriously.
Well, about your response, while rude, I kinda understand it, while this isn’t the most action packed film, it doesn’t have to, if you actually read what I had to say, you wouldn’t have posted that, I was complaining about its horrible message about life and death (“if you wish it strong enough, one day the dead will come back to life”).
The Top Gun mention was really unnecesary, I haven’t watched it, and I’m sure I won’t in a long time, it’s one of those movies that sound too bad.
I do think “Minority Report” is better than this, while not the best of Spielberg by any stretch, not even this decade, as Jamie (whoa, Jaime-Jamie) said.
Please, wondersinthedark, get to know me before you insult my taste, while it is The Internetz, I hope for a more mature reaction from a blog of this quality… unless it isn’t really good? I’m starting to doubt with this kind of reactions.
Intelligence isn’t judged on politeness, or on taste and eruditeness, but on the latter two together. Politeness is for politicians, not for those who don’t suffer fools, which is not to call you one, far from it, as your site shows you are anything but, not to mention you speaking at least two languages fluently when to many on here English is the second language and utter bollocks the first. Hell Americans take nearlay half the letters out of doughnuts because printing the O and U together seems to be the printing equivalent of actors mentioning the Scottish play.
BTW, no, I’m not from Arizona. The people who come here regularly will tell you I am British, and as cold, merciless and cynical as our climate (it only stops raining to drizzle) and lifestyle encourages. Curmudgeonly, misanthropic…only on my good days. For the politeness and overt, sickening graciousness, we have our proctor Sam Juliano, who would welcome Robert Mugabi to this site as he would see it as his duty to fairness, forgetting his duty to common humanity to shoot the bastard in his cranium, as the western world would have done if they only believed Zimbabwe had oil reserves.
Welcome to contrary corner! 🙂
Ok, ok, just a bit surprised about such a alergic-like reaction to my opinion.
Sorry about the Arizona joke, just wanted to use it, I told you not to take it seriously! hahahahaha.
Oh, I have a lot worse and deserve a lot worse, this old cactus can stand it. Seriously, this place can get a lot more insulting than that. We don’t do things by halves here.
Jaime, welcome to these parts partner. I know Sam is busy today with his son’s confirmation, but I’m sure he’d be quick to tell you that you are urged to stay the course with this site. So I urge you amigo, (I am Cuban-American, by the way) to come back here. Your voice is very much appreciated.
Thank you, is just that such rudeness surprised me, that’s all. I’ll stay, don’t doubt about that.
JAIME-LOL!!!!! WELCOME!!!! I see, above, you’ve run into the illustrious ALLAN FISH. Believe me, his bark is nowhere near as leathal as his bite and I’ve got the scarred ass to prove it. Allan is quick-witted, fast as lightning, curt and straight-to-the-matter. However, behind tha cold-as-ice exterior is a big-brained pussycat. I’ve spoken to him a few times on the phone and, regardless to some of his venom here, he really is a terrific guy. The venom hurts sometimes but its not poisonous. WELCOME TO WONDERS IN THE DARK.
Yes Dennis, Allan does wear his spleen on his sleeve…
AI is mediocre sci-fi made visually interesting by the amount of cash someone like Spielberg can throw at CGI. The banality of the cheap moralising challenges the even more execrable Bicentennial Man. Why such anthropomorphism should be seen as some sort of intellectual achievement has me bamboozled. In Fish veritus.
Actually, I think “Bicentennial Man” has its moments. Granted, Chris Columbus has little to no idea of what he’s doing, but it’s a better take on Asimov than “I, Robot”.
Peter Jackson certainly threw a lot of cash at the likes of King Kong and it wasn’t at all visually interesting. Spielberg directs with his instincts not his wallet, and his instincts are first-rate.
Philosophically, I see what you’re saying with your knock on “anthropomorphism” – the film never really makes clear if the little robot is human underneath, or just appears to be, which makes our sympathy rather hollow (it could work on a fairy-tale level, a notion Spielberg/Kubrick flirt with, but the film is kept too grounded in some sort of reality for that reading to take flight).
But I’m a big fan of anthropomorphism in general, from Cameraman’s Revenge thru Dumbo, the Muppets, Brave Little Toaster all the way to Wall-E. And of course, Wind in the Willows, one of my favorite books of all time, is some kind of pinnacle in the “form.” Few other devices provide me with such pleasure. Not sure why it’s the case, but it is…
I happen to like both A.I. and Minority Report. I wouldn’t put either in the same class as 2001 or Blade Runner. The best thing Spielberg ever filmed, in my opinion, is the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan. I bring this up simply because I’m ready to watch the final episode of the disappointing “The Pacific” miniseries. Allan your Mugabi line had me chuckling to myself. Sam needs to clarify if he would indeed welcome the “glorious” Zimbabwe dictator with open arms lol. Anyone who gets offended by your remarks needs some self esteem therapy. You once wrote that Sam listens to O Solo Mio with tears in his eyes or something similar. As an Italian American I have witnessed this spectacle myself, though usually by someone who just drank 2-3 bottles of wine.
Ah Maurizio, the same emotionally gushing blood runs through our veins! Ha!
Sort of off topic, but as long as ’00 sci-fi is the discussion, what are the WitD communities thoughts on PRIMER? I think as sci-fi it’s leagues more interesting then A.I. I wonder if we’ll see it in the top 64 (I kind of doubt it for some reason).
When you realize PRIMER cost about $15,000 (that’s not a typo, I just did type fifteen thousand), compared to A.I.’s $100 million it’s a sobering stat.
I’m wrong, PRIMER cost just $7000 to make, even more unbelievable with regards to the movie that resulted.
I’m kind of iffy on “Primer”. It’s theories of time-travel are original, but still sort of obtuse and illogical. Dramatically it’s streamlined, simple, and unfortunately also sort of inert. Stylistically it’s interesting, but still a little bland. Altogether it’s a movie that pushes its sci-fi theme with an exacting degree of detached objectivity on all fronts that’s perfectly in spirit with its protagonists, perhaps a bit too much so for its scientific, dramatic or aesthetic content to really work. It’s a movie I like in the abstract more than in practice– the idea of the movie is great, but once you get away from its platonic ideal, I can’t muster up too much excitement for it.
See we agree and disagree here. I agree with all you say about it’s detached presentation and I love it for that exact reason.
It makes it more obtuse, more strange, and much more difficult to grasp (emotionally and conceptually) and I think these benefit the story, perhaps unintentionally. We never get to know anyone, but the time travel hints that the ‘character’s self’ we are seeing could perhaps be any number of different timeline deviations. Also the difficulty to get beneath all the science and technical jargon obscures any realization that can be obtained.
Well those points and the great end credits, that are a fantastic typographic exercise.
I’ve heard MOON is pretty good too, I’ll have to check it out.
“Moon” is terrific. I recommend it as highly as I do “THX 1138”, “Stereo & Crimes of the Future” and “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman”. See? That means it’s as good as cannibal nudism. It’s awesome.
I’ll check out “Primer” again next time it’s on IFC, or if I can pick it up cheap on DVD. Right now I have to keep money in my wallet for a screening of the “Cremaster Cycle” in the Village.
yeah, PRIMER is a free rental on my ONDEMAND right now so I’ve watched it twice this week.
A theater presentation of the Cremaster Cycle, now I’m really jealous.
As far as 00’s sci-fi goes, “Moon” impressed the hell out of me. It’s a challenging, engaging movie on all fronts, working with a surprisingly minimal number of moving parts. Its science is interesting and accessible– both the idea of mining a solar-powered energy-source from the lunar surface, and the lengths to which a corporation would be willing to go to keep such an operation underbudget in the long-term. Its story is down-to-Earth (mea culpa) and provocative, getting a surprising deal of emotional mileage out of only a couple of actors and a handful of seemingly DOA sci-fi concepts. Finally, its aesthetic is a combination of minimalist-cool and hands-on plausibility– most reviewers pointed to the movie’s reliance on model-effects work, but for me it’s the astonoshing degree of restraint with which director Duncan Jones pilots his camera through the sparely designed sets. All in all, it’s an incredible piece of sci-fi imagination, and a great debut movie.
Kubrick and Spielberg had a peculiar relationship of which A.I. is the strange consummation, considering that Kubrick reportedly thought of the project as his answer to ET and imagined it topping the Spielberg film at the box office. Despite his forbidding reputation, Kubrick aspired to blockbusters, though whether A.I. could ever have been one is open to question. He and pathos are an odd match, and I don’t know how much of the pathos on screen comes from Spielberg and how much (or how little) comes retroactively from the accidental timing of a release that showed us a frozen World Trade Center thousands of years in the future just months before that image was rendered a complete fantasy. For me Spielberg’s film dragged in the middle when Gigolo Joe dominated the action, but the beginning and end have some of the power Kubrick hoped for. I agree with Jamie, meanwhile, that MUNICH was Spielberg’s best film of the late decade.
Typically superb Samuel Wilson comment here.
I see you’ve reviewed MOOLAADE by Ouseme Sembene, Samuel. That’s the greatest of all African films in my opinion, and I can’t wait to read your essay!
Has anyone else here seen “The Possibility of an Island”? For me, a more interesting (i.e. hauntingly bleaker) meditation on the future of humanity than AI whilst possessing some similar characteristics.
Hey Longman, just got in from an early evening screening of METROPOLIS at the Film Forum, and I must admit I’m numb, even with the possession of the same restored print on a DVDR. I hope to get over to your place by the way, after I finish the Diary this evening, as I have been running ragged the last several days with visits to theatre houses and movie theatres. I have not seen THE POSSIBILITY OF AN ISLAND, but I’m most intrigued!
Worth a look Sam. I saw it at a festival, so I am not sure how widely it was distributed in the end. Focuses on cloning and told in a way that (confusingly, at first) combines the near future with the far future. Very low budget effort relative to AI, but some strong ideas and a film that I keep thinking of despite feeling bemused immediately afterwards.
Hey, come over as and when it suits only! I do not need to be told that it requires huge time management to watch art, write about it pro bono, interact with others on it, and still have a normal family/working life!
I happen to be in the minority here. I’ve always liked Spielberg’s work and I think, by now, EVERYONE knows that I regard Stanley Kubrick as THE greatest of all American directors. What I dont get is why so many bash Spielberg. In all personal honesty with myself I can only cite two full-length feature films by this man as major duds: ALWAYS and HOOK. Aside from those films, I think the director achieved EVERYTHING he set out to do and, as MOVIEMAN rightfully stated, his gambles on his own instincts have paid off in droves. Spielberg’s tastes in story and narrative, like Stanley’s, are impeccable, and his craftmanship, again like Stanley, is beyond first rate. A.I. is one of many well made films from this giant in this decade. MINORITY REPORT, MUNICH, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and WAR OF THE WORLDS all captivated and entertained. Like his earlier work, some are thrill rides (I think JAWS a rare PERFECT movie) and some have a more mature quality (THE COLOR PURPLE, EMPIRE OF THE SUN). Is there anything wrong with that?
Spielberg’s work ranges from great to generic & mediocre to my eyes, with most of his stuff falling into the latter. I agree that “Jaws” is a fundamentally perfect film, and I’d venture putting “Close Encounters” into that category as well. With only a couple of exceptions, however, I don’t really care about the rest of his work. Oddly enough, “Hook” is one of those exceptions…
But is “mediocre” the right word? Even most of his lesser work is imbued with an innate sense of cinema which few filmmakers share to the extent he does. He’s just a born moviemaker, a Mozart of the cinemascope and if you don’t feel he’s used his talents as effectively as other “naturals” don’t the talents themselves still deserve a nod?
Well Dennis all you say here is, of course, true. Spielberg’s craftmanship is pretty much always impeccable. But I don’t want my art made by craftsmen, I want it made by artists. I don’t really view Spielberg in this light, but I know it is a purely subjective opinion on my part. Different strokes for different folks…
I mean what else can I say when I prefer the work of Stuart Gordon, or early Bob Clark (I never realized we had a poster with the same name as the guy who directed ‘Deathdream’, kind of funny), or Sergio Martino to Steven Spielberg?
A fascinatingly frustrating film with some brilliant moments but just too much Spielbergian weirdness in the end (who knew the guy had such mother issues) — but the one thing that always brings a smile to my face is that Rouge City (which is one of the creative highlights of the film) is supposed to be (if one reads into the geography of where the film takes place, and into Spielberg’s own little in-joke as he grew up just a hop down the road from me in Haddonfield, NJ) my very own beloved Philadelphia. Ah — good times ahead it seems. The scene where they drive over the bridge into Rouge City is not unlike my experiences going to the Electric Factory back in the day (ah, I kid).
A.I. has a sloppiness between the differing approaches of its auteurs (though it’s interesting that each auteur’s most visible stamps are things that would normally be an identifiable trait of the other). But there has never been a more thought-provoking piece of pure mass entertainment (I don’t know that I can call 2001 or Blade Runner blockbusters). Apart from the Flesh Fair scene, I wouldn’t touch this, and Spielberg’s more eye-popping approach to cinematic wonder often works in a crazy “shotgun marriage” — per Rosenbaum’s terminology — with Kubrick’s more arch cynicism. It’s pretty much entrenched in my own top five of the decade.
The ending of A.I. is sentimental in that it doesn’t so much tug at the heartstrings as tear them out – BUT, taking it within the context of the whole film, it is a complex and troubling ending.
I believe A.I. would have been too distant if it had been Directed by Kubrick (overrated) – rather than the stunning melange of light and dark and warm and cold that it is now.
What I liked was how the imprinting of David sows the seed for all emotions branching out from that love: fear, jealousy, sadness, joy etc. etc.
Agree 100%. There seems to be an assumption made by some that Kubrick would have automatically made a better movie, despite the fact that he clearly gave it away for a reason.
That and he has his hands in quite a bit of shit… for every MUNICH he makes he’s produced 2 TRANSFORMERS films, (about to produce a second) terrible INDIANA JONES films, etc. We shouldn’t really turn a blind eye to this, if you hate much of modern film, you must trace his fingerprints to much of what it’s become.
Why? Because they looked at what he did, and couldn’t get it right? That’s not his fault. Just today I read Rosenbaum on – of all things – Richard Linklater’s Newton Boys: “But figuring out who the two characters are has so little to do with this wonderful little stretch of film that it matters as little as the fact that Greed was actually released several months after the scene is supposed to take place. Cameron or Spielberg wouldn’t be caught dead creating a mysterious parenthesis of bliss in which audience members are invited to lose themselves: the necessity of lurching the story and the audience forward elminates the very possibility of such a poetic and dreamlike interlude.”
Except that E.T. and – to a lesser-extent Close Encounters – are chock full of these asides and eccentric details. E.T. indeed is utterly composed of the stuff – the middle of the movie in particular is shaped entirely by such digressions. But Spielberg NEVER gets credit for this and people talk about E.T. as if it’s a cookie-cutter movie never mind that it’s really rather sui generis (much like Star Wars, another blockbuster that gets taken for granted). Part of it is that these “pockets of bliss” take place in suburbia, which many critics affect to have scorn for but who cares of what material Spielberg builds his wings, as long as they fly?
I also don’t like the implication, unspoken (and sometimes not so much) in Spielberg-dismissal which suggest that you can’t like the avant-garde, the transgressive, the dark as well as the mainstream, bigger-than-life, mythic. As if it’s somehow MORE enriching to discount a huge chunk of filmdom to which I say – or would say if I was British – bollocks.
I don’t think he’s in the same zone now as he was at his creative peak but I still enjoy almost everything he puts out (that said, I avoided Indy 4 and am inclined to suspect your diagnosis is correct there). And he still uses CGI – the most disastrous invention to (dis)grace the cinema screen since I dunno smell-o-vision – better than any of his other peers, which is to say tactfully, suggestively, and as one element in a mise-en-scene which it does not overwhelm. Unless Tintin (the picture of him next to Peter Jackson on the set made me depressed) means he’s finally jumped Bruce…
Also I have to say I don’t think a director’s extracurricular activities, be they personal or industrial, have much bearing on judging them as artists. Spielberg is a colossus of the industry to be sure, and blame him for its woes if you’re so inclined but that has as little to do with his standing as an auteur as Hitchcock’s sexual harrassment of Tippi Hedron has to do with his.
On the question of Munich, incidentally, I don’t quite see what all the fuss was about. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it plenty – but then I’m a sucker for historically-based intrigue saturated in political extremes. But from a critical standpoint, it seemed to be rather bloated and aimless, as well as including some gestures that were cringeworthy (namely the climactic- in both senses – juxtaposition of Bana in bed & flashbacks of the Munich killings). Why it’s the Spielberg film many anti-Spielbergians make an exception of, I’m still not quite sure – it’s more ambiguous than much of his other work, yes, but what it gains in ambiguity it uses in his usual command of the screen.
Oh, we can agree on one thing though (I presume): Lost World is awful, awful. I don’t know who’s to blame for inserting a preachy and completely incongrous animal-rights message into a dinosaur adventure movie but it certainly provided Vince Vaughn with his most unintentionally unlikable role (as well as providing an excuse for some truly ghoulish sadism). As for the teenage girl kicking out a velociraptor with her cool gymnast skills, the less said the better…
STEPEH-I agree, the ending sentiment always posed a problem for me as well. JAKE-I agree the film has its sloppy moments and does show flaws, but the overall effect and artistry still has it place within my top 20. MAURIZIO-I couldn’t agree more with the gap between the genius of Spielberg and the genius of Kubrick. I love both but I worship Stanley. DAVID SCHLIECHER-yes, yes! The moment David and Gigolo Joe ride into Rouge City with the college boys to Strauss’s DER ROSENSKAVALIER is one the best examples of audio visual orgasm in this film! DONIPHON-I don’t necessarily think Stanley would have made it better, but man, it sure would have been different! THANKS FOR THE REPLIES GUYS!!!!!!!
BOB CLARK-Spielberg represents, for me, that perfect boy genius where films flow from his mind like water from a spring. He breaths movies. I can’t have everything but I’m floored that you agreed with me that JAWS is a pretty much perfect film. MOVIEMAN-yes. The talents do deserve the nod. I don’t necessarily consider RAIDERS or JURASSIC works of art but, and I agree with you wholeheartedly, his films are dripping cinema of the purest form: escapism. His compisitions, pacing, camera angles, use of music. It all adds up. I can’t think of a modern director that hasn’t been influenced by him. BOB/JOEL-Thanks for the response!!!!!
Oh, NO, JOEL, I REALLY LIKE LOST WORLD!!!!! I felt it a far more hyperkinetic rollercoaster ride than JURASSIC PARK was. In my mind, this was Spielberg having fun, trying to rekindle the flames from the days of JAWS and RAIDERS. It was Spielberg setting up situations and the piling everything, including the kitchen sink, on top of them. The sequence on the cliff as the trailer dangles over the rocks is a perfect example. Not only is the window that’s keeping the protaganists from falling slowly beginning to crack but, and this is the director getting devilish, the Tyranosaurs also decide to walk into frame at the same moment. The crew accidentally wandering into a soothing field only to have the tails of the Velocirators follow them like the sharks fin in JAWS is another fine, great and terrifically ironic moment. The film is just fun and creative. Miles ahead of any other monster movie made in decades. The T-Rex with the dog house in his mouth. The 76 ball from the gas station rolling down the street etc.
Don’t get me wrong; it being a Spielberg film, there are bound to be flourishes and gestures which are clever and fun. It’s certainly shot in a more interesting fashion than their usual run-of-the-mill blockbuster. But the screenplay is so atrocious, it sinks the film in my opinion. A “thrill ride” movie doesn’t necessarily need a good story to succeed, but a bad one can still kill it. But yes, some of the set pieces were imaginative.