New Wave Cinema 2.0: The Films of Steven Spielberg

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Geoff Carter

In The New Wave 2.0 series, The Pen in Hand Blog will be examining the work of today’s most provocative and influential filmmakers, artists whose filmic stylings and compelling narratives have stretched the boundaries of modern cinema. Referencing Francois Truffaut’s definition of an auteur, these pieces will be looking at writer/directors whose singular visions have transcended the art of filmmaking and expanded the boundaries of cinematic storytelling. This week, The Pen in Blog will be examining the wildly popular yet sublimely skillful directorial skills of Steven Spielberg.

Lost in the Funhouse: The Films of Steven Spielberg

When looking at this newest wave of cinematic auteurs in this series, it becomes difficult at times to objectively assess an auteur’s artistic sensibilities when their works are immensely popular. Commercial success seems to imply a sort of betrayal of artistic principles, but the question of whether popular entertainment and art can coexist in the same cinematic frame is an argument that—besides smacking slightly of envy—is inherently snobby. Film, after all, has always been a medium for the masses. Auteurs like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Billy Wilder, Federico Fellini, and Orson Welles all enjoyed great financial and critical success while still creating masterpieces that pushed the envelope of cinematic craftsmanship. Today, they have been joined by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, and Steven Spielberg.

Steven Spielberg, for all his many attributes as a director, is first and foremost a master storyteller. His shrewd awareness of audience expectations and unparalleled skill at creating engaging characterizations are the engines that propel great stories like Jaws, E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Saving Private Ryan.

Spielberg’s knack for creating a believable and engaging family atmosphere for his characters is one of his patented trademarks. The Taylor family in E.T., especially the scenes with the children, are eminently relatable, as is the portrayal of the less cohesive Neary family in Close Encounters. These movie families seem to thrive in an atmosphere of only slightly controlled chaos—a reality most families are all too aware of—and Spielberg manages to convey these eminently unpretentious middle-class atmospheres in a warm and gracious manner.

When his narratives occur outside the archetypal suburban family unit, as in Catch Me if You Can or The Color Purple, part of the arc of his characters’ development seems to be the need to establish their own family unit. In The Color Purple, Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) strives to assert her own identity by rejecting her abusive husband and reuniting with her long-lost sister. Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio), the gifted forger and conman in Catch Me if You Can, turns to crime as a means of success in order to please his father (Christopher Walken) a failed businessman with big dreams. When this doesn’t work out, and after almost marrying into a wealthy Southern family, Frank ends up turning to his pursuer Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) for guidance and—finally—redemption.

Working in settings outside the home, in thrillers like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Jurassic Park, Spielberg’s narratives move into the realm of breakneck action and sly plot twists, pushing audience credulity to the brink with sequences like truck chase in Raiders or the T-Rex attack in Jurassic Park. Indiana Jones’ (Harrison Ford) unbelievable pursuit of Nazis behind the truck, under the truck, atop the truck, and—finally—in the truck, is breathtaking in its tightrope walk of near-unbelievability. The same is true with the seemingly endless trauma suffered by the child Tim Murphy (Joseph Mazzello) inside that doomed Ford Explorer during Jurassic Park. These are the totally enjoyable filmic equivalents of amusement park rides—gut-wrenching great fun.

While his skill at providing an entertaining movie experience is unsurpassed, Spielberg is also able to transcend the traditional narrative expectations of a garden variety thriller. Jaws, on the surface a simple monster movie, becomes—in Spielberg’s hands—a commentary on American capitalism, a Moby Dick type obsessive revenge tale, and even a reading of the shark as a threat to male sexuality—evidenced by the loss of legs, attack on Chrissie, the first victim, (a naked female swimmer), Chief Brody’s initial inability to cope with the situation, and a mini meta-commentary on the medium of film itself.

Sly references to and comments on film find their ways into many of Spielberg’s vehicles. When the T-Rex bursts through the top of the Ford Explorer in Jurassic Park, the only thing separating them from a gory death is a clear piece of plastic—not unlike the screen separating the audience from that dinosaur. In Jaws, while researching great whites, as Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) pages through a book, images of sharks attacking a boat, victims, and even a shot of a shark with a compressed air tank in its mouth foreshadow events in the film. Even the reflection of the flickering images on Brody’s glasses mimics the dynamics of the motion picture.

Beyond these action-packed (though meaningful) thrill rides, Spielberg has also delved into historical fiction with such epics as Schindler’s List, Amistad, Bridge of Spies, Lincoln, and Saving Private Ryan. Using powerful narratives to propel these histories, Spielberg has animated the past so powerfully that these stories of great men could stand alone outside their historical context. The opening D-Day invasion sequence of Saving Private Ryan is so visceral and powerful that some veterans of that awful day, saying it brought back too many memories, had to leave theaters. Yet the film ultimately becomes an examination of one man’s struggle to maintain his humanity during a brutal and harrowing experience. Lincoln is ostensibly about the passage of Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution, but in the hands of screenwriter Tony Kushner, is ultimately a portrait of an unassuming leader so steeped in the virtues of decency and justice that he risks his career and the lives of thousands of men to end slavery. Schindler’s List, in spite of the horrors which it depicts, is the story of self-awareness, redemption, sacrifice, and—finally—in its own singular way, a man who gathers, protects, and finally saves his surrogate family.

Spielberg is an auteur, a showman, a storyteller, and a genius. He has the humor of a Wilder, the technical prowess of a Kubrick, and the sensibility of a Renoir. He has pretty much done it all. He has the humor of a Wilder, the technical genius of a Hitchcock, the compassion of a Renoir, and the vision of a Ford. He is one of a kind, the best we have.