Steven Speilberg

[Aiden Cornwell]

The soul was lost and the art was thrown out the window when film became just another way to make money ... they should be happy with digital, it'll keep more money in their pockets.

I couldn't disagree with this statement more.

I have never bought into the old movies being better because they carry a title of "classic" on the box.

I want to see movies that have fantastic sound, picture and acting not to mention story. However Most of these movies fall into the category of being made in the past 15 years.

Yes there are some gems out there like Clockwork orange but I can only think of 10 movies that were made from 1940's to the 1990's that I truly love as films.

 

[10s]

The soul was lost and the art was thrown out the window when film became just another way to make money ... they should be happy with digital, it'll keep more money in their pockets.

Film has been a huge money maker since the beginning, all the way back to the Lumiere brothers 1895 Paris screenings. Art, craft, soul, etc?... that all depends upon your definitions and values. Money, I'm glad it makes money, otherwise cinema would have faded away long ago.

 

[John Brawley]

What BS.

Because he can.

He can tell the producers he's going to take however long he wishes for the edit and they will say, "Yes sir, Mr. Speilberg."

Don't forget you can also actually take your edit off the KEM (he don't use no steenbeck) and screen an honest to goodness contact print in an honest to goodness cinema and watch the film in a way that a NLE based system, even HD, will find difficult to match.

jb

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Why is Speilberg and "art" even in the same sentence?

"E.T.", "Schindler's List", "A.I.", "Munich" (kinda...)...

 

[jpp]

Why is Speilberg and "art" even in the same sentence?

The soul was lost and the art was thrown out the window when film became just another way to make money ... they should be happy with digital, it'll keep more money in their pockets.

If "art" by definition is formal and austere, then Spielberg is not an artist, and neither is Lucas, Cameron, etc. The trouble is, "craft" alone is not really adequate to describe Spielberg's accomplishments, whether or not his films are considered coherent works of art in the classical sense. This question of absolute values in cinema is nothing new, it's existed since the silent era, with stunning visual imagination often in the service of juvenile and sometimes idiotic dramatic material. The earliest and most notorious example is probably D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", which combines visual innovations amazing for its time (1914?), with what could be the stupidest and most offensive (i.e., racist) story-line ever conceived. It's a pertinent example, because many people find the Indiana Jones pictures astonishingly, embarrassingly, racist (and without the excuse of high art), which is all the more odd coming from a director who ought to be sensitive to these questions, and who claims to be sensitive to these questions and who (of course) made a big and expensive movie about racial hatreds. The more things change....

In the end, any mass-market popular art form is going to mix excellence and trash, which is as true of "Citizen Kane" or "The Godfather" as it is of "Schindler's List" or "Saving Private Ryan". As such, blanket assertions of what is and isn't art may not be all that helpful or useful. Some might watch "Empire of the Sun" with pleasure and admiration, but would find "Jaws" and "E.T." unendurable. Or some may decide that Spielberg is insufferable, period, no matter how strong and artful his technique. Fortunately, there are other films to choose from.

 

[Dale Launer]

It strikes me as ridiculous to assume that art and profit are mutually exclusive. They aren't. But the shameless pursuit of profit is often artless. I remember sitting in the MGM commissary and looking at the logo under the MGM trademark - Ars Gratia Artis - which means "Art for Art's Sake". Oh the irony!

The studios are filled with people who simply - and I'd emphasize "simply" - want to make money. Which is problematic and always will be largely because they want to make a choice that doesn't have to be made - "We're in business to make money - I don't care about art". Well, shouldn't that idiot be thinking "I can make art AND make money"...?

And lastly - about Spielberg being an artist or not. Keep in mind that he's only the director. More often than not he didn't conceive, execute or write the plot, characters or dialogue. At best he's a secondary artist and more of a craftsman than anything.

 

[Jim Logan]

I don't think Stephen Spielberg is wrong - he is just a realist and an artesian that strives for artistic perfection. Like any artist he has a preference for his choice of mediums. Even when he does work in digital he strives to add the elements that we have come to accept from film and art. He is a true benefit to our industry because he pushed the envelope and motivates people around him to come up to his level. I have several close friends that work with him on a day to day basis and are blown away by his far reaching vision and what he is trying to accomplish. I think we are all in for surprises.

As far as his choice of tools . . . I do lots of woodwork - I have a favorite 40 year old Plumb wood handled finishing hammer - also lots of pneumatic and gas operated nailers. Guess which one I pick up first because it feels good in my hands and gives me a real sense of accomplishment when I create something with it. I think he does the same with his tools.

I miss film, I miss trim bins flatbeds, grease pencils, giant interlock systems and all the "magic" that we had. If I stop to analyze why, it is probably because it made us special, different. Now that anyone with a minimal computer can cut video we have a world of "experts" and we've lost the mystique of our craft. Is all this change wrong? No - it is simply the evolution of technology. We need to adopt the changes that make our craft better and discard the ones that don't.

Shoot film where film is apropos, shoot digital where digital is apropos - it's really not about that part of our craft. It's about what the audience sees and feels. Good storytelling will always be good storytelling.

As far as the appeal to the popular audience goes, and the compromise of art for the mass market. This is the Entertainment INDUSTRY. We strive for great artistic expression but always with an eye on return and the budget we have to work with . . . otherwise we ought to buy canvas and gesso.

 

[Harry Clark]

Jim, there is something to that.
When each step of the craft was fraught with various ways to make colossal mistakes, only the very dedicated craftsmen could "make it" in the world of film (and music, and graphic art, and typography) That goes for cinematographers, sound mixers, grips, even folks on the production side of things. It was never about being "wealthy" or owning a camera. It was about smarts, dedication, and tenacity. Most people gave up because it was too hard, physically, mentally, and spiritually.
We WERE special, because we prevailed against those odds and each mastered, to some degree, our craft and niche. And along the way we learned skills (by necessity) that those coming up today will have to learn only if they apply themselves consciously. And those skills (previsualization, anticipation, accuracy in exposure and focus, strict methods) are just as relevant with Red One as with a Mitchell BNC.
Now that any nudnik can grab a DV camera and proclaim himself a "film maker", what passes for craft and art has largely slid downhill. Is there a connection? I don't know, but I suspect yes. There's no high bar for most stuff on TV, or in the movie theater for that matter. Yes, Francis Ford Coppola was right when he said that new technology will allow that fat girl from Ohio make a great film that otherwise would not get made. What I don't think he anticipated when he made that statement was that we'd have to sort through 47,654 TERRIFICALLY BAD FILMS to find hers.
Just my two cents...
Cheers,
Harry

 

[jpp]

Yes, Francis Ford Coppola was right when he said that new technology will allow that fat girl from Ohio make a great film that otherwise would not get made

A lot of people are still waiting for that fat girl and her masterpiece. And you don't see Francis using consumer technology. It may be a truism to say that you need money to make movies, but it bears repeating ... and repeating....

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

And lastly - about Spielberg being an artist or not. Keep in mind that he's only the director. More often than not he didn't conceive, execute or write the plot, characters or dialogue. At best he's a secondary artist and more of a craftsman than anything.

Only the director? You make it sound like he hardly does anything. Steven is much more involved in his films than you seem to imply.
I would also argue that a craftsman could also be considered an artist, and there's no such thing as a secondary artist.

 

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[10s]

Digital is a beautiful medium, but yesterday I was talking to a 25 year old that saw for the 1st time color slides of his parents back in the 60s. He was shocked at the cystal clear vibrant colors, "it looked like it was just taken today". I know, the old slides my dad took of me & my brothers in the 50s & 60s pop!.....what color! Film is a beautiful medium.

Tools, we love them, that's why we're here. It's how we interact with our tools and the medium we're working that let's us explore and become masters of creation. I like what Jim had to say about his favorite finishing hammer, that's what we strive for, an intimate relationship with a small set of tools that helps us achieve mastery.

Art: I quote from Ayn Rand.

"An artist does not fake reality-he stylizes it. He selects those aspects of exsistence which he regards as metaphysically significant- and by isolating and stressing them, by omiting the insignificant and accidental, he presents his view of exsistence. His concepts are not divorced from the facts of reality- they are concepts which integrate the facts and his metaphysical evaluation of the facts. His selection constitues his evaluation: everything including in a work of art - from theme to subject to brushstrokes or adjective - acquires metaphysical significance by the mere fact of being included, of being important enough to include. An artist (as, for instance, the sculptors of Ancient Greece) who presents man as a god-like figure is aware of the fact that men can be crippled or diseased or helpless; but he regards these conditions as accidential, as irrelevant to the essential nature of man - and he presents a figure embodying strength, beauty, intelligence, self-confidence, as man's proper, natural state."

Maybe Indiana Jones is Art within a comic book wrapper and Speilberg is an artist afterall.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

Well technology and affordability is just one barrier.

Still, you have to learn A LOT in order to produce some sort of decent content.

Theory and practice.

One way or another.

I don't see this barrier going away anytime soon.


P.S. ....And I ain't that fat. :clown2:

 

[Steve Sherrick]

The question of what constitutes art instantly brings me back to my high school and college days when this conversation would occur quite frequently and we usually ended up coming to the same conclusion every time - there is no conclusion.

The easiest way to analyze what Spielberg is or isn't is to simply ask yourself whether you like his body of work or not. If one of his films had an impact on you, then whether he is an artist, craftsman, or money-hungry egomaniac Hollywood director doesn't really matter, what matters is the film had an impact on you. If his films don't have an impact on you, then you simply move on to another film, another director.

As for making money, filmmaking is an expensive endeavor, unless of course you are making ultra-low budget films on video where you are able to get people to work for free. But generally speaking, there is always a financial aspect to making films, so those lines between doing it for the love of filmmaking and doing it for some commercial viability are always going to be a bit at odds with each other. How many filmmakers out there would rather their films never made a dime so they can maintain artistic integrity. I would think very few, unless they are inherently rich or have another means of supporting themselves.

 

[jpp]

The question of what constitutes art instantly brings me back to my high school and college days when this conversation would occur quite frequently and we usually ended up coming to the same conclusion every time - there is no conclusion.

The easiest way to analyze what Spielberg is or isn't is to simply ask yourself whether you like his body of work or not.

As much as one might want to agree with you, and I said much the same thing a few posts back, this kind of talk sounds like an expression of terminal decline, the sort of thing which gets said at the end of the line, rather than the beginning. If we don't know whether a Spielberg movie is art or not, we're in big trouble.

In a culture which has been thoroughly aestheticized by advertising and popular entertainment, any traditional notion of art probably can't be sustained. Even in the art house realm of cinema, it becomes next to impossible to assess the value of what you're seeing these days. About the only thing you can gauge is your own enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm, if any, may not survive a second viewing, or half of the first viewing. So unless you're very young, or seeing such work for the first time, the rewards are dwindling.

This is the Age of Bush in more ways than one.

 

[Steve Sherrick]

If we don't know whether a Spielberg movie is art or not, we're in big trouble.

Actually, I just read one of your initial posts and I see in some ways we are in agreement, especially about characteristics of film.

But, in regards to Spielberg, I almost sense a bit of an elitist attitude. That has always been my biggest gripe with certain segments of the art community. I enjoy art, including films that make me think, evoke emotion, etc. But someone like Spielberg seems to be cast as a commercial craftsman who cares less about art and more about putting people in seats, and I don't think it's that black and white. You don't have to like him or Robert Zemeckis or any of the other commercial filmmakers, but I question whether it's appropriate to dismiss them from the artistic realm. Just as I would never dismiss some of the dreadful arthouse films I have seen over the years. I respect anyone that uses this medium to express themselves. I may not like their film(s) but I respect them for making them.

Don't get me wrong. I don't lose sleep over any of this, but it is an interesting conversation. In the case of Spielberg, I don't like all of his films, but there have been some that have had an impact on me. If I misinterpreted your statement, I apologize.

 

[Dale Launer]

Only the director? You make it sound like he hardly does anything. Steven is much more involved in his films than you seem to imply.
I would also argue that a craftsman could also be considered an artist, and there's no such thing as a secondary artist.

You've made a statement of your belief. If you want to make that argument, then go ahead and make it.

 

[Dale Launer]

Yes, only the director. You make it sound like he does everything.

 

[J.R. Hud]

Only the director? You make it sound like he hardly does anything. Steven is much more involved in his films than you seem to imply.
I would also argue that a craftsman could also be considered an artist, and there's no such thing as a secondary artist.

Totally

With all due respect Dale, Spielberg is a true Auteur. His involvement is about as deep as it gets with an artist. He is NOT a director for hire (So to speak).

Does he do everything ? Of course not. But make no mistake, it is his vision we're seeing.

 

[Dale Launer]

Totally

With all due respect Dale, Spielberg is a true Auteur.

I think you might have a personal definition for Auteur and perhaps even "True Auteur". The word is French and means author. Spielberg is a director, not a writer.

>His involvement is about as deep as it gets with an artist.

Hardly. A real artist would conceive, etc. his world. Mr. Spielberg doesn't do that. That's why I would call him a secondary artist. He comes in and creates in the margins, not the body of work.

He is NOT a director for hire (So to speak).

Long before a director is attached, the screenplay is written. A producer is likley going to have a hand in the creative process, and possibly a studio exec or two. Then a list is made up of available directors. From this list another list is made up of directors who are considered desirable for the subject. Then another list is made up of 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc.

Spielberg may be top of the list for some projects, maybe not.

I find it hard to buy that anyone who was a name on a list can be considered the "auteur" of anything.

Does he do everything ? Of course not. But make no mistake, it is his vision we're seeing.

A vision of someone else's vision. Hence the secondary artist moniker. ie. a shark was someone else's idea. a very big, great white shark at that. If he wanted to change it to, say a really big hammerhead shark, well, that would be his after-the-fact, latter-day creative choice, but it's still a big shark that's determined to eat you.

What I think you may be trying to do is to seperate the the filmmaking process from the story which is problematic. It suggests that the process of making a film renders the original point of departure to the status of irrelevance, that the end result becomes a seperate and distinctive entity. This is foolish. Actuating the idea, no matter how artfully it is executed, must not be confused with the idea itself which is at the very heart of what is considered art.

If you want to argue that making a movie is a collaboration, I have no issue with that. But the heart and origin of the creative process in filmmaking is in that screenplay.