Posted on 11/28/2012 2:03:03 PM PST by NKP_Vet
Steven Spielberg’s film LINCOLN clearly takes the politically correct, Northern view of Lincoln and wraps it up in the shroud of the moral fight against slavery. Thus, it decides mostly to focus on Lincoln’s fight in January 1865 to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery in the United States and its territories. Though the portrayal of this fight has its nuances, it doesn’t include the extensive evidence suggesting that Lincoln could be an ambitious, secretive tyrant. It also excludes such facts that, just before the Civil War began, President Lincoln had actually expressed support for a Thirteenth Amendment to perpetuate slavery, which had just been passed under his predecessor to encourage Southern states to stay in the Union. Sadly, LINCOLN also contains a surprising amount of anachronistic foul language and a surprising lack of uplifting religious references.
(Excerpt) Read more at movieguide.org ...
“Raiders was a work for hire with nothing of Spielberg really.”
Exactly my point. Lucas had vision and creativity.
I disagree about all the movies you mention being anything of value.
They are sizzle, no steak.
His movies can seem to be more substantial than they are due to the subject matter, e.g. Schindler’s List. But it was a piece of junk. He even diminishes a subject such as the Holocaust by putting in anti-second hand smoke messages in it.
In only 30 minutes, Nuit et Brouillard made decades before by Alain Resnais does more than Schindler’s List even comes close to.
Don’t take me wrong, I am interested in your opinion because I don’t understand the respect for Speilberg (other than he did make a lot of money in his films).
I am interested in what you think is compelling about them
Based on what films?
Those films were driven by his justifiable jewish hate of Nazis.
Bottom line though is he is a low life leftist enabler who is helping the demise of this country by his contribution to liberals and their agenda.
This guy is the enemy as far as I am concerned.
...and by the way, I don’t really give a flip if a performer supports liberal politicans. It’s when they take this sh__ to the activist level (i.e Spielberg, Streisand, Springsteen) that I get ticked.
Lol...second hand smoke? That’s an irrelevant detail. SL gave us more of the economic undergirding of the Shoah than any dramatic film. There is a wealth of little details in it. Lucas made a fortune by peddling comic book boy’s adventures. ET is a great film about child psychology to put beside the early Disney feature films. Night and Fog is not a drama and is not in the same category.
Spielberg helped to change it: what people praise in him now isn't what they praised in Bergman or Antonioni.
“The movie industry has changed a lot since the glory days of art films and film criticism.
Spielberg helped to change it: what people praise in him now isn’t what they praised in Bergman or Antonioni.”
I agree and I think that is one reason to disdain him.
He brought film down (one of the contributors). He was an efficient TV movie maker of cheesy horror thrillers.
Making B movies in to well crafted technically excellent products that use technical expedience as a substitute for art or creativity or even entertainment did us no favors.
Going back to my original opinion that he’s a hack, I will compare to the two you mentioned, Bergman or Antonioni. I might think Antonionis films are a bunch of garbage, but he wasn’t a hack.
Let me ask you a question about “genius of the medium”?
What other genius of the medium made a movie as terrible as 1941 or Hook?
The idea that Spielberg brought down the quality of mainstream Hollywood product is a myth. It’s belied by the fact that the most popular films of the early 1970s were cheesy disaster films like ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ and Mel Brooks films. Jaws was miles above that stuff. Close Encounters and E.T. were quite artful and display an independent vision. Ray Bradbury called C.E. the best Science Fiction film ever made. As for who made worse films than the two you mentioned, I don’t regard 1941 as a bad film...in its uncut version its an exhilarating cinematic vaudeville with a great sense of constant motion. And even the very best filmmakers have made duds, Hawks, Ford, Bergman, Hitchcock. If Hook stands out its because there was more attention paid to it.
Also, I don’t know why you think coming out of TV is some sort of dishonorable tattoo. A lot of post war American filmmakers started there. It’s not any different than starting in the theater or working your way up from the mail room as earlier studio directors did.
He’s not on the activist level like those other two. Does he even publicly endorse candidates?
I'm not sure I buy the argument. Nothing lasts forever in Hollywood. And the dramatic and sensationalist innovators weren't really opposing camps: someone like Coppola or Scorsese could bridge the gap between artistic and popular film. Maybe, in his own way, Spielberg could as well. But the argument can't simply be dismissed or ignored.
Spielberg killed off the disaster film. The fact is that the industry was going bankrupt in the 1970s and as the studios were being sold to multinational corporations and run by people who had no background in film, it became a bottom line business. It would have happened with or without Spielberg who made better films than most of his contemporaries. Close Encounters certainly wasn’t pandering to any particular market. It was pretty daring. Even E.T. was financial risk...in 1981 films about children had been regarded as box office poison for almost 20 years.
These proceedings are closed.
Sorry, I thought you were serious.
Magaret Mitchell got ir right.
Are you joking? I usually don't like cut/paste wiki, but his page even has a section on his political activity, as I have referenced some below:
Politics
Spielberg usually supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He has donated over $800,000 to the Democratic party and its nominees. He has been a close friend of former President Bill Clinton and worked with the President for the USA Millennium celebrations. He directed an 18-minute film for the project, scored by John Williams and entitled The American Journey. It was shown at America's Millennium Gala on December 31, 1999, in the National Mall at the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.[97]
Spielberg resigned as a member of the national advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America in 2001 because of his disapproval of the organization's anti-homosexuality stance.[98][99]
On February 20, 2007, Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama.[102]
However, on June 14, 2007, Spielberg endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) for President. While Geffen and Katzenberg supported Obama, Spielberg was always a supporter of Hillary Clinton. However Spielberg directed a video for Obama at the DNC in August 2008 and attended Obama's inauguration.
In September 2008, Spielberg and his wife offered their support to same-sex marriage, by issuing a statement following their donation of $100,000 to the "No on Proposition 8" campaign fund, a figure equal to the amount of money Brad Pitt donated to the same campaign less than a week prior.[107]
Oh I knew that stuff. I meant speechifying in non-political contexts like Streisand does and Michael Moore at the Oscars (and every opportunity).
Which was a nice starter. Furthermore, he has expounded his leftist views in many additonal films besides Lincoln. He may not be speechifying, but he is forcing his views to the populus in a much more stronger almost subliminal form.
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