Let's talk about E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

My 17 year old son saw it for the first time recently. I asked him if he cried, he said, 'a little.'

 

He's not alone in being manipulative and I'd concede that his manipulativeness is of a higher level than that of most other directors'.

But his filmmaking, though very competent, is just too obvious for my tastes. He makes things too easy for his audiences. 'Accessibility' isn't always necessarily a good thing in my book.

But then my favourite director is Fassbinder, who was pretty much Spielberg's antipode.

 

I ought to add: the one Spielberg film I really like is his first, Duel (1971).

I wish he hadn't been given big budgets so early in his career: he would've made more interesting, if less commercially successful, films.

 

Get a few drinks in me and there's a good chance I would too. I know i did when i was 5 (er I mean I cried watching the movie, not drank!).

 

Sometimes a big greasy burger is better than the most expensive steak...

 

We almost got a sequel... a sequel that probably would have bombed in a big way.

The Incredibly Ill-Advised E.T. Sequel That Almost Was

 

Oh I love Fassbinder as well but that's like comparing Schönberg to Beethoven. Men of completely different artistic attitudes who simply chose the same medium and nobody would complain Beethoven not being Schönberg-y enough or vice versa. They're both great in their respective fields.

 

By that logic, we can't criticize anything, can we?

Spielberg rarely lets a moment pass or sink in without telling the audience exactly how they should react. We have to have the moment, multiple reaction shots, an orchestral swell from John Williams and perhaps a character explaining why we should be impressed with what we just saw. Some people find his relentless cue card-ing exhausting, cloying and, yes, manipulative.

 

It’s an absolutely ridiculous claim. There isn’t a single writer or artist who doesn’t attempt to manipulate emotions, that’s the whole ppint of art! Edgar Allan Poe used to write essays on how every story should be crafted to build emotion in the reader and how, bit by bit, every word should have an “effect” on the reader and build to a crushing finale. From poetry, to film, to theater, to baseball games, to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony:it’s all about building up to the most emotional climax you can have!

 

The E.T Adventure ride at Universal Studios was so great!

 

Wow! That's a pretty smart idea!

 

In other words, he bawled like a baby!

That reminds me of my friend's bachelor party from years ago. He drank too much and puked.

I went to check on him - didn't want him to keel over before the wedding - and asked if he was okay.

"Yeah."

"Did you puke?"

"Maybe..."

 

Indeed - but Spielberg often ruthlessly counters audience assumption in the next breath. In many ways, he has been carefully refining the cinematic logic of Jaws for over 40 years, playing with audiences both in and outside the cinema ala Hitchcock. If he was truly one-note, Spielberg films like Schindler's List and, say, the opening 40 minutes of The War of the Worlds wouldn't resonate in the manner they do. Reducing Spielberg to the cinematic equivalent of a Norman Rockwell painting is a misstep; indeed, he's exploited that assumption in some of his best scenes.

 

Compare with Hitchcock or Kubrick who took a much more sardonic approach. Spielberg uses child actors to pull the heart strings.

 

I was 11. I read the book first. When my family planned to see the movie, I just remember hoping against hope that I wouldn’t have to hear the phrase “pe nis breath” while sitting with my parents.

Oh well.

 

E.T was the first movie I watched where I was aware of the emotional effect the score was having on me in conjunction with the story. Man, John Williams' score for that movie is outstanding...

 

Given that "ET" is a movie about a child, it'd be hard for Spielberg to pull it off without one.

Children played roles in classics like "Jaws" and "CE3K" but I don't think they "pulled the heartstrings". No kids at all in "Raiders" or "Last Crusade" - maybe you could call Short Round from "Temple of Doom" a kid who "pulled heartstrings", but I think that's a stretch.

Spielberg used kids in the "Jurassic Park" movies, but I'm also not sure they really "pulled the heartstrings"...

 

The know-it-all "wannabe paleontologist" boy in that movie was so incredibly annoying. I keep hoping he would have been eaten by a T-Rex or at least died from being electrocuted by the fence.

 

Just look at Spielberg's hallmark, "the wondrous reaction shot". He uses super-naturalistic performances from actors to achieve the kind of film effects that he wants, which is primarily emotional. Other directors use actors as a blank canvas which the audience projects themselves onto, rather than the actors project themselves to the audience. He tries too hard to make the audience like the characters, but why is it necessary that we like them? Those kids in Jurassic Park were annoying, as were the adults for that matter. No one is going to say that Charlie Chaplin wasn't a great filmmaker, but a lot of people prefer Buster Keaton, for these same reasons.

 

I think you're picking on Spielberg by highlighting the handful of directors who were more "objective" in their style. Directors like Kubrick and Hitchcock were the exception to the rule.

And it's not like they weren't manipulative in their own way. One can make a decent argument for the "blank slate" concept for Kubrick, but Hitchcock played his audience like a master musician.

I think it comes down to the fact you don't like the way Spielberg manipulates the audience more than the fact he does so, as the vast majority of filmmakers present their material in a way designed to prompt a specific response...

 

The entire point of a movie is to manipulate you in some way- to get some kind of emotional reaction out of you. The worst movie are the ones that leave no impression on me at all.

 

Saw it last year on a cruise for the first time in years, outside by the pool on one of those huge screens. I was waiting for a drink for a few minutes while the Indonesian bartender just stared at the screen. When he finally noticed me he said, "Sorry, this is a GOOD movie!"

 

That is a great story! I don't blame him for being engaged in the movie.

 

You're right Colin. I wanted all the kids in the Jurassic Park movies to get eaten (and Short Round to be sacrificed). My heartstrings were DEFINATELY not pulled.