Steven Spielberg: Childhood Forever
Steven Spielberg’s films tend to convey a certain “heaviness” with regard to adult life but joy and belief with regard to the children. He is at his most effective in his films that focus on childhood, such as “E.T.” (1982) and “Empire of the Sun” (1987), and in films where the adults act like enthusiastic adolescents, such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) and “Jurassic Park” (1994). His portrayals of adult life, on the other hand, are marked by destructive human behavior, such as “Schindler’s List” (1993) and “Amistad” (1997), in which Spielberg constructed stories about such human tragedies as the Holocaust and a slave revolt in such a way as to create a hero. Oskar Schindler and Roger Baldwin represent the triumph of humanism over barbarism. These optimistic interpretations of two of the darkest moments in human history contrast sharply with the work of Stanley Kubrick, for example. Perhaps it is fair to say that Spielberg’s director’s idea requires that he find a romantic hero to align the dark material of “Schindler’s List” and “Amistad” more closely with the core approach that characterizes his children’s films.
That core approach has certain qualities that elevate his director’s idea, and it is best that we take a moment to clarify those qualities to better understand how Spielberg articulates his director’s idea. First and foremost, Spielberg uses plot to challenge his main character, and the plot is vigorous. An alien lands on Earth and wants to return home in “E.T.” In “Saving Private Ryan,” the challenge of rescuing the private behind enemy lines shortly after the D-Day landing is formidable, given the German hold on the French territory. A killer shark haunts the beaches of an island resort in “Jaws” (1975). The war against the Jews is the plot in “Schindler’s List.” A slave revolt and its aftermath comprise the plot of “Amistad.”
Spielberg also deploys a substantial antagonist who is powerful enough to elevate the actions of the main character to a heroic level. Consider Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) in “Schindler’s List,” those killer raptors in “Jurassic Park,” and the overambitious French archeologist in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Spielberg also endeavors to create an otherwise ordinary hero who is much easier for the audience to identify with. Think of Elliott (Henry Thomas) in “E.T.,” John Miller (Tom Hanks) in “Saving Private Ryan,” Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) in “Jaws,” and Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) in “Jurassic Park.” Each is earnest, even naïve, and none is a natural hero. (For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Chapter 5 in Dancyger and Rush’s Alternative Scriptwriting, 3rd ed., Focal Press, 2002.) But when challenged by the plot and powerful antagonists, these characters act heroically. Spielberg also has a preference for genres that support his style of storytelling—specifically, action adventures, thrillers, and war films.
In terms of the filmmaking itself, few filmmakers pursue identification and the excitement of the medium as vigorously, but camera placement, camera movement, and pace have been used just as effectively by Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, and Luc Besson. Spielberg, like Hitchcock, is playful with the medium, unlike Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick. That playfulness reinforces his director’s idea and reflects the childlike joy and intensity present throughout much of Spielberg’s work. From the outset of his career, he has pushed to challenge certain ideas about filmmaking. When he asked himself what he could do with the concept of a chase, his answer was “Duel” (1971), an entire film about a truck chasing the main character in his car.
Similar challenges mark many of the celebrated sequences in Spielberg’s work—the D-Day landing sequence in “Saving Private Ryan,” the clearing of the ghetto in “Schindler’s List,” and the openings of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989). In each of the “Indiana Jones” films, Spielberg posed a different challenge for his hero to overcome. What is important here is that the identification and the excitement in the narrative merge with Spielberg’s joy in filmmaking to yield a special experience for his audience. The most obvious result of this narrative and filmmaking confluence is that Spielberg is the single most successful commercial filmmaker in film history.
At this point, Spielberg’s film career exceeds 30 years, beginning with “Duel” in 1971. Important markers include “Jaws” in 1975, the “Indiana Jones” series, 1981–1989, “E.T.” in 1982, “Schindler’s List” in 1992, “Jurassic Park” in 1994, “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998, and “Artificial Intelligence: AI” in 2001. Spielberg remains active as a director and as a producer. In order to capture the spirited approach Spielberg has taken to his director’s idea, I have chosen the following four excerpts because they exemplify the director’s idea, and they highlight Spielberg’s virtuosity as a director. I should add that I could have chosen four or fourteen other excerpts and they would have made the same point.
“Jaws” (1975)
“Jaws” focuses on the efforts of a small-town police chief, Brody, to halt a killer shark that is terrorizing his island town. The town is a popular summer resort, and the mayor is pressuring Brody to minimize the danger and maximize economic activity on the island. The police chief’s primary concern, however, is protecting human life. He is aided by an experienced fisherman (Robert Shaw) and by a shark expert (Richard Dreyfuss). The actions of the shark and the attempt to stop it are the plot. The conflict of material versus human values is the primary character struggle, particularly for the police chief. The film is a thriller and proceeds realistically from the shark’s first kill to the killing of the shark. The excerpt we will focus on is a beach scene. Everyone is enjoying a sunny day at the beach except for Brody, who is sitting there watching for signs of the shark. The mood of the beachgoers contrasts sharply with the anxiety of the police chief. The shark does attack, and this time its victim is a young boy. The police chief can do nothing but herd people out of the water. The mother of the boy is in shock, and the other swimmers are panic stricken as they abandon the water for the safety of the shore. The scene has a powerful point of view—Brody’s.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981)
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” follows the efforts of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), a youthful archeologist, to recover for the American government an ancient artifact, the Lost Ark of Solomon’s temple, last housed in Jerusalem. Also in pursuit of the Ark is the Nazi government of Germany who is interested in harnessing the power of the Ark for their own purposes. The time is the 1930s. The search takes Indiana Jones from the United States to a Greek island where the fate of the Ark is resolved. Jones is aided by an Egyptian colleague (Jonathan Rhys-Davies). The sequence we will focus on takes place at a dig site in Egypt. The Ark has been found by Indiana Jones but has been stolen by a French archeologist working for the Germans. The Ark is being transported to its destination by truck. Indiana Jones finds a white stallion and begins his pursuit. In this sequence, Spielberg pits the old versus the new, brains versus brawn, and the result is one of the greatest chase sequences in modern film. Indiana Jones must catch up with the truck, mount the truck while it is in motion, and disable the guard and driver. The danger to all three participants is considerable. What is important in a sequence such as this is narrative clarity (what is happening and who is winning) and dramatic punctuation, as well as, I might add, a factor of excitement. This sequence has all of these ingredients and then some. It is a joyous tribute to the idea of the chase.
“E.T.” (1982)
The third excerpt is from “E.T.,” which begins with the extraterrestrial being left on Earth by accident. The arrival of a group of trucks forces the mother ship to leave without E.T. A wayward, intelligent ten-year-old named Elliott (Henry Thomas) is the middle of three children being raised by their mother (the father has abandoned the family). Elliott finds E.T., befriends E.T., and eventually helps E.T. return to his home. The trucks at the beginning of the film are in fact government authorities in pursuit of the extraterrestrial. They are essentially the antagonists of the film. Enlisting his older brother and his friends, Elliott helps E.T. escape from government possession and returns him to the ship that will take him home. The excerpt we will focus on is the opening scene when E.T. is abandoned on Earth. The sequence unfolds almost silently and without an emphasis on faces; that is, there is little identification of the humans and the extraterrestrials. The extraterrestrials are there for a purpose—refueling, perhaps. E.T. wanders off, curious about the city in the valley. Suddenly trucks pull up. We never see the faces of the humans but we do see keys and a badge. They are using flashlights and seem to be looking for the extraterrestrial. He is spotted, and they pursue him. As the agents approach the ship, the extraterrestrials draw up their walkway and take off, leaving E.T. behind. He eludes the humans and makes his way down into the valley, with the humans in hot pursuit. The sequence ends. Thus far, we have only seen E.T.’s hands and primarily the humans’ feet. No discernable close-ups have provided any characterization or insight into why the pursuit is happening.
The final excerpt is from “Saving Private Ryan.” Although the film begins with the grandfatherly Private Ryan visiting the Normandy Beach gravesite with his children and grandchildren, the bulk of the film takes place on June 6, 1944, and the few days following. The main character is Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks). The D-Day landing on the beach is the sequence we will focus on. Following this sequence, Captain Miller will be given the assignment to find Private Ryan, whose three brothers have died on the beach. General George Marshall has ordered Private Ryan be returned to his family as he is their only living son. The trouble is, he has parachuted behind enemy lines. To find him will jeopardize the members of Captain Miller’s platoon. Is it worth it? This is the struggle for the main character, and in the end he will choose to sacrifice his life to save Private Ryan. The D-Day sequence is 24 minutes long and its intent is to put us, the viewer, on the beach and feel the danger, violence, and death experienced by so many American soldiers. (A detailed discussion of the editing of this sequence appears in my book, The Technique of Film and Video Editing, 3rd ed., Focal Press, 2002, pp. 197–201.) Using cinéma vérité techniques, hand-held moving cameras, many close-ups, and a shifting point of view from the American soldiers to the German machine gunners and back, Spielberg takes us to Normandy Beach on that fateful day. The sequence progresses as follows:
- In the landing craft
- In the water
- At the edge of the beach (what do we do?)
- Movement off the beach
- Up the perimeter, marked with barbed wire
- Gather weapons
- Advance on the pill box and take the machine gun placement
- Take the pill box and the surrounding environment
- The beach is taken; stop shooting
What is important to Spielberg in this sequence is to give us the sense of being there, including the chaos, without confusing us. The sequence is impressive in its clarity and its characterization of the chaos of killing. The sequence illustrates the virtuosity of Spielberg’s filmmaking skills.
In order to explore all the aspects of Spielberg’s director’s idea, we must first identify portions of the text that support that idea. Spielberg tends to explore the various aspects of childhood and adulthood and uses filmmaking to visualize his ideas about childhood and adulthood. This point is important here. Spielberg is such an active proponent of the joy of filmmaking that the process of filmmaking itself almost becomes a character in his work. We will save this part of the interpretation for the camera-edit discussion later.
When I speak of childhood, I am referring to a more romanticized view than we found in the work of François Truffaut. Whether dealing with the loneliness of childhood or the joys of childhood, Spielberg presents the child as expressive, energetic, curious, and always creative. His presentations of adulthood, however, are not filtered by the same romantic prism; instead, he depicts all the limitations, disappointments, and loss of idealism characteristic of adults. Think of the adult as a disappointed child who is capable of overcoming that disappointment, and you have Spielberg’s version of adulthood.
In Spielberg’s interpretation of the main character, the child is not isolated or alone as he or she might be in Polanski’s work. Elliott may be quirky or unusual in “E.T.,” but he is part of a community comprised of his two siblings and his older brother’s friends, as well as a tall blonde in the classroom who is clearly more interested in him than she is in the classroom activities. Let’s call it the community of childhood. Even when the main characters are adults, they are part of a community that includes children. Police Chief Brody, for example, in “Jaws” is often seen with his two sons or worrying about his two sons. In “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Indiana’s community is a beautiful blonde and a little boy. They are in effect his sidekicks and together they stand against the antagonist.
A second feature of Spielberg’s interpretation is that although the antagonist is great enough to make a hero of the main character, the antagonist tends to be cartoonish or one dimensional, such as the misguided French archeologist in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the single-minded shark in “Jaws,” and the persistent raptors in “Jurassic Park.” Amon Goeth in “Schindler’s List” and the German soldier in “Saving Private Ryan” represent a departure in Spielberg’s work. Both are studies in evil and consequently far more dangerous as antagonists.
The role of plot is crucial to Spielberg’s work, and not just to serve as a challenge to the goal of the main character. For most of the directors we have examined thus far, plot rarely became an element of its own, taking precedence over character. Think of John Ford, for example. Plot could be vigorous, but we never forget in “The Searchers” that plot is an expression of Ethan’s revenge. In Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby,” the plot is related to Rosemary’s greatest wish to be a mother. Her worst nightmare would be to see her child as evil but this is precisely what occurs. In Spielberg’s work, the plot becomes the most powerful narrative element. It stands above and beyond character. It is the true source of challenge and allows Spielberg to be playful. How else are we to understand the vigor of the chase in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”? Indiana Jones is victorious, but the excitement and joy are created by the idea of Indiana Jones on horseback overtaking a truck and coming up with its contents. The same can be said of the D-Day beach sequence in “Saving Private Ryan.” The twists and turns in the action on that beach are more important than the fate or psychology of the main character at that point. Spielberg’s enjoyment of plot and plotting is evident in each realization of his director’s idea.
Finally, I should offer a comment on the tone that supports the director’s idea in Spielberg’s films. Tone is very much about the visual details that create the mood Spielberg is after. The excerpt from “E.T.” is useful here. Imagine that a spaceship from outer space has landed. Menace, malice, and mischief can all be motivations, but the details Spielberg provided indicate none of these intentions. Instead, the details reflect a sense of curiosity. E.T.’s curiosity about the lighted valley below and a plant he digs up, his response to being left behind, the lights that flicker from the frontal heart region of the extraterrestrial—all of these details suggest a benign, even kind nature. Although the look of the extraterrestrial is strange, his actions are not. Indeed, they are childlike and considerate. Humans in this excerpt are portrayed as aggressive and rather mysterious. They pursue. We see their lights, their keys, their badges. The association here is that these humans mean to do no good. The extraterrestrials are childlike and potential victims, and the humans are adult and victimizers. This revised perception of aliens is accomplished without words and without close-ups.
Directing the Actors
Casting is critical in the Spielberg film. Main characters are often cast for their ordinary look. They should not stand out in the crowd. Harrison Ford in the “Indiana Jones” series, Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” Sam Neill in “Jurassic Park,” Dennis Weaver in “Duel,” and Roy Scheider in “Jaws” each has an everyman appearance. Neither heroic nor intimidating, these actors project decency. Women are cast for their youthful spunkiness, not Katharine Hepburn sophistication nor Barbara Stanwyck sexuality. These actresses have a look that is compatible with the rather ordinarylooking actors they play opposite of. Spielberg understandably casts and works with children more often than most directors. As ordinary as the adult main characters seem to be, all of Spielberg’s child characters seem extraordinary—think of Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore in “E.T.” and Joel Haley Osment in “Artificial Intelligence: AI.”
Spielberg always casts at least one larger than life character— Robert Shaw in “Jaws,” Denholm Elliott in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Sean Connery in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” and Richard Attenborough in “Jurassic Park.” These characters provide the charisma lacking in the other adult main characters.
In terms of the performances themselves, Spielberg keeps them in the low key to charming range, like a young shy boy trying to please. In this way, they do not undermine the dynamic plot, and they do not complicate the audience’s response to the character. Examples of performances or characters who invite a more complicated response would include George Clooney as a charming criminal in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” and Tom Cruise as the contract killer in Michael Mann’s “Collateral.” Occasionally, Spielberg will try a more complex characterization, such as Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and Ralph Fiennes in “Schindler’s List.” The results are mixed principally because Spielberg has moved away from the romantic character arc so fundamental to the majority of his films.
Directing the Camera
Spielberg tries to achieve a number of goals through his use of camera placement, camera motion, and pace. The guiding principles seem to be:
- Keep the story clear.
- Keep the story moving.
- Identification with the main character is important.
- Specific details should advance plot and character.
- Keep it exciting.
- Pace and point of view are the key.
We will deal with each of these in turn. Keep in mind that each of these features is important to the joy of filmmaking. Above all is Spielberg’s ability to project this joy in his films. It is this joy that buoys up his director’s idea. Keeping the story clear is about visual signposts. The excerpt from “Jaws” will serve to illustrate this clarity. Police Chief Brody and his family are sitting on the beach. The beach is crowded. Children are playing with their toys in the water, teenagers flirt, and older people are just trying to keep cool on a hot day. While Mrs. Brody is busy enjoying the day and watching her two sons, Brody is worried. He is focused on the danger of another shark attack. His point of view is all about watching the water. When Spielberg wants to remind us about this concern, he momentarily blocks Brody’s line of sight line to the beach. More tension is built when Brody spots a sudden movement in the water. It looks like a shark’s fin but it proves to be an elderly man’s swimming cap. The next false start is a sudden violent eruption in the water when a teenager lifts his girlfriend up and out of the water. She screams in delight rather than terror.
Potential victims of the shark are put into position. A teenager playing with his dog throws a piece of driftwood out into the ocean, and the dog goes after it for its master. A woman guides her youngster and his inflatable yellow raft out to water’s edge, and the boy paddles out toward the horizon. The first warning of danger is the teenager looking for his dog and a cutaway to the driftwood floating. No more dog. As Brody is being given a shoulder rub by his wife, the young boy on the raft is attacked by the shark. A bloody geyser rises from the ocean. What Brody has feared has happened. He rushes to the edge of the ocean to help get the panicked swimmers out. When everyone is out the mother is still looking desperately for her son, but all that is left is the shredded bloody yellow raft. The sequence has been focused and clear. The signposts were there and the worst has happened.
This sequence proceeded with a minimum of dialogue. The next sequence, which keeps the story moving, also proceeds without the benefit of dialogue. Since “Duel” it has been clear that Spielberg loves pure action. The opening of “E.T.” is presented as pure action, and it proceeds very quickly. From a narrative point of view, there are three important elements of this scene—a curious E.T. has strayed from the spaceship, the human pursuers are looking for visitors from outer space, and the spaceship leaves E.T. behind because they must elude their human pursuers. The key to this sequence is movement—the camera moves, E.T. moves, the human pursuers and their vehicles move, the flashlights move. Throughout the scene, the emphasis is on movement. The few still shots (the rabbit reacting to E.T., E.T.’s removal of a plant, the mushroom-like pods in the spaceship) are unusual in the sequence. Screen direction keeps clear who is chasing whom and creates the sense of conflict in the scene.
Identification with the main character is critical. In the “Jaws” sequence, it is Brody’s point of view. In much of “Saving Private Ryan,” it is either Captain Miller’s point of view or the point of view of the German machine gunners. In the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” sequence, it is Indiana Jones’ point of view or the guard or driver of the truck. Point of view allows us to identify with Indiana Jones or Captain Miller or Police Chief Brody.
Spielberg understands the importance of details to advance the plot or characterize. The shot of the piece of driftwood tells us in “Jaws” that the dog has become a victim of the shark. The shark is out there. The punctured yellow raft tells us about the fate of its young occupant. Lifting the plant from the ground tells us E.T. is a benign presence. A soldier kissing his cross before he shoots a German machine gunner tells us so much about the soldier in “Saving Private Ryan.” Spielberg uses these specific details for plot and characterization purposes.
Maintaining a level of excitement in a film is a by-product of the subject as well as the dynamism of the filmic approach taken. All four of these excerpts are exciting to watch because they get the adrenalin flowing. Excitement is created by camera movement combined with action paced for emotional punctuation. Few sequences are as exciting as the chase in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Because the odds are obviously against Indiana Jones, the thrill of his overcoming them is added. Overcoming such odds, however, must be plausible, so Spielberg carefully takes us through each step. A simple, logical progression is not enough, though. Each step has to be more dangerous than the last, each adversary more skilled than the last. In the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” chase, the commander is the strongest and most dangerous adversary for Indiana Jones, so he is saved for the last. Close quarters and Indiana Jones’ injury all raise the stakes for this final confrontation. This is a great action sequence in that it is exciting in much the same way as a child’s surprise checkers victory or a high school sports victory is exciting. Nothing is as thrilling as a childhood victory in an adult world. This is precisely what happens when Indiana Jones takes over the German truck.
Finally, the combination of pace and point of view is key to an affecting film experience. Few sequences are as powerful as the 24-minute D-Day landing sequence in “Saving Private Ryan.” I have already mentioned the narrative progression of the scene earlier in the chapter. Here, we focus on a few of Spielberg’s ideas in the sequence. The first is the chaos of the landing experience. To create a sense of chaos, Spielberg used a lot of camera movement. Some movement, as in the landing craft, is fluid from the back of the craft to the front. On shore, the movement becomes more chaotic. Spielberg used handheld cameras with lots of jostling in the movement to establish the pace and a sense of danger on the beach. Jump cutting, lots of close-ups, and sharp changes in sound levels all contribute to the sense of chaos.
Spielberg’s next idea was to suggest that that the beach was not simply dangerous but rather was a killing field where the majority of the landing troops did not have a chance. Here, the point of view from the German machine gun placement establishes a long perspective on the beach/killing field. Moving in closer, we have many subjective mid and close-up shots of death and dying. In fact, Spielberg made a point of cutting to numerous images of torn limbs and disemboweled soldiers. Dying was not only prevalent, it was horrific.
A third idea that Spielberg worked with was medics trying to do the impossible—save lives in the midst of a killing field. These scenes illustrate the frustration of medics who were able to save the lives of their comrades only to witness them being killed by incoming enemy fire. The most powerful sense emanating from these images is the dedication but ongoing frustration of the medics who tried to help but to little avail. There are so many dimensions to this sequence. Point of view and pace provide a pathway to interpretation and feeling—a feeling of being as overwhelmed by the sequence as the landing troops were by the awesome danger of their mission. The sequence is reminiscent in its power of Elem Klimov’s “Come and See” (1987) and is one of the most powerful in the history of filmmaking.
It is in his use of the camera and the edit that Spielberg most effectively animates his director’s idea that childhood is forever, and if it must fade in adulthood, as it does on those beaches at Normandy in “Saving Private Ryan,” we are all the less for it.