Stevel Spielberg, movie love and family trouble

     

    
    Why hold back? Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest storytellers ever to make movies.

      Few directors pace a movie better. Few are as unerring when it comes to camera placement. And although he knows how to create stirring images, Spielberg also has gotten amazing performances during the course of what has become a long career. 

    Think Robert Shaw in Jaws. Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln.

    You get the idea. Spielberg not only makes movies but, as a friend once said, he knows how to make movies.

      For the most part, Spielberg also knows what makes a good story.

      But does that mean that a movie based on Spielberg's life makes for a compelling tale? 

      That's the question that I kept asking myself while watching The Fabelmans, a quasi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie about an aspiring filmmaker and his sometimes troubled family.

      The answer to the question isn't a simple “yes” or “no.” 

     At nearly two-and-a-half hours in length, The Fabelmans is a collection of hits and misses that ultimately tells us that its main character has had a life-long love of movies, that making films has helped him digest difficult experiences, and (not to be too schmaltzy) that true artists never allow themselves to be dissuaded.

        Taken from a script Spielberg co-wrote with Tony Kushner, The Fabelmans probably shouldn't be taken as a definitive version of Spielberg's youthful life. It is, after all, a movie.

       The story begins when Sammy Fabelman, the stand-in for Spielberg, is taken by his parents (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams) to his first movie. Once inside the theater, young Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord) becomes captivated by the train wreck he sees in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.

       Given Spielberg's penchant for on-screen action, it's hardly surprising that his first influence was a devastating train wreck, a sequence Sammy tries to recreate with a toy train he receives as a Hanukah gift. Sammy films the mini-wreck with his dad's camera.

       Sammy's early striving serves to introduce one of the movie's major themes: A frustrated concert pianist and a dreamer, Mom encourages Sammy's pursuit of art. Dad, an engineer by trade, takes a far less poetic approach. He wants his son to learn how to make things people can use. He demeans Sammy’s movie obsession by calling it a hobby.

       Fortunately for the story, the Fabelmans are a peripatetic lot. The film follows the Fabelman family (Mom, Dad, Sammy, and his three sisters) as they move from New Jersey to Phoenix to Northern California during the 1950s and 1960s.

        Surprisingly, at least to me, Sammy (played by Gabriel LaBelle as an older kid) doesn't encounter antisemitism until high school.

       The school’s jocks, notably an Aryan-looking popularity king played by Sam Rechner, bully Sammy.  One of school's few Jews, Sammy is accused of being a Christ-killer and is humiliated with a schoolyard beating.

       Despite such calumnies, Sammy eventually finds a girlfriend (Chloe East), a zealous Christian who, at this point in her life, has conflated her love of Jesus with her emerging sexuality. 

      The various films that Sammy makes, including a western and a war movie, are among the film's most engaging bits. Sammy develops his directorial chops as he learns about action, editing, and acting. He's his own film school.

       Williams' Mitzi anchors the movie's pivotal reveal, which Sammy discovers while reviewing footage he shot during a family camping trip. It's an important insight: Film can record truths that otherwise might remain hidden.

         As a woman whose personality embraces playfulness, determination, resolve, and caring, Williams gives the film's most memorable performance. Dano creates a kindly fatherly figure who mostly suffers in silence. Seth Rogen signs on as Benny, Dad’s best friend, a jokester family members call Uncle Benny, even though he’s not related to them

         In the middle of all this, Spielberg drops an extended cameo from Judd Hirsch, who plays Uncle Boris, a brother of Sammy's grandmother. Her death prompts Boris's unexpected visit. 

         Something of a black sheep. Boris seems to have spent his life around the fringes of show business. He sees the artist in Sammy and encourages him (more like tough-love bullying with a Yiddish accent) not to forsake his filmmaking dreams.

         I didn't need The Fabelmans to tell me that Spielberg loves movies and the treasured big-screen lineage of which he’s such a vital part.

        Moreover, I don't think The Fablemans qualifies as a great coming-of-age movie. It's probably at least 30 minutes too long, it doesn't always display the drive that makes many Spielberg movies irresistible and it can’t help but be a trifle self-serving.  

       But because Spielberg has had such an important career, the movie probably will generate interest among his admirers. I'm glad I saw The Fabelmans, even though I didn't love it in the way I love Spielberg's best work.

       Despite some painful family disclosures, The Fabelmans doesn't feel like a tell-all tale; it’s a story in which a fledgling filmmaker, quickly wins applause. The accolades may be coming from Sammy’s Boy Scout troop, but we know that’s just the beginning of what will be a great career. Sammy will not be dissuaded.

        What did you expect? A movie in which a talented kid is condemned to carry the scars of family life into an emotionally wounded and anonymous adulthood?

        No way. That could be an Arthur Miller play. Spielberg had other plans. 

Spielberg makes a fresh 'West Side Story'

   Come on, admit it. When you first heard that Steven Spielberg was making another film of the landmark musical West Side Story, you probably thought it might become a classic case of a director being badly mismatched with the material. 

  But that’s selling Spielberg short. As a friend and fellow critic said, the man knows how to make movies.

  Updated to better emphasize the material’s Puerto Rican ethnicity, the movie also gives its Romeo/Juliet love story an urban renewal context. Poor whites and Puerto Ricans are being driven from their West Side Manhattan neighborhood to make way for Lincoln Center.

  Moreover, Spielberg fills the movie with young faces. Tony, played by Ansel Elgort with Brandoesque seasoning, is a young man just out of prison. He, of course, falls for Maria (Rachel Zegler), and the two share some of the best moments American musical theater has produced, notably Tonight, Tonight.

   Ariana DeBose brings spitfire urgency to the role of Anita, lover of Bernardo (David Alvarez), leader of the Sharks, the gang rivals of the Jets, the group Tony founded with his lifelong pal Riff (Mike Faist). 

  Rita Moreno, who played the role of Anita in the 1961 movie, appears in a newly created role. She's Valentina, widow of the man who owned the neighborhood drug store and a devoted adult in Tony’s life. She offers Tony a job and shelter upon his release from prison. (Prison for Tony is another new twist.)

  Moreno is given the key song, Somewhere, which may seem a bit odd but it connects Spielberg’s version to its predecessor. It's a song of mourning -- also a hope and a wish.

   High points include the dance at the gym and America, crisply rendered by an ensemble led by DeBose, who dominates every scene she’s in. 

   It should also be noted that Zegler's Maria is angelic than usual; she has a gritty quality and has been given moments of feminist assertion that add contemporary flavor. She insists that she’s going to think for herself.

  An odd quality pervades this West Side Story. The movie attempts to be grounded in urban reality but also inhabits a world totally its own — neither New York of the 1950s nor of today.

  Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski gives the movie a tightly defined atmosphere that’s accentuated by the often-piercing rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s score. We’re not really in New York. We’re in Cinemaland.

   Instead of an overture, the movie begins with the sound of whistling — notes recognizable as part of the score. It’s worth pointing out that the late Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for West Side Story, the best of which hold up to this day.

   When West Side Story bowed on Broadway in 1957, New York City was rife with gang violence. Serious publications were writing articles about wayward kids who were being dubbed juvenile delinquents. It’s no longer possible for the material to feel topical in the same way as it did when it debuted on Broadway.

   Spielberg’s attempts to acknowledge contemporary realities — with help from a screenplay by Tony Kushner — can feel a bit forced. 

   But the material has a heart that beats loudly for a love that never fully blossoms, even though in this version Maria and Tony are seen getting out of bed after a night of love. They’re allowed consummation before the tragedy peaks.

   And then there’s Leonard Bernstein’s music: glorious, assertive, full of color, and rippling with an undertow of anxiety. Thanks to both the New York Philharmonic and The Los Angeles Philharmonic for high voltage performances on the movie's soundtrack.

   Not everything clicks. The Officer Krupke number doesn’t land with the comic impact it needs and watching Elgort and Zegler negotiate the perils of a fire escape while singing Tonight probably overworks the idea of putting barriers between Tony and Maria.

    And while we're on the subject, Zegler makes a better Maria than Elgort, a Tony. For one thing, her voice is stronger than his.

   But overall Spielberg brings life, fresh faces, and visual dynamism to this version of West Side Story, and stories about love between people from antagonistic cultures have no expiration date.

    So, Spielberg’s West Side Story? There’s a place for it.*

*As West Side Story begins to be seen by audiences, you’ll read an increasing number of articles exploring questions of racism resulting from stereotyping of the Puerto Rican characters.

Spielberg and Kushner have made obvious attempts to stave off the criticism but it’s undeniably true that West Side Story has dated and potentially offensive elements. It’s also true that updating them or excising them entirely runs the risk of turning West Side Story into something it isn’t. 

One problem I've seen mentioned: The high-point America number paints a portrait of Puerto Rico as a place few would want to live. Manhattan, of course, is so much better. 

That's the argument, but it doesn't take into account the spirit of the song and the fierce presence of the singing and dancing ensemble that delivers it. It's possible to see the number as an expression of the determination of the Puerto Rican women as much as a dismissal of Puerto Rico -- which, of course, is part of America.

The detente — perhaps momentary — between Jets and Sharks at the end (together, they carry off Tony’s fallen body) and Maria’s accusatory cry (we all did it) seem more like fuzzy liberal bromides than a credible resolution of the conflict that animates much of the movie.

The movie may prompt discussion about the ways in which art can be viewed as time passes, views change, and new voices enter the discussion. The discussion should continue. I look forward to reading as much as I can by those with strong convictions about West Side Story should be shelved.

Time alters viewpoints and the “me” who watched West Side Story in 2021 is not the same as the “me” who was taken to the Broadway original in 1959. As for the 1961 movie, I was never a huge fan of a movie that cast Natalie Wood as Maria.