using War of the Worlds to reconsider Spielberg

time for a new post, which i anticipate is going to be just as much about how i review movies as it is about the movie i'm reviewing.

so, i went to the drive-thru with my girlfriend sunday night to catch both War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard; and i liked them. on to business:

War of the Worlds
Summer? check. Big budget sci-fi? check. "Cute" kid? check. --sniff-- Ah, that's a Spielberg all right.

first of all, let me come clean about my feelings regarding Spielberg. I haven't seen all of his movies, but growing up in the Spielberg era i've seen most of them (and know the rest through osmosis), and i'm convinced that in some way that must qualify me to talk about his work on some level. I understand that he's a guy a lot of people love to hate, particularly film purists and those bemoaning the advent and arrival of hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. But a lot of that is backlash and bullshit. Spielberg has made some great films, and even the ones that haven't been so great are at the very least entertaining -- which is something i feel like a lot of critics forget the merit of, but we'll get to that later. i understand both sides of the argument though; he is like that girl in your philosophy of literature class who is sometimes really datably intelligent, but you mostly think about the fact that she has all the right elements for a good romp.

Which War of the Worlds is, more or less. Well, its actually stuck somewhere between that really classic Spielberg movie, and the simply entertaining one. you know how he makes three kinds of movies, right? there's the "Classic"Spielberg movies: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.; "Entertaining" Spielberg movies: Catch Me If You Can, Jaws; "Profound" Spielberg movies: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List. (for the record A.I. can't be classed in one of these categories, unless we make a fourth one called "Anomalous"). While there might be some dispute over what movies belong in or coinhabit which categories, no one is pretending that War of the Worlds is Schindler's List, and we're all fine with that. so...where does it fit?

ok, let me come even more clean about Spielberg: i hate the fact that people hate him, just because he symbolizes something -- you consider the man's work, for God's sake. but......there's also this nagging thing in the back of my head that wants to wave him off with a flick of my wrist and sneer, and i'm not sure what it is. i have never not enjoyed watching a Spielberg movie. that one and a half to three hours i spend watching his work always finds me happy. but when the house lights come up or the tv goes off, somehow the memory of his work is less effective. This, interestingly enough, is also what happens whenever i watch Tom Cruise. they always deliver, no question about that. but eventually the ubiquitousness of the both of them tends to get to me, tempts me to to say "yeah, its good, but..."....and then i can't fill in the elipses.

the Spielberg movies that generally don't slip away into the oblivion of my disregard (and i'm assuming the same for most people) are those of the "classic" category -- a category which is unique to this particular director. his "classic" movies capture some numinous emotional quality on film that somehow amounts to more than its whole, or the physical artefact of the movie -- it really is an experience. the interesting thing about movies in Spielberg's "classic" category is they rarely need dialogue. they might contain it, but it all (intentionally?) shoots around the emotional mark that the visuals seem to nail.

Also, they often deal with children and use family "situations" as a backdrop. i've heard Spielberg talk about the "emotional core" of a story which makes special effects spectaculars relatable to an audience, and the things everyone can relate to is being a kid and family turmoil.

War of the Worlds contains both of these elements in some measure: it is obviously a visual movie, but its emotional peaks need no dialogue to punctuate them. the most terrifying parts of the movie for me are the human moments: a mob that rips Tom Cruise's character and his children out of a mini-van and nearly tears them apart; the off-screen deed that he commits to protect his daughter. And i was impressed with Spielberg's choices about what to leave undepicted, despite the tendancy of sci-fi films to exploit the visual medium. the spectacle might overshadow the subtlety, but its there, if you keep an eye out for it (consider the fact we only get to see what the aliens look like in two brief scenes that take place well into the movie's running time). the cinematography is interesting; there are some strangely choreographed sequences which seem to go against getting to the "reality" of what such an invasion might be like, but it also brings a creepy surreality to the screen, making for an eery juxtaposition of familiar and not-familiar.

Lastly, Tom Cruise is top notch in this movie -- i like to see him cast against type as this character. he really is a deadbeat dad; he'd be an all right guy if it wasn't for the fact that he had kids he didn't take care of, and he does a great job with the character -- not too sympathetic, not too distasteful. Dakota Fanning on the other hand....she is talented, but would have been better cast in this movie three or four years ago. i assume she was cast because she is considered to be hollywood's cute-kid-with-acting-chops of the moment, but in this movie she is just old enough to not be "cute" anymore, and her dialogue could have desperately used some cuteness. Also, the character of "little precocious blonde girl" is a direct reference to Drew Barrymore in E.T. (keep an eye on hair and wardrobe), and i think meant to highlight the fact that War of the Worlds is a counterpoint to that movie.

War of the Worlds skirts the line between classic Spielberg and entertaining-but-insignificant-Spielberg. it has those traditional classic elements, but in the end i don't know if the "emotional core" transfigures the movie or is contained by it: the answer to that question might be up to time, or box office receipts -- or up to me if i get a chance to see it again. it doesn't seem like it should be that easy for a movie to toe that kind of a line -- and maybe because it does, that is a testament to its inferiority to certain other of Spielberg's films. but its worth checking out.