The Man Behind the Camera

Among directors with a huge body of work, there's probably no one whose movies I've seen more of than Steven Spielberg. (And I suspect that's probably true of many film enthusiasts of my generation.) Because of this, I both had to watch and was a bit hesitant to watch a new documentary about him, Spielberg.

The "had to watch" element is probably self explanatory. Spielberg directed some of the most beloved movies of multiple decades. Any chance at insights about what makes him tick would surely be interesting. Any tidbits about the making of a famous film in particular would be the kind of stuff movie fanatics live and breathe.

The "hesitant to watch" bit was the chance that there wouldn't be anything at all revelatory here. That, and the chance that the documentary would spend a couple hours just telling us what we all already know: that Steven Spielberg is a damn talented movie maker with countless great films to his name.

Spielberg (the film) existed a bit between those two possibilities, though ultimately (unfortunately) landing more on the latter. It talked a fair amount his family background and how he was raised, and while Steven Spielberg gave generous and candid interviews about it all, he really didn't reveal much that isn't readily apparent from his films (particularly the earlier ones). As you would guess, his relationship with his father was a defining one for him. As you'd also guess, the divorce of his parents cast a long shadow on his attitudes about family and love.

The documentary did have some interesting and surprising sections, though. Many of those came when the filmmakers tempered their understandable and deserved enthusiasm for the director to examine his less successful efforts. There's a section about the making of The Color Purple (which I myself have never seen), where Spielberg talks about how his desire to see that movie made may have blinded him to the reality that maybe he himself was not the best person to have made it. He talks about his decisions to scrub some of the original novel's more controversial elements from the film, and admits that he wished he could have been more daring.

Also interesting is to hear about how other people in the industry talk about the director. The documentary features pieces of interviews with a wide range of actors who have worked for him, and a number of directors whose careers blossomed around the same time. When they talk about what Steven Spielberg does and how he does it so well, the documentary makes great use of film clips to highlight exactly what they're talking about. As in any industry, it's interesting to hear how professionals talk about others in their field.

But, at the end of the day, this documentary isn't nearly as revealing or fascinating as I would have hoped for. It feels geared toward a more casual moviegoer, the sort who would recognize Spielberg by his ubiquity, but who doesn't usually like to glimpse behind the scenes. That's not me, nor do I suspect it's most of my readers. This is one you can probably skip. I'd give Spielberg a B-.