The Return of Steven Spielberg

I’ve been having a sort of love-hate relationship with Steven Spielberg throughout my entire life. I grew up a child of the eighties, during a time when his movies reigned supreme. It’s hard to think back to my childhood and not remember being deeply affected by his work. But over the last few years, I’ve been really, really disappointed with his movies.

Could it be that Spielberg’s lost his touch?

Let’s start with when I first came to know and love his work. Loved E.T. – it’s one of my all-time favorite movies. I can watch it any day, from any point in the story, and still sob like a little baby at the final shot of the space ship flying away. Loved Empire of the Sun – it’s one of his lesser-known cinematic gems starring a very young Christian Bale. The scene that gets me every time is when Jim is on the roof of the war-stricken hospital, shouting “P-51 Cadillac of the Sky” at the American fighter planes, and then realizes he can’t remember what his mother looks like. Loved the first and third Indiana Jones movies – who can resist Harrison Ford’s cracking bullwhip and knock-out punches? There will never again be another hero like Indy.

I also loved the first Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. Those were all Spielberg films that knocked me out and left me reeling. While he’s a proven master of the special effects, he’s even better at capturing the plight of the persevering human spirit during troubled times. His movies have a way of evoking emotion, and maybe that’s just because he knows when to cue the swelling John Williams score. At any rate, I can almost always relate something in a Spielberg movie to my real life. Maybe not so much the part about encountering an alien with an affinity for Reese’s Pieces, but because I am also the product of a divorced family. That’s real-life stuff.

Article Author: Jenifer Gonzales

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