The films of Steven Spiel­berg ranked – part two

So we’ve cov­ered most of The Beard’s TV work, a cou­ple of his also-ran fea­tures and a few sacred cows – now it’s onto the prop­er busi­ness of cov­er­ing the big ones…

The only hor­ror film offi­cial­ly direct­ed by Spiel­berg is this made-for-TV cork­er. While it holds inter­est as a dry-run for Pol­ter­geist (the most Spiel­ber­gian movie not direct­ed by the man him­self), it can also lay claim to being the first Spiel­berg film open to ret­ro­spec­tive auteurist read­ings. From the (men­tal­ly, if not phys­i­cal­ly) absent father to the invad­ed sanc­tu­ary of the home, Some­thing Evil pre­fig­ures the director’s fas­ci­na­tion with parental anx­i­eties and the dis­lo­cat­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal pull of the ​‘oth­er’ – be it super­nat­ur­al, extrater­res­tri­al or sim­ply for­eign to the sta­tus quo. Eschew­ing easy scares for a sus­tained sense of the uncan­ny, it’s one of Spielberg’s few female-dri­ven films. If the nar­ra­tive points for­ward to Pol­ter­geist, its wreck­ing-ball of mater­nal guilt finds itself echoed thir­ty years lat­er in A.I. Matt Thrift

This pilot episode of the Amaz­ing Sto­ries TV series received a kick­ing from the press when it was first broad­cast in Sep­tem­ber 1985, a shame giv­en that it’s a haunt­ing­ly evoca­tive Spiel­ber­gian minia­ture, re-unit­ing the col­lab­o­ra­tive dream team of com­pos­er, John Williams and DoP, Allen Davi­au. Which isn’t to say it’s like­ly to win the film­mak­er any new fans, those aller­gic to his sen­si­bil­i­ties may want to give this one a wide berth. Spiel­berg crafts a poignant study of guilt and death in just 25 min­utes, as a grand­fa­ther awaits a Sty­gian appoint­ment with the spec­tral incar­na­tion of a train he caused the derail­ment of as a child. Adopt­ing a child’s eye per­spec­tive to fuse a sense of loss to won­der, it’s an ele­gant dis­til­la­tion of the filmmaker’s styl­is­tic and the­mat­ic tropes. MT

No one could ever accuse Spiel­berg of insin­cer­i­ty. More often than not, it’s exact­ly his heart-on-sleeve earnest­ness that detrac­tors point to while run­ning a mile in the oppo­site direc­tion, many of them as deter­mined to hate on Always as Bön Jovi was deter­mined to love it. It’s cer­tain­ly an old-fash­ioned pic­ture, a throw­back to the kind of Hol­ly­wood clas­si­cism that speaks of its gen­e­sis as the only remake (grant­ed, War of the Worlds was pre­vi­ous­ly adapt­ed) in the director’s fil­mog­ra­phy. Con­tem­po­ris­ing Vic­tor Fleming’s 1943 dra­ma A Guy Named Joe, it retains its predecessor’s Hawk­sian milieu while fus­ing old-school melo­dra­ma to a spir­i­tu­al enquiry into the recur­rent Spiel­ber­gian pre­oc­cu­pa­tions of aban­don­ment and let­ting go. It’s a poignant, under­rat­ed Hol­ly­wood fairy tale, and one of the filmmaker’s most exis­ten­tial­ly yearn­ing works this side of A.I. MT

Return­ing for some clas­sic com­ic-strip man­na, Spiel­berg tag-teamed it up with beardy broth­er-in-arms Peter Jack­son for this whiz-bang motion-cap­ture caper which offered a spec­tac­u­lar yet rev­er­en­tial take on Hergé’s hal­lowed cre­ation – the tena­cious boy detec­tive with the sky­ward quiff and a trusty mutt named Snowy. Okay, so the whole ​“dead eyes” prob­lem hasn’t been rec­ti­fied here, but where the film per­haps lacks a lit­tle soul, it more than fills in that gap with kinet­ic set-pieces and a plot which bar­rels along as fast as an express steam train. It works as an anti­quat­ed adven­ture movie, but with­in Spielberg’s own back cat­a­logue, it exists as part of a sur­re­al, self-ref­er­en­tial dou­ble fea­ture with 2008’s Indi­ana Jones and the King­dom of the Crys­tal Skull. David Jenk­ins

The mag­num opus of young Spielberg’s TV years, Duel made such a splash that after debut­ing on ABC it was extend­ed for an inter­na­tion­al cin­e­ma release. Based on a Richard Math­e­son sto­ry about a Chrysler-dri­ving trav­el­ling sales­man psy­chot­i­cal­ly stalked by a truck dri­ver, it’s a mechan­i­cal Deliv­er­ance of man and machine point-of-view shots, replete with overt ref­er­ences to the emas­cu­la­tion of the mod­ern Amer­i­can male. (“You’re the boss.” / ​“Not in my house, I’m not.”) Chal­lenged to draw fea­ture-length inter­est sim­ply from vary­ing angles of two men dri­ving, Spiel­berg shows him­self on the precipice of Hitch­cock­ian mas­tery, but the tri­umph is one of for­mal inven­tion – while nerve-shred­ding on first view­ing, it’s more of a con­struct for study when revis­it­ed. Ian Mant­gani

The infec­tious glee with which Spiel­berg approach­es the busi­ness of espi­onage and the Cold War in Bridge of Spies bears all the affec­tions of a child­hood spent under their influ­ence. From its under­stat­ed ele­gance and tight sto­ry­telling through to its fierce­ly con­struct­ed set-pieces, it’s clear­ly the work of a mas­ter film­mak­er. On the sur­face Bridge appears to be a Capra-esque pageant of Amer­i­can val­ues and every­man tri­umph, but apt­ly for a spy flick so engaged with ques­tions of false fronts, Spielberg’s often-aston­ish­ing edit­ing schemes and visu­al style sug­gest a more cyn­i­cal read­ing. It’s van­i­ty that leads insur­ance lawyer Dono­van (Tom Han­ks) to take on the role of com­pa­ny man for USA Inc, and self-serv­ing arro­gance borne out of tri­al by fick­le pub­lic opin­ion that leads him to pur­sue his twofer exchange and a trip to East Berlin. As we jour­ney with Han­ks back to post­card Amer­i­cana, he’s remind­ed of the hor­rors he’s wit­nessed by some kids scal­ing a wall, but they’re swift­ly for­got­ten as he clocks his val­i­da­tion in a news­pa­per. A hero­ic return, but at what expense? He sleeps easy regardless.

This it the bru­tal, surly broth­er to Bridge of Spies’ clean-cut kid, a spy thriller in which char­ac­ters are divest­ed of their nation­al­i­ties as a way to mete out actions which can­not be seen to be linked to any one coun­try for fear of rep­ri­mands. In this case, it’s the small cadre of mad-as-hell Mossad agents who are asked by Prime min­is­ter Gol­da Meir to avenge the deaths of the fall­en mem­bers of the Israeli Olympic team who were assas­si­nat­ed by the Pales­tin­ian ​“Black Sep­tem­ber” group dur­ing the Munich games. Aside from being the last good film in which Eric Bana starred, it’s a propul­sive and intel­li­gent explo­ration of the morals and ethics behind tit-for-tat vio­lence (the rub: there are no ethics and morals). Yet by fram­ing these con­tro­ver­sial manoeu­vres as a sus­pense­ful, noir-tinged thriller, Spiel­berg forces self-exam­i­na­tion when it comes to the self-lac­er­at­ing plea­sures of state-spon­sored blood revenge. DJ

There’s a scene towards the end of his 1979 film, Man­hat­tan, that sees Woody Allen’s author lying on the sofa, list­ing all the things he loves about New York City. Think­ing sud­den­ly of the girl he’s just dumped, he’s spurred into action by remem­ber­ing his city’s great­est trea­sure, ​“Tracy’s face.” Were we to kick back and think about all the things we love about Roald Dahl’s ​‘The BFG’, such a list would sim­i­lar­ly cul­mi­nate with the film’s prize attribute: Mark Rylance’s face. Those eyes, twin­kling through a lay­er of dig­i­tal make-up, prove the gate­way to the soul of a film suf­fused with a gen­tle melan­choly. That smile, broad­en­ing in child-like won­der at a new­found word or sen­sa­tion. That brow, lift­ed in awe or fur­rowed in con­cen­tra­tion at the pow­er of man’s capac­i­ty to dream. If War Horse was in part Spielberg’s trib­ute to John Ford, per­haps The BFG could be viewed as his trib­ute to late-peri­od Hawks; those nar­ra­tive­ly-spare odes to indi­vid­u­al­ism and friend­ship, where the prin­ci­pal plea­sures come in just hang­ing-out. Dahl’s source-mate­r­i­al makes for as sim­pati­co a col­lab­o­ra­tion of dis­tinct sen­si­bil­i­ties as Spiel­berg found with AI – parental guilt rear­ing its head here too – while a final screen­play by the late Melis­sa Math­i­son can’t help but sig­nal an echo of ET’s the­mat­ic motifs. MT

When The BFG was released, Spielberg’s name was nowhere to be found on pro­mo­tion­al posters. Dis­ney was seen as the brand best-placed to shill a kid’s adven­ture to audi­ences in 2016. The cor­po­ra­tion had replaced the man. ​“Are you dead?” asks the young hero of leg­endary game design­er, James Hal­l­i­day at the end of Ready Play­er One, hav­ing unlocked, not just the mechan­ics, but the very soul of the great man’s mag­num opus. Three tasks brought him to this final room. Three keys award­ed for his insight into the con­struc­tion, the heart and the sense of joy, respec­tive­ly, that built a uni­verse. The prize is a man­tle passed; the old­er man the most explic­it Spiel­berg avatar in the director’s canon, one sur­vey­ing the wreck­age of a cul­tur­al land­scape he sculpt­ed almost sin­gle-hand­ed­ly, and seem­ing to find a mea­sure of peace in a nos­tal­gic time-loop of his own design. The boy dream­er and the adult genius he’d become, co-exist­ing in a cin­e­mat­ic mau­soleum, a wist­ful­ly per­son­alised sim­u­lacrum of A.I.’s final scene. Ready Play­er One’s sur­faces may thrill, but its real east­er egg is Spielberg’s recog­ni­tion of an auto­bi­og­ra­phy buried in plain sight, the man him­self hid­ing out for eter­ni­ty with­in the mul­ti­verse of his own cre­ation. MT

Fea­tur­ing some of the most bril­liant­ly con­ceived and exe­cut­ed set-pieces in Spielberg’s fil­mog­ra­phy – the open­ing 20 min­utes are peer­less – Tem­ple of Doom would be much high­er on our list if we were rank­ing sole­ly on the basis of sus­tained nar­ra­tive momen­tum and sequence con­struc­tion. Yet issues which have dogged the film since release, name­ly the ugly racial stereo­typ­ing and regres­sive gen­der pol­i­tics, remain impos­si­ble to cast aside in the face of such daz­zling for­mal chops (and no, the colo­nial-era set­ting doesn’t offer a get-out). The mine chase still thrills – although it’s the pre­ced­ing sequence of dust-ups that takes top prize – and Dou­glas Slocombe’s work as DoP ele­vates the film to the top tier of look­ers on the director’s CV, but one has to be grate­ful that plans for an African-set third instal­ment (fea­tur­ing a half-man, half-mon­key vil­lain) were swift­ly jet­ti­soned. MT

An inex­tri­ca­bly con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous film steeped in impo­tence and con­fu­sion, War of the Worlds sees Spiel­berg jet­ti­son the rules he’d helped estab­lish for escapist block­buster fare. If his post-Schindler’s out­put saw a weight­i­er moral dimen­sion added to even his most super­fi­cial­ly light­weight work, post-2001 saw an unprece­dent­ed shift of engage­ment from ques­tions of anx­i­ety to trau­ma. Where else in his fil­mog­ra­phy does the threat of the ​‘oth­er’ lead the ubiq­ui­tous self-absorbed dad to mur­der? The show­man is present, but with the excep­tion of a 360 degree manœu­vre around a car in flight, the most indeli­ble imagery comes by way of vio­lent echoes of real-world human cat­a­stro­phe; most explic­it­ly ⁹⁄₁₁. As far as the wide­ly derid­ed end­ing goes – return­ing son aside – Spiel­berg hangs on to that of HG Wells, for­go­ing hero­ic cathar­sis for ​‘what the fuck just hap­pened?’ infir­mi­ty. It’s as bold as it is apt for a film so bleak­ly aware of its con­text. MT

This late-career shift into balmy pres­tige ter­ri­to­ry actu­al­ly saw Spiel­berg get his hand in again with the Oscar set – and deserved­ly so. Daniel Day-Lewis once more does the chameleon mam­bo, grow­ing a wispy beard (but keep­ing the top lip clean) and bal­anc­ing a mighty stovepipe hat on his head as ​“Hon­est” Abe Lin­coln, the great eman­ci­pa­tor and all-round good egg. Play­ing like a mod­ern refit of John Ford’s 1939 mas­ter­piece Young Mis­ter Lin­coln, which doc­u­ment­ed the moral edu­ca­tion of the pres­i­dent-to-be, Spielberg’s film sug­gests that the learn­ing curve did not stop there, and that Lin­coln was both an imparter and receiv­er of wis­dom until his (untime­ly) dying day. Though Spiel­berg does try to bring as much socio-polit­i­cal colour as he can to the table, this film is at its very best when it’s just Abe talk­ing down-home sense to his col­leagues and cohorts. DJ

If ever there were a test case to sug­gest that Spiel­berg would’ve made a great Bond film, this is it, a breezy exis­ten­tial chase com­e­dy which slices right through the macho pos­tur­ing, cos­met­ic jin­go­ism and oleagi­nous smug­ness of clas­sic 007. Here, our wily super­spy is actu­al­ly a cheery huck­ster played by Leonar­do DiCaprio who attempts to fraud his way to infamy as an out­let for his chron­ic dad­dy issues. But where his real father – played by Christo­pher Walken – toils like a mouse drown­ing in a buck­et cream, a sur­ro­gate enters the fray in the form of Tom Han­ks’ dogged FBI man. There are numer­ous Spiel­berg films which need to end before the end – usu­al­ly suf­fixed with a grim­ly sac­cha­rine coda as a way to retain his image of cinema’s big pop fun. Although this one does spi­ral out for a long time beyond the point where you think the sto­ry reach­es a nat­ur­al close, this is an instance where he deliv­ers a vel­vet-encased razor­blade, a sense of cheery com­pro­mise which is actu­al­ly an admis­sion of life as being dull, repet­i­tive and moral­is­tic. DJ

A superla­tive cat n’ mouse chase flick recast as eth­i­cal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly inquis­i­tive pas­sion play, Minor­i­ty Report sees Spiel­berg return to the god-com­plex­es that pow­ered the pre­vi­ous year’s A.I. While that film cast its Dr Franken­stein in a more benev­o­lent light, there’s lit­tle sym­pa­thy here for the pil­lars of cor­rupt insti­tu­tions rein­forc­ing pow­er-hier­ar­chies through false idol­a­try. Cor­ralling mil­len­ni­al tech­no-anx­i­eties into a vivid­ly realised future milieu – Janusz Kaminski’s light-blast­ed, chrome fin­ish is among his best work – Spielberg’s expert­ly woven tapes­try of high-con­cept sto­ry­telling and blis­ter­ing­ly orches­trat­ed visu­al con­ceits shows few seams. Its clas­si­cal and reli­gious sym­bol­ism points to larg­er ques­tions of inher­ent faith in high­er pow­ers, but rarely at the expense of genre licks, the irrup­tive nature of the film’s final shot tan­ta­lis­ing­ly ambigu­ous. What­ev­er you find lurk­ing sub­tex­tu­al­ly, it remains a film of impec­ca­ble sur­faces; one only need look at the spi­der-robot set-piece to wit­ness what a mas­ter film­mak­er can do with his A‑game. MT

For­get the incred­i­ble CG-assist­ed dinosaurs for a moment – per­haps the great­est effect in Spielberg’s ​“one for them” mon­ster movie from 1993 involves a sim­ple, clear plas­tic cup half filled with water. As it sits in a car that’s attached to rails, cur­rent­ly bro­ken down on its mech­a­nised trip through Juras­sic Park, this cup becomes a har­bin­ger of doom and hor­ror. Some­thing is rustling in the brush, and its foot­prints are caus­ing light con­cen­tric rings to form on the sur­face. The cam­era slow­ly pans in as the boom­ing sound of the steps swell on the sound­track. The pro­tag­o­nists look at each oth­er in the knowl­edge that only some­thing with the pow­er to shake the world around them could be caus­ing this. It’s like the pre­lude to a nuclear blast, the sound­waves and the flash of light a sig­nal of the fall­out to come. And then… DJ

When you need a sign of sure-fire qual­i­ty and pop­u­lar­i­ty, just look to how many times your movie has been par­o­died. With Jaws like­ly run­ning a close sec­ond, there are few Spiel­berg films which rank against Raiders as a meaty feast for cul­tur­al mag­pies. Yet, par­o­dies only work when the mate­r­i­al being mocked is itself utter­ly sin­cere, and so it is with the first cin­e­mat­ic run-out of Dr Hen­ry ​“Indi­ana” Jones – whip-crack­ing adven­tur­er and sav­iour of rare antiq­ui­ties who, with­in five min­utes of the film’s open, is seen dash­ing through a cob­web-strewn cave and being trailed by a giant rolling boul­der. The film is a glossy visu­al ren­der­ing of news­pa­per adven­ture seri­als enjoyed by co-writer and cre­ator George Lucas when both were nip­pers. If not Spielberg’s most per­fect film, then it’s cer­tain­ly one of his most easy to love, its apple-cheeked earnest­ness shin­ing through every secret cav­ern, every moun­tain­side dust-up, every stolen kiss, every breath­less chase sequence and every Nazi officer’s .gif-friend­ly facial melt­down. DJ

While reign­ing as king of sum­mer block­busters, Spiel­berg tried his first decades-span­ning Hol­ly­wood epic, worked with his first major­i­ty-black cast and made his first bid as a direc­tor of nation-heal­ing import with this open­ing-up of Alice Walker’s epis­to­lary nov­el. Whoopi Goldberg’s eyes made her a star even as she played a woman in the back­ground of her own life, as her Celie keeps hope through pover­ty, sis­ter­ly sep­a­ra­tion and gen­er­a­tions of male abuse. Shot in eccle­si­as­ti­cal warmth by Allen Davi­au, swoon­ing­ly scored by Quin­cy Jones, and with anoth­er star-mak­ing turn in new­com­er Oprah Win­frey, this was a pop­u­lar smash only to be tarred with crit­i­cal accu­sa­tions of defam­ing African-Amer­i­can men and sani­tis­ing Walker’s depic­tions of les­bian­ism. Now, thank­ful­ly, con­sen­sus is turn­ing back, recog­nis­ing this as a lush yet bru­tal and brave clas­sic of endurance. IM

A ver­i­ta­ble PT Bar­num, Spiel­berg has built a career as the sil­ver screen’s pre­mier actu­alis­er of the impos­si­ble and the unre­al. From Close Encoun­ters to Hook and beyond, so many of his nar­ra­tives pro­mote a return to inno­cence as a means of embrac­ing the fan­tas­ti­cal, of open­ing one­self to the won­der, of jour­ney­ing towards the light. Empire of the Sun inverts said tra­jec­to­ry, Chris­t­ian Bale’s Jim fol­low­ing a scarred path from imag­i­na­tion into dark­ness, the oblique abstrac­tions of war games erod­ing as per­cep­tion and real­i­ty con­verge. It’s a film of stark visu­al poet­ry – none of Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan​’s hyper-lit­er­al­ism here – and one of the director’s most psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly acute. Sym­bols of inno­cence are anti­thet­i­cal­ly mir­rored, the dead­en­ing effects of trau­ma abrad­ing the lux­u­ry of nos­tal­gia to dwarf the pro­tag­o­nist, not in the face of fan­ta­sy, but the all too real. MT

More than twen­ty years lat­er, Schindler’s List remains a tricky cus­tomer to get a han­dle on. Even away from the hier­ar­chies of pub­lic opin­ion – Claude Lanz­mann hat­ed it; Ter­ry Gilliam (puh-lease) became Kubrick’s posthu­mous sound­bite regur­gi­ta­tor, etc – it proves a mon­u­men­tal, unwieldy propo­si­tion. It’s also clear­ly a mas­ter­piece, if undoubt­ed­ly a flawed one, which takes noth­ing away from its achieve­ment. The sheer craft on dis­play is unim­peach­able, fus­ing the neo­re­al­ist aes­thet­ic with which it doc­u­ments its hor­rors to the Hol­ly­wood clas­si­cism it adopts to shoot Schindler him­self (his very entrance is straight out of Casablan­ca). It’s a film made for mass-con­sump­tion, and wher­ev­er one stands on the eth­i­cal ques­tions of rep­re­sen­ta­tion and its aes­theti­cis­ing its con­tent – the Auschwitz gas cham­ber sequence proves much more prob­lem­at­ic than its bom­bas­tic ​‘red coat’ sym­bol­ism – accu­sa­tions of dis­re­spect remain as non­sen­si­cal as they were twen­ty years ago. If any­thing, the film’s great­est achieve­ment lies in the way it hon­ours sur­vivors and the dead alike, evi­denc­ing a mas­ter crafts­man bring­ing every ounce of his tal­ent to bear on an unflinch­ing work of absolute sin­cer­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cance. MT

Peter Pan finds his Nev­er­land in Spielberg’s neu­rot­ic mas­ter­piece of sub­ur­ban angst. It’s the work of a young film­mak­er – albeit one prodi­gious­ly equipped for the task at hand – one unen­cum­bered by famil­ial respon­si­bil­i­ty, ascrib­ing Pinoc­chio day­dreams of lib­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­al­ism to a vast can­vas, micro-anx­i­eties seek­ing tran­scen­dence through spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing. It’s the quin­tes­sen­tial Spiel­berg text: a film entire­ly devoid of cyn­i­cism – even in its pro­tract­ed domes­tic ago­nies – one of rebirth through regres­sion, of lit­er­al ascen­dence to the won­der. It’s also a film about cin­e­ma itself, about per­son­al con­nec­tion through shared expe­ri­ence; a film of faces gaz­ing upwards in awe, illu­mi­nat­ed by the visions in the sky, on the screen. For the final 30 min­utes, Spiel­berg orches­trates a sym­pho­ny of meta­phys­i­cal, cin­e­mat­ic rap­ture; a deus ex machi­na sculpt­ed in light, to which we – like Drey­fus’ Roy Neary – have lit­tle choice but to sur­ren­der. MT

If Duel is Spielberg’s sus­pense film about inef­fec­tu­al sub­ur­bia bat­tling the heart­land and tech­nol­o­gy, Jaws is where the Amer­i­can house­hold­er emerges vic­to­ri­ous over nature itself. Repur­pos­ing the para­noia of 1970s malaise as some­thing pri­mal rather than soci­etal, and empha­sis­ing brav­ery and hope rather than vio­lent des­per­a­tion, the killer shark clas­sic sows the seeds of today’s sub­lit­er­ate, com­mon-denom­i­na­tor block­busters and antic­i­pates Spielberg’s suc­cess amid the myth­mak­ing of the Rea­gan era. (Jaws begins by feed­ing an Amblin’-like hip­pie girl to the sea and ends with the words ​“I think the tide’s with us.”) It also, of course, makes itself clear about why it was such a uni­ver­sal­ly res­o­nant hit. What else can we say that hasn’t been said to death? Ver­na Fields’s hero­ic edit­ing, John Williams’s spine-tin­gling ris­ing-tone, tor­ment­ing use of the pow­er of sug­ges­tion, a human touch that includes sev­er­al hilar­i­ous drunk scenes, and one icon­ic moment after anoth­er. IM

For this view­er at least, Spielberg’s great­est achieve­ment with E.T. – his mag­is­te­r­i­al hymn to friend­ship, love and loss – is to bring home a feel­ing of child­hood; not sim­ply in a rec­ol­lec­tive or nos­tal­gic sense, but in the most sub­con­scious­ly pri­mal. Its induce­ment of a state of the purest emo­tion­al regres­sion – of an open­ness entire­ly shorn of cyn­i­cism – is tes­ta­ment not just to its film­mak­ing prowess, but to an avowed opti­mism and curios­i­ty, under­scored by a deeply root­ed, intan­gi­ble melan­choly. If there’s an image that sums up the film as indeli­bly as it does Spielberg’s fil­mog­ra­phy en masse, it’s of Elliott cen­tre-frame in his back yard, mid-way between the dim light of home and that ethe­re­al­ly cas­cad­ing from the shed hid­ing E.T. Caught between the pull of two oppos­ing forces, each a man­i­fes­ta­tion of com­plex psy­cho­log­i­cal real­i­ties (the con­cept of home is rarely a sim­ple one in Spielberg’s oeu­vre), Elliott stands alone, the .4 of a frac­tured sub­ur­ban nucle­us sin­gled out for sal­va­tion. It’s a film that sings as it soars – the auteur the­o­ry crum­bling in the face of John Williams’ sym­phon­ic ecsta­sy – before the tears come; as Mar­tin Amis once put it, ​“We weren’t cry­ing for the lit­tle extra-ter­res­tri­al, nor for lit­tle Elliott, nor for lit­tle Ger­tie. We were cry­ing for our lost selves.” MT

“What is love?,” asks William Hurt’s biotech­ni­cian of the android seat­ed in front of him. ​“Love is first widen­ing my eyes a lit­tle bit and quick­en­ing my breath­ing a lit­tle and warm­ing my skin,” she replies, as pro­grammed. What would she answer if he’d asked her, ​“What is cin­e­ma?” A series of asso­ci­at­ed images played in a sequence designed to elic­it an emo­tion­al response? Designed to elic­it a sim­u­lacrum of an emo­tion­al response? Is David, the boy-robot who ​“aspires to the human con­di­tion” in Spielberg’s inher­it­ed mas­ter­work, any less real to us than his human coun­ter­parts are? All are actors play­ing char­ac­ters, light-borne trans­mis­sions in a sim­u­la­tion of a real­i­ty through which we can vic­ar­i­ous­ly feel? We weep for him regard­less, we feel his pain. Such ques­tions of emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal sur­ro­ga­cy are front and cen­tre in A.I., an exis­ten­tial enquiry that asks as many ques­tions of cin­e­ma as it does of what it means to be human.

It’s a liv­ing cin­e­ma into which David steps in the film’s exquis­ite epi­logue, a pro­jec­tion of his deep­est (Oedi­pal­ly-rid­den) desires made flesh. The abil­i­ty to dream is what sep­a­rates us from our syn­the­sised fac­sim­i­les, Hurt’s cre­ator sug­gests, and what is cin­e­ma but a man­i­fes­ta­tion of said imag­i­na­tion? When David is exca­vat­ed from his icy grave, dei­fied by his descen­dants two thou­sand years after hurl­ing him­self to his death, he’s grant­ed a 24hr auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal pic­ture show, borne out of nos­tal­gia and fan­ta­sy. Just as humans cre­at­ed robots to fill an exis­ten­tial void, so too do the robots cre­ate their own fac­sim­i­les, pro­grammed to sim­u­late a shared approx­i­ma­tion of the human con­di­tion. It’s at once a cathar­tic embod­i­ment of the aban­doned robot’s wish upon a star, and a chill­ing echo of loss – of his moth­er, of human­i­ty – which finds its tragedy in its arti­fice, in David only find­ing his hap­py end­ing at the movies.

It’s a film that couldn’t exist with­out Spiel­berg, just as it couldn’t exist with­out Kubrick. An organ­ic amal­ga­ma­tion of two dis­tinct sen­si­bil­i­ties, A.I. is a film that teach­es us to ques­tion as it teach­es us to dream. Through its count­less reflect­ed forms and frac­tured vis­ages, it asks us how we see our­selves and each oth­er, through our own eyes and through theirs. It’s the crown­ing mas­ter­piece of the pre­mier actu­alis­er of cel­lu­loid fan­tasies, a film­mak­er demon­strat­ing a pro­found under­stand­ing that there can be no joy with­out pain, no love with­out loss. MT