Which Steven Spielberg what do you prefer? That of action and adventure cinema, that of similar blockbusters Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, Jurassic Park or Minority reportor the more “serious”, that of Schindler’s List? The Fabelmans It is decidedly far from the first titles, but it maintains a link with all of Spielberg’s filmography: the mastery of narrating images.
Spielberg’s productions are often cinematic experiences. They are films to be felt with the body, with the heart or with something more ethereal like the soul, and sometimes they make you think.
cinema in the cinema
The Fabelmans It is the director’s most personal film, however much it was Schindler’s List, but in this case what matters is very similar to his own life, his experiences as a young man. Plus, it’s a Hollywood movie about Hollywood.
It’s not Spielberg’s life, let’s say it’s the Hollywood version of his existence, his adolescence, his family and his beginnings in cinema.
After all, the genius of entertainment cinema refers to himself in this 150-minute story, which includes the complex relationship with (and with) his parents and many winks that those who love and know the career of the director of Sharkthey will rub their hands (yes: there is the short in which he creates “special effects” in the desert…).
To say that a Spielberg film is sometimes languid would be almost obscene. Let’s say inside The Fabelmans -and come one by one- there are holes, in which it falls and not much happens, as it happened in The giant good friend. Or change axis, because the screenplay she wrote with Tony Kushner is the fourth collaboration, after Monk, lincoln Y Love without barriers– take bullying or anti-Semitism, maybe with a brush stroke instead of a brush stroke.
But there is the final image, with which the film ends and where all the magic is taken up and Spielberg puts it back in his pocket.
The storyline has Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), living with his sisters and his parents (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano), living in an imperfect marriage. A friend of the father’s (Seth Rogen), well, that has something to do with that imperfection.
But the film, we said, shows the love for the family and also for the cinema. Spielberg is as wistful, compassionate and forgiving in The Fabelmans as he has ever been in this scale. As for the autobiographical undertones, he has more to do with what Woody Allen did radio days with which Fellini Amarcord.
There, on the screen, are the first film he saw (The Greatest Show on Earth), his first home shootings and his meeting at Paramount with John Ford (impressive cameo by David Lynch). And the music too john williamshis friend, with whom he will meet again in the next installment of the Oscar, to which The Fabelmans comes with seven nominations.
Like I said: it’s Hollywood that loves Hollywood.
“The Fabelmans”
Good
Drama. USA, 2022. Original title: “The Fabelmans”. 151′, SA 13. Of: Steven Spielberg. With: Michelle Williams, Gabriel LaBelle, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Judd Hirsch. Rooms: Cinépolis Recoleta and Avellaneda, Hoyts Abasto, Cinemark Palermo, Showcase Quilmes and Haedo.
Source: Clarin
