Close Encounters of the Spielberg Kind

Rating: Null/10 (8 July 2008)

I like to swim more deeply in film than Spielberg. So although he makes somewhat effective films, they leave me wondering why they were made.
Well, we know why this, "Schindler" and "Ryan" were made. Its because after skimming a gazillion dollars by amusing us, this man wants to be seen as a weighty, "real" filmmaker. A Kubrick that likes to occasionally have fun. We all know these films to be made on ostentatiously weighty material, so they must be deep.
I had the highest hope for this one, because I know he was stung by how poorly the others were received by people he trusts. So here, he goes back to his method of "Close Encounters" which was supposed to use New Wave techniques and to circumnavigate what was then new ideas about noir. I liked it. It took chances and where it failed it did so interestingly, even in the more ambitious later cut.
This uses standard (meaning later) Spielberg techniques. Despite his vaunted cinematic storyboarding technique, all the emotional content here is spoken. All the emotional reference is off screen. There are violent acts, but these seen deliberately bloodless, like an Indiana Jones movie would have then, something abstract to talk about. The intended effect was to haunt by the reality that punches through the rationalization. The reality here never gets a chance because its all so movieworld.
That's the problem. He wants to make a film that resonates because it hurts, because it ties knots in us. He just cannot. Its still just a script. Consider the last scenes. These are powerfully written. There are a dozen other filmmakers who could have made them work.
We've been through an entire story to set up the haunting ambivalence in our hero. He is finally able to be with his wife and as he makes love to her, the only think he can see are the hostage deaths not fully shown until this moment, charmed into their horror by human touch. This is followed by her gently caressing the face of her man, accepting all that has come before. If I read this by a good writer, I would be crippled for weeks.
But see how Steven has rendered it. All the pieces are there but the cinematic machine isn't assembled. We have gone all this time, and been set up so well for nothing. I am reminded of "Monster's Ball," which is constructed the same way. Its value is all in the very end, where we have Berre sitting on a stoop in a state of bewildered acquiescence. This could have been more. It was far less, a remote poster.
Good script. I intend to read it and imagine the film that could have been.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.