The Fabelmans (2022)

The Fabelmans (2022)
Director: Steven Spielberg
== Plot Synopsis ==
Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.
== Male Deaths ==
* David Lynch [John Ford] [After the film]
* Greg Grunberg [Bernie Fein] [After the film]
== Female Deaths ==
* Robin Bartlett [Tina Schildkraut]
== Trivia ==
# Seth Rogen told reporters that Steven Spielberg often became emotional on the set during production. "It was a very emotional experience. He was crying a lot on set," he said. "It's very directly based on his life and pretty much everything that happens in the movie is something that happened to him. As we were shooting, I'd be like, 'Did this happen in real life?' and the answer was 'yes' a hundred percent of the time."
# David Lynch requested that he be given his costume as John Ford a week before filming his scene to break it in.
# For the scenes of Sammy filming his own 8mm films, Steven Spielberg decided to have the character re-create the exact ones he made during his childhood, and worked with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski to ensure that they were portrayed as accurately as possible, but with improvements in the camera angles. A few of the films portrayed in this film include the Western short film that he made with his fellow Boy Scout friends in order to earn the photography merit badge, the war short film Escape to Nowhere (1961), in which he used his school bully by casting him in the lead role in an effort to face his fears, and Spielberg's re-creation of the train wreck scene from Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). Spielberg remarked "It was joyful being able to recreate those films. ... I shot a lot of films when I was a kid on 8mm. It was unique in those days. Not a lot of people were going out and shooting in 8mm. It was physical; it was a craft. You had to sit there with a...splicer, and then you had to scrape the emulsion off the film in order to get a seal so when you put glue on it, you literally glued the film together. And I must say, I miss it."
# Steven Spielberg claimed that although he and Tony Kushner had discussed the idea of the movie for years, it was during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that he decided to write the screenplay with Kushner from scratch while his schedule was clear. The two of them wrote the script from their homes during lockdown and finished it in two months.
# During filming, the cast gained access to home movies, photographs, and recollections from Steven Spielberg's family's past to learn what they were like and how to portray the fictionalized versions of them (The Fabelman family) on screen, while making them feel fresh and original. Paul Dano reflected: "It was overwhelming and it was sort of a heavy cloak to bear because we were with someone who was having a big experience everyday, revisiting and reworking through a part of their life... For somebody like Steven to share that much of himself with us - with the audience too - it was really a profound experience."
# The film's development goes back to 1999, when Steven Spielberg considered directing a film about his childhood for some time, with its initial incarnation being titled "I'll Be Home". It would have been directed from a screenplay written by his sister Anne Spielberg (who inspired the character of Reggie Fabelman in this film).
# The 8mm and 16mm camera props used in the film had real film inside them, with Gabriel LaBelle being taught how to use the cameras, so that what was shot with them on set could be developed for usage in the film, as well as how to cut and splice film stock using the editing machines and film projectors of the 1950s and 60s.
# Paul Dano ordered and built a crystal radio set to get the feeling of how Arnold Spielberg worked with electronics in order to prepare for the role of Burt Fabelman.
# Steven Spielberg said his parents had been "nagging" him to put them on the big screen prior to their deaths. "They were actually nagging me, 'When are you going to tell that story about our family, Steve?' And so this was something they were very enthusiastic about," he said. He also shared what finally prompted him to make The Fabelmans: "I started seriously thinking, if I had to make one movie I haven't made yet, something that I really want to do on a very personally atomic level, what would that be? And there was only one story I really wanted to tell." He also said The Fabelmans is "the first coming-of-age story I've ever told." "My life with my mom and dad taught me a lesson, which I hope this film in a small way imparts," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "Which is, when does a young person in a family start to see his parents as human beings? In my case, because of what happened between the ages of 7 and 18, I started to appreciate my mom and dad not as parents but as real people."
# This may likely be one of the last collaborations between Steven Spielberg and John Williams. According to reports, Williams (who will turn 91 in February 2023) is planning to retire (from composing for films, he said he will still write concert music) after composing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). He also added that saying "no" to Steven Spielberg wasn't an easy thing to do.
# Steven Spielberg's first screenplay credit since A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).
# Steven Spielberg had envisioned Michelle Williams as Mitzi, the character inspired by his mother Leah, ever since he saw her performance in Blue Valentine (2010).
# Steven Spielberg admitted that when re-creating his amateur movie, he improved on the original coverage and camerawork: "If I see a good shot, I can't help it."
# Gabriel LaBelle was initially not cast as Sammy Fabelman until after being given a callback three months after his audition. On finally reading the script and learning the details about his character being a fictionalized version of Steven Spielberg himself as a teenager for mostly the entire film, he recalled, "When I was auditioning, the character's name was Teenage Sammy - I thought as opposed to Adult Sammy ... I get the script and you're reading it for 30 pages and he's 6 and 8 years old. Page 35 or so Teenage Sammy comes along. OK, good! Now this is my part. It's going to be a three-act movie, it's going to be a Moonlight (2016) or something. I kept waiting for my exit but it never came."
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