Most underrated and most overrated movie by Steven Spielberg and why?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Steven Spielberg
Relatively_Confused — 10 years ago(April 28, 2015 06:20 PM)
Here's my pick-
Most overrated - Schindler's List (1993)
This was an easy choice for me because imo Schindler's List is a flawed and ridiculously oversimplified version of the Holocaust.The biggest problem is Oskar Schindler's grand emotional transformation. In fact, there is no transformation. Midpoint in the film, the Schindler persona has disappeared, and we have a new character clothed in the same flesh a self-sacrificing philanthropist. How did we get from one to the other? And then we have Amon Goeth. He's an evil, sadistic, Jew-hating Bastard - but do we get to know why he wakes up every morning, takes a swig of booze and snipes Jew prisoners for fun? No. Spielberg thinks the answer is obvious he's a Nazi, and Nazis don't have reasons for the things they do. The attempt to add depth to Geth's character by dwelling on his twisted love affair with a Jewish girl is easily seen for what it is a cheap exposure of Nazi hypocrisy. I also take issue with Liam Neeson's terrible german accent and the way Spielberg uses the suffering of Jews as a thematic tool, to build suspense. One of the truly unforgivable aspects of the film is the ending. When Schindler took off his gold ring and blubbered "I could have saved one more", I experienced a feeling of mild revulsion. It was cheesy, completely out of character and completely unnecessary. Ending a Holocaust movie with a triumphant rescue scene is as pathetic as it gets. Schindler's List is a dumbed down version of the Holocaust and the moral and intellectual depth of the film is as though it's aimed at children.
Honorable Mention - Saving Private Ryan (one of the most over patriotic, flag-waving and morally simplistic war films I've ever seen)
Most underrated - A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
A.I. is a bleak and visionary masterpiece and imo it's Spielberg's best film to date. The ending is ridiculously depressing, particularly once you realise that the cloned Monica is thoroughly unlike the real one. The clone Monica is fake designed to unconditionally love David, just as David was created to unconditionally love Monica. But both David and the audience bought it, which is why everyone complained about this being a "happy" ending. Is this our understanding of love? Programmed obsession? What's ironic is that's precisely what Spielberg intends to show you in this scene. Both David and the audience are willing to delude themselves for that happy ending. Spielberg says this is what it means to be human. David's ability to believe in the Blue Fairy is a parallel to man's tendency to believe in a god he cannot see. Not to mention the ending becomes even more depressing once you realise the last shot is of a boy choosing to die next to his mother's corpse because he's refusing to believe that she fades away. The central question of Collodi's Pinocchio fable has always been "What does it means to be human?" A.I. finds dark and sobering answers. To be real is to be mortal. To be human is to be governed by irrational love, blind faith, self-delusion and eventual death.
A.I. is just as philosophical as 2001 and just as poignant as E.T. and it deserves to recognised as one of the greatest sic-fi films of all time.
Honorable Mention - War of the Worlds, Munich. -
A_Man_of_Iron — 10 years ago(April 29, 2015 08:52 AM)
Heh, I find your Schindler's List criticisms quite ironic. Here you are criticizing the film by calling it simplistic and "dumbing down" the Holocaust and yet your biggest problem with the film is that Spielberg doesn't dumb down Oskar Schindler's character and provide a simplistic explanation for his transformation.
Here, watch this interview:
Spielberg himself says here that he's never had any of the survivors tell him definitively when Schindler decided to save Jews and stop being a Nazi. Spielberg stays true to that in the film. There are a few scenes here and there you can point to as being catalysts, but never anything that spells it out for you and says, "This is the moment he changes!"
Hell, Roger Ebert got it back in 1993:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/schindlers-list-1993
Why did he change? What happened to turn him from a victimizer into a humanitarian? It is to the great credit of Steven Spielberg that his film "Schindler's List" does not even attempt to answer that question. Any possible answer would be too simple, an insult to the mystery of Schindler's life. The Holocaust was a vast evil engine set whirling by racism and madness. Schindler outsmarted it, in his own little corner of the war, but he seems to have had no plan, to have improvised out of impulses that remained unclear even to himself.
What's funny is that Spielberg is often accused of being a "comforting" filmmaker who provides answers to everything (by people who don't understand him, like Terry Gilliam), yet here's Spielberg providing you with a complex,
human
character - the final scene where Schindler breaks down crying, which represents the climax or culmda0ination of Schindler's transformation, is constantly accused of being "sentimental" or "emotionally manipulative" and other such criticisms that continue to be parroted all over the internet, yet it would have been all of those things had Spielberg provided you with a more simplistic, dumbed down version of the character: One who explains who he is, what he's doing, one who's portrayed as a saint from the outset. If anything, the crying scene makes you wonder even more what exactly it was that changed this man. What makes you wonder even more is Spielberg's choice to draw comparisons between Schindler and Goeth.
Amon Goeth, who is constantly accused of being a one-dimensional character (even Ebert called him that), is actually far more complex than that. Unlike most movie "psychopaths," he never seems to relish what he does. The whole activity of killing Jews is so mundane to him that it astonishes us. This banality of evil is supposed to be crushing and again Spielberg doesn't explain where or how Goeth became like that or why. Instead, much like Schindler, he just
is
. His relationship with Schindler is complex (and let's not forget, Schindler still defends him even after knowing what kind of a man he is, saying it's just the war that's changed him) as is his contradictory relationship with Helen Hirsch, which is again more complex than simply "cheap Nazi hypocrisy."
Another complex relationship in the movie is between Schindler and Itzhak Stern. Once again, Spielberg could have provided answers, explained their relationship to you, explained what Stern felt about Schindler and how, and when and where and why Stern realized Schindler was helping Jews but even until the end he never resorts to such simplistic filmmaking. One of my favorite shots from the film is when they're making the list, and Stern asks "What did Goeth have to say about this?" and Spielberg shoots the scene from behind Schindler, his back to the camera, his facial expression unseen, as Stern makes one realization after another that Schindler is paying out of his own pocket to buy those Jews from Goeth.
Spielberg never spells these characters out for you - nor does he provide you with comforting moments or happy, "triumphant" endings. The scenes involving the women being sent to Auschwitz and then being "rescued" by Schindler actually did happen:
http://www.oskarschindler.dk/schindler9a.htm
By a mistake 300 Jewish Schindler-women were deported in cattle cars to the death camp Auschwitz. Certain death awaited. A Schindler survivor, Anna Duklauer Perl, later recalled: 'I knew something had gone terribly wrong .. they cut our hair real short and sent us to the shower. Our only hope was Schindler would find us.'
The Schindler-women did not know whether this was going to be water or gas. A survivor, Etka Liebgold, later told:'One night they took us to the gas chamber. We were waiting the whole night - in the morning we found out: Schindler is here.'
The women heard a voice:'What are you doing with these people? These are my people.' Schindler! He had come to rescue them, bribing the Nazis to retrieve the women on his list and bring them back. And the women were released - the only shipment out of Auschwitz during WW2.
And because Spielberg is so subtle, you and very many other people have missed some i5b -
Relatively_Confused — 10 years ago(April 29, 2015 10:16 AM)
That's a very artificial answer. You responded to every one of my criticisms by simply conjecturing that it's much more complex than that and I just didn't get it. But where's the depth? All you say is it's there and I have no reason to believe you.
First off I just realised something. I think my criticisms about Amon Goeth are invalid because his motivations are not the focus of the story. As Hitchcock aptly put it "A villain is defined by his intentions not his motivations". But I stand by everything else I said.
And Oskar Schindler has no arc. One moment he's a slave-owner next minute he's the self-sacrificing philanthropist. How did we get from one to the other and that too in no time? Of course I don't expect an explanation for the transformation but I do expect it to make sense. Schindler's List gives no insight into the psychology of its protagonist. And realism is a beep argument. No historical film is realistic. In fact no movie can ever mimic reality. Stanley Kubrick once said "When you're make a film, you don't photograph the reality, you photograph the photograph of the reality." and that sums it up pretty well. Raging Bull is a great film not because of its historical accuracy. It's a great film because it breaks into the psychology of one of the most complex characters in cinematic history. Without the arcs, a film can't possibly work. Schindler's List is the perfect example of a film that's immune to criticism because of its subject matter. This isn't an example of leaving something open to interpretation. This is an example when a film takes cheap shortcuts. You can leave part of the plot up for interpretation as 2001: A Space Odyssey, you can leave ideas and philosophies open to interpretation like Tree of Life but you CANNOT leave character motivations open to interpretation when the whole film is about that character.
The only great aspect is its technical achievements. But like I said it's preposterously oversimplified. The Holocaust was not just a physical assault on a people, it had immense psychological impacts that extended beyond just jews. Having a few people cry in the film doesn't exactly qualify as analysis of those ideas. There's a fine line between subtlety and superficiality. Schindler's List is the a case of the latter. -
A_Man_of_Iron — 10 years ago(May 02, 2015 11:42 PM)
CANNOT
No such thing in art. A film can do whatever it wants to do. If the film wants to leave its protagonist's motivations up in the air and not define them, it can. Maybe if you didn't have such rigid rules as to what a film can and can't (or should and shouldn't) do, you might actually be able to like this film. -
TheLoneStranger — 10 years ago(May 03, 2015 04:43 AM)
I don't think he's thought it through. There are plenty of films that have an enigma as a central character, Lawrence of Arabia being perhaps the finest example.
And it's not like character motivations aren't hinted at throughout Schindler's List, it's just that Spielberg doesn't settle on a single defining moment or decision. One part of the film that I find particularly telling is when Schindler explains to Goeth that true power is having every justification to kill but choosing not to. It's easy to overlook this moment, yet it reveals that perhaps the only real difference between the two men is how they derive their feelings of power; Goeth from killing people, Schindler from saving them.
In fact Spielberg mirrors many of Schindler's and Goeth's actions, and as characters they share many of the same traits; a love of fine living, of money, of power, of parties, of wine, of women. At different points they each defend the actions of the other to those questioning their intentions. When defending Goeth to Stern, Schindler calls the Nazi commandant "a wonderful crook", a term that could be used just as easily to describe Schindler himself.
I think the biggest problem the OP is having with Schindler's List is that he believes it to be a film about the Holocaust and is judging it solely on how it examines or explains that particular tragedy. But calling Schindler's List a film about the Holocaust is like calling Gone With the Wind a film about the American Civil War. It's largely the backdrop to a story about one man's - or one group's - experiences during that period. If someone were to look at Schindler's List as if it should be (or wants to be) the definitive explanation of the Holocaust then no wonder they think it's oversimplified.
What the film is actually about is the act of witnessing. There's that famous quote about Schindler's List that often gets attributed to Stanley Kubrick: "The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed. 'Schindlers List is about 600 who dont." Whether or not he actually said this, the idea that the Holocaust is defined simply by death isn't one that I particularly agree with. If anything the Holocaust is defined by those who survived it; by those who witnessed it and let their stories be told. And this is the point of view taken by Spielberg in Schindler's List. It's about how important the act of witnessing is and how even the powerless can proactively regain their power through the stories they tell. By extrapolation, it also becomes a film about filmmaking itself, as many of the best movies are.
Professor Miriam Bratu Hansen provides the most astute examination of this theme in Schindler's List:
Throughout the film Stern is the focus of point-of-view edits and reaction shots, just as he repeatedly motivates camera movements and shot changes. Stern is the only character who gets t5b4o authorise a flashback, in the sequence in which he responds to Schindlers attempt to defend Goeth (a wonderful crook) by evoking a scene of Goeths close range shooting of twenty-five men in a work detail; closer framing within the flashback in turn foregrounds, as mute witness, the prisoner to whom Stern attributes the account. The sequence is remarkable also in that it contains the films only flashforward, prompted by Schindlers exasperated question, what do you want me to do about it? Notwithstanding Sterns disavowing gesture (nothing, nothing its just talking), his flashback narration translates into action on Schindlers part, resulting in the requisitioning of the Pearlmans as workers, which is shown proleptically even before Schindler hands Stern his watch to be used as a bribe. This moment not only marks, on the diegetic level of the film, Schindlers first conscious engagement in bartering for Jewish lives; it also inscribes the absolute difference in power between Gentiles and Jews on the level of cinematic discourse, a disjunction of filmic temporality. Stern is deprived of his ability, his right to act, that is, to produce a future, but he can narrate the past and pass on testimony; hoping to produce action in the viewer.
In other words, Spielberg finds a purely cinematic way to show how even the most powerless of people can tell their story and by doing so fundame2000ntally change the actions and thoughts of others. This isn't simplistic filmmaking at all; this is cinema at its most pure and thoughtful.
After Schindler's List was released, Spielberg dedicated much of his time and money into establishing the Shoah Foundation in order to ensure the testimony of survivors was recorded for all time. That's how important this theme was to him.
Anyway, it never fails to amaze me how seemingly intelligent people can look at a particular Spielberg film and take it wholly at face-value without putting any thought into the images, themes and ideas on display. Clearly the OP has given a film like A.I. the necessary attention and thought it deserves (probably because of the Kubrick con -
sbowesuk — 10 years ago(August 21, 2015 12:49 PM)
No such thing in art. A film can do whatever it wants to do. If the film wants to leave its protagonist's motivations up in the air and not define them, it can. Maybe if you didn't have such rigid rules as to what a film can and can't (or should and shouldn't) do, you might actually be able to like this film.
Movies can do whatever they want? Sure, but plenty of terrible movies with 2.0 imdb ratings did just that. Let that thought sink in for a moment.
Granted, what constitutes a good or bad movie is subjective, but ask yourself why some movies get universally panned, while others get universally praised. Why is The Dark Knight considered a better movie than Batman and Robin. By your logic, there is no good or bad, and both those movies are equal in all regards. We all know that's beep though. Think about it. -
ricardosilva77 — 10 years ago(August 22, 2015 11:06 AM)
Hey!!!. For me, "Dark Knight" is BAD like "Batman and Robin". For others words, Dark Knight is so,so,so,so patetically serious that is crap and "Batman and Robin" is, in opposition, so,so,so, patetically funny that is equally crap.
So, Sbowesuk, i disagree with you, the art is a completally subjective think, yes. That is a very good think, crucial and aliciant. -
RynoII — 9 years ago(January 14, 2017 03:07 PM)
For me,
Most overrated: JURASSIC PARK
It's a good, decent adventure movie, but it's not near the masterpiece it has been made out to be. I feel that the story could have been developed a lot more, and it feels like a short B movie story, with grade A effects. Not that's bad, but it's not a masterpiece.
Most underrated: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
I think that it's a great biopic drama and comedy of Frank Abignail, and very entertaining. And it's a lot better than all these other based on true story treatments that you see coming out today, that just aren't as good as made out to be. -
henrikvinther — 10 years ago(May 08, 2015 04:24 AM)
Your post is absolutely spot on Chris_Parker5. Schindler's List is one of the most overrated films of all time. I hate it's superficial hollywood approach to holocaust. There is absolutely no depth in the characters, just emotional manipulation. I actually found it rather distasteful.
And yes Saving Private Ryan is also really awful, totally simplistic. I like the first 20 minuttes, but I hate the rest.
A.I. is indeed Spielberg's masterpiece, a truly philosophical work.
I also find War Horse to be pretty underrated, I love how it shows the animal's ability to change the different characters lifes through their relationship to it.
that'll be the day -
Relatively_Confused — 10 years ago(June 08, 2015 04:51 PM)
I agree. I have severe issues with most of Spielberg's "serious" films. I can't stand Schindler's List & Saving Private Ryan. I think the Colour Purple is terribly corny at times and Amistad is just Spielberg desperate for another oscar. The only one I liked is Munich which I think is very unbiased and very honest look at terrorism but apparently everyone else hated that one for some reason. Spielberg is at his best with popcorn entertainment. His blockbusters are the films with real substance. Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Jurassic Park, Minority Report, first & second Indiana Jones films, War of the Worlds are all great fun (even if some of them are quite flawed). But A.I. is the only masterpiece Spielberg's ever made.
I haven't seen War Horse so I can't comment on that. -
rascal67 — 10 years ago(August 07, 2015 02:57 AM)
Saving Private Ryan is also really awful, totally simplistic. I like the first 20 minuttes, but I hate the rest.
The part you like, is the most 'simplistic' part of the film, where on a raw and visceral level, soldiers blow each other up, to show the horror and futility of conflict and fighting, before the character development and themes are deployed. I think this might have been reminiscent, of the boyhood war games you played in the backyard, when you were young, immature and didn't have much substance. Has that much changed?
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henrikvinther — 10 years ago(August 11, 2015 10:51 AM)
Haha
I see what you mean, but to me that part of the movie was the only part that got close to what the war was about. Storming a beach, friends dying on your left, friends dying on the right, having no control of what's happening. That scene captured the fear, insanity and total chaos of war.
The rest of the movie? Ehh, that just felt like a propaganda movie for patriotism to me. The whole setup with them risking their lives to find and sent home a guy who lost all his brothers just felt constructed, and so did a lot of the scenes with melodramatic elements.
that'll be the day -
rascal67 — 10 years ago(August 11, 2015 06:27 PM)
to me that part of the movie was the only part that got close to what the war was about.That scene captured the fear, insanity and total chaos of war.The whole setup with them risking their lives to find and sent home a guy who lost all his brothers just felt constructed.
That was the whole point of the scene; but I think 25mins, of a constant barrage of loud, distressing and assaultive mayhem and graphic violence, is more than enough for anyone's senses, to get the point across. Did you want 2\12 hours of this? The film wasn't real life; but a reconstruction of what it was like, within the confides of a movie scenario, which can never be real life. That is, unless you wanted to watch a documentary. It had to tell some tale and give the viewer some emotional connection. That is what the intent of the film was and based on a genuine military ruling. It was a woman in the film, who worked for the war office, that noted the deaths and took the correspondence to her superiors. The film, retains a strong maternal connection throughout, with the male characters.
The rest of the movie? Ehh, that just felt like a propaganda movie for patriotism to me.
Propaganda for what kind of patriotism? I didn't get this out of it and I am not even American. You could say the same for the brilliant PATTON-70', with George C. Scott, because it opened with him giving a patriot speech, in front of a giant US flag. That wasn't the point of that scene either. If anything, both films were being paradoxical, about the futility of war and the men from 'any' nation, really only ended up fighting to preserve themselves and that is the absurdity of it all, masked behind the agendas and propaganda of ruling power governments and military only. SPR, happened to be about American soldiers. Spielberg also made EMPIRE OF THE SUN-87'- WWII & WAR HORSE-11'- WWI, from a British pov. Were they anymore or less patriotic?
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henrikvinther — 10 years ago(August 12, 2015 06:00 PM)
I wouldn't want the movie to be like the first 25 min for all the movie. What I would prefere would be something like Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, which captures the insanity and brutality of the war.
To me Saving Private Ryan is the typical hollywood war movie that celebrates the heroes, who have sacrificed their lives for a greater good. I admit it in this case is for something rather pointless, but the movie never truly manages to critise the mission.
And really the whole setup seems so constructed to me, and not at all believable.
Haven't seen Patton.
I don't think Empire of the Sun or War Horse were patriotic. They felt like they had something human to tell. War Horse to me was about finding something beautiful in gruesome time and environment, I loved how the horse changed the lives of every character it interacted with. Can't remember much of Empire of the Sun, saw it a long time ago, but I liked to see the simplicity of just a boy having to survive the war.
that'll be the day -
rascal67 — 10 years ago(August 13, 2015 06:31 AM)
What I would prefere would be something like Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, which captures the insanity and brutality of the war.
I like both these films and they both have their own unique sense of directorial mastery. If anything though, I would say that SPR captures the 'brutality' of war, on a more raw, real and visceral level, than both the films you've mentioned. And as much as I like SPR, I think I might rate Oliver Stones's PLATOON-86' higher. While Stone's film could be seen as attributing a 'victim' mentality to his soldierssomething I can see as a manipulative deviceit still packs an emotional wallop and allows us to see the horror and senseless brutality of a pointless war. It was violent and disturbing, yet not so 'graphic', as what Spielberg gave us.
I don't think Empire of the Sun or War Horse were patriotic. They felt like they had something human to tell.
These films were more family orientated and easier to swallow. They were more traditional Spielberg, than daring, dramatically challenging, sledgehammer Spielberg, which is what he gave us with SPR. I think he did this to make a point about these guys who were involved, need to absolve themselves from any 'guilt' or 'shame' they may have felt about their actions and being involved in the war, during this extremely tumultuous time on earth. While it was an horrendous war, it didn't appear pointless and senseless to many and if there appeared to be an objective and cause for what they were fighting for, when it came down to it on a gut level, it was really only about their own skin that they fought to save. SPR threw a curve ball at it's characters, in that they had to save someone else and risk their own lives even further and questioned was the mission and Ryan worth it. On a deeper level, it was also being done, for the benefit of a mother.
Haven't seen Patton.
Excellent, very epic and George C Scott is terrific. It doesn't really show his character in the best of light and while Patton was a proud and honorable man, doing what he believed in, he was also considered a pain in the a$$ by his own military and was also a bit kooky.
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henrikvinther — 10 years ago(August 14, 2015 10:18 AM)
Platoon is good, not a favorite of mine but definitely disturbing, I liked Born on the 4th of July better though.
In case of Saving Private Ryan I can't really relate to the characters or their situations, because I don't find it believable and I don't think the characters are particularly well written or acted. To me it didn't capture anything real.
War Horse and Empire of the Sun might be simpler, family oriented and easier to swallow, but I also think they are very poetic in their simplicity, there was a lot2000 of heart put into these movie and love for the characters.
That is something I don't feel when I see Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List, they might have emotional moments, but they just feel fake to me, because I can't relate to the characters, and I can't see anything real about them.
that'll be the day -
rascal67 — 10 years ago(August 14, 2015 06:16 PM)
War Horse and Empire of the Sun..are very poetic in their simplicity, there was a lot of heart put into these movie and love for the characters..Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List, they might have emotional moments, but they just feel fake to me, because I can't relate to the characters, and I can't see anything real about them.
These films were made with entertaining the audience in mind and making them more easily digestible. With 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Schindler's List', one has to be in the right frame of mind and in particular with 'Schindler's List', it is more like a film of observation and being a voyeur\witness to what is happening. It is the mirror image, of what is being reflected and looking at our own attitudes and behaviors as human beings. It was a cold, bleak, dark and disturbing era and the scary part is, still not that long ago. My parents were children during these times. SPR, while not wholly entertaining, I still find it quite compelling and if only because I am experiencing the horror and atrocity of something from a distance and the comfort of an armchair. While I am anti-war and see the insanity of it all, I can also still acknowledge how brave and courageous many of these men were, considering the extraordinary circumstances they were thrown into.
I don't really like SCHINDLER'S LIST and have viewed several times. I agree that is does have a certain fakeness about it. It can't be real life, yet the costuming looked too fresh and tailored for many of the actors and they looked too clean as well, considering what some of them were experiencing. It has a blandness and contrivance about it, like Spiellberg was being too careful and lost some essence in the telling of the story. I suppose I expected something more or different and that is not to discredit it's virtues as a technically excellent film, made with the best of intentions.
May I recommend Elem Klimov's COME AND SEE-85'. This is a Russian Film, about the Nazi occupation of Bylorussia. It is a poetic, stunning and disturbing masterpiece and I am with the young protagonist all the way. The horror and insanity of it, is not lost on him or the viewer. -
henrikvinther — 10 years ago(August 23, 2015 04:25 PM)
These films were made with entertaining the audience in mind and making them more easily digestible
That's pretty much the description of all Spielberg movies in my opinion, which is why the movies with the heavier subjects, such as Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List fail in my opinion.
I mean in SPR, the first 20 min show what war is, totally chaotic and non-sensical, the rest tries to make sense of it. Example? You let a bad guy go, and he'll return and try to kill you. That's manipulation in my opinion. SPOILER: As is the way the opening makes it seem like the film is Tom Hanks' character's flashback, when in reality it isn't even a flashback (Ryan isn't present at Omaha Beach), which is revealed to us in the end, when it's shown that the old man in the beginning is Matt Damon's character, and the guy, who we thought was having a flashback, died. SPOILER END
I haven't rewatched SPR in quite some time now, so maybe I will change opinion with a rewatch. But some of the weaknesses really stand strong for me in my memory, so I doubt I would change opinion.
Come and See is a masterpiece, one of the greatest WWII/holocaust movies. I couldn't say it better than you do.1908
that'll be the day -
alejandrodeleon559 — 10 years ago(September 03, 2015 11:09 AM)
I think the problem with these people is emotion. How do I say this. I feel like these are the people who see a film like A Clockwork Orange and say well that's a good film. True emotion, true storytelling. And then expect all other films to be the same way.
I mean how could you call a film like SPR melodramatic? It's insane. Or say that SL is cheap storytelling, because it just goes after the viewers emotions. Well that's what Spielberg is good at. Provoking emotion, I think he more than anyone understand the human spirit. And that's what you need to make a good film. Not always of course. But I prefer those, I think only those can be the best. I mean enjoy There Will Be Blood as much as the next film enthusiast. But close to death when it mattered I'd rather watch a Spielberg film and not Paul Thomas Anderson. And preferably one of Spielbergs classics.
Nolan is another director who understands the human spirit.
Anyway, humans are intended to enjoy these films. One's that aren't corrupted by some traumatic event, and still very much feel. I think in a war film, it's when there isn't a battle scene that you get close to experiencing what war felt like. About the inbetween, the small conversations, and the exchanges between soldiers. Walking across hills, and lonely landscapes, and the mortar shells blasting off in the distance. WAR.
My point is these guys don't like Spielbergs style. And it's because they don't understand the human spirit, or lack it. We aren't all created equally. Some of us are psychos.