ARTS & FILM

Leonardo DiCaprio mumbles through this tepid, soft-focus saga of America’s closeted secret policeman

By David Walsh 
Originally: 5 May 2011  ||  Go to Part 1 | 

Steven Spielberg: A Biography, Second Edition, by Joseph McBride, originally published 1997, University Press of Mississippi, second edition 2011 

Spielberg

I recently spoke to film historian Joseph McBride about the second edition of his critical study and biography of American film director Steven Spielberg, published by the University Press of Mississippi. Part 1, with an introduction, was posted May 4. The following is the second and concluding part.

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David Walsh: Let’s get into somewhat more controversial or problematic issues, so to speak. You write in a number of places about Steven Spielberg’s concern for the “common man.” My response to that is, yes and no. I don’t believe he’s treated the problems of ordinary Americans in a serious fashion.

His historical works, in my view, tend to be more sociologically penetrating than his works about contemporary American life. There has been relatively little concern expressed in his work with the fate of the wider working population in this country, with its dilemmas and big problems, and none with the historic decline in standards of living in recent decades, for example. That is not something present in his work. It tends to be his own social type that is “Mr. Everyday Regular Fella.”

By David Walsh, WSWS.ORG | Part 2

Steven Spielberg: A Biography, Second Edition, by Joseph McBride, originally published 1997, University Press of Mississippi, second edition 2011

I recently spoke to film historian Joseph McBride about the second edition of his critical study and biography of American film director Steven Spielberg, published by the University Press of Mississippi.

Spielberg is one of the most prominent American filmmakers of the past several decades, responsible for some of the greatest commercial successes in movie history―Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park and others―as well as works more highly regarded for their artistic merit and social insight, including The Sugarland Express, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and Munich. The Color Purple and Amistad, although both seriously flawed, in my view, were ambitious efforts.