Steven Spielberg may be the man most responsible for my interest in becoming a filmmaker. As a result of reading his biography in the fifth grade, I suddenly began to understand the general process of planning, shooting, and editing a movie. I can't say that he is the greatest filmmaker ever, or even living, but I will never be able to dismiss the impact that his career and his films have had on me and my idea of film.
The reading this week, "How Texts Become Real," explores what I am trying to capture in this remix. Often, as children, we are enveloped in something that becomes real life to us, although it is only a representation of it. In fact, many Hollywood films are so far from real life, that it causes us to wonder why we believe them so easily. But as a child, I wasn't as concerned with verisimilitude as I was with being told a beautiful story.
The clips that I put together were of a speech that Steven Spielberg gave a while back, and shots from two movies: Super 8 (Abrams) and Buster Keaton's The General. Both of these films depict huge train wrecks, and both films have had very recent effects on my view of cinema. Buster Keaton opened up my mind to the world of silent cinema about three or more years ago. Super 8 on the other hand caused me to reconnect to my Spielbergian roots, which I had been in the process of severing myself from at the time. Dean Duncan recently described to me the process that he often has gone through of loving a film or filmmaker, realizing that they're not perfect (the film or director), and then later learning to accept that art or artist once again. Such was the experience that I underwent with Steven Spielberg, which I have tried to capture in this remix of media.
The part of my identity here that is discussed/represented is that of being a filmmaker. Honestly, I identify with Steven Spielberg only because of the films that he made which effected my childhood. However, in few ways to I connect with him now as an aspiring practitioner. No matter what, I hope my life is nothing like his (speaking of his personal/family life). It is a far cry from the worst celebrity life style that most of us have heard of, but frankly, if it comes down to a great career and my wife, I'll choose my wife without hesitation. As far as the films that he makes, I can see myself making films like those that he has, but often I feel that it is a very imperfect profile of my full aspirations as an artist. We are two different people.
I remixed the audio with that of scenes from Super 8 because I feel that J.J. Abrams has almost totally lost his voice as a filmmaker as he has sought only to follow in the exact footsteps of his predecessors. This is noble, but not particularly artful. I don't really know much about him or his beliefs than that he was apparently as much of a Spielberg fan in his youth as I was. And I included The General because it was probably one of Spielberg's great inspirations as a youth. At least we know from the speech that Cecil B. DeMile's The Greatest Show on Earth was. So there is a sort of artistic genealogy happening. And as I am not the same as my father, who is not the same as his father, each new generation carries the banner in their own way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AysaJ4vM62s&feature=youtu.be
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