Re: Ranking Spielberg
I 100% agree with you that he is terribly underrated. Not necessarily among main-stream critics, since they seem to appreciate his work, but by elitist cinephiles who pack the arthouses, read Filmmaker religiously, and genuflect at whatever Foreign or Indie director is en vogue.
They really have no legitimate argument of why they hate him. They just know they have to. It's hipster cinesthete law.
Spielberg is definitely one of the world's great filmmakers. His great talent is to take pop formula and transform it into art. Tarantino does the same thing with pulp. Fassbinder, Sirk, and Ray did it with melodrama.
Yet all those directors are relatively respected, but not Spielberg.
It's a shame.
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