Ranking Spielberg

[KDawg]

I don't think that he's under rated at all. He's rated right where he should be, which is in the top 5% of directors(as certain things can be very arbitrary after directors like Ford, Hitchcock, Lang, and Buñuel) of all time. He's prolific and sometimes caters to the studios a bit too much, but that is usually so that he can do a film that he truly wants to do(like him doing teh two jurassic parks so that he could do schinlders list).

He has always been a general model of consistency, but I don't think that he's hit some of the highs that other influential directors have, inversely though, he hasn't missed as badly as godard has on a few films. At TSPDT he is given an 8+ for a director rating, and I've seen him as high as a 9, that speaks for his respect as there are only 4 or 5 directors that have recieved a ten, and some extremely influential directors taht are at an 8 ( Here is the rating guide for a reference point). Now, I'm not saying that TheyShootPictures is the be all end all, but it's one of the few film sites that I go to that I respect as they bring in as much outside data to make their decisions on ranking so that not everything is based on their own two opinions. I'd really challenge people who watch a lot of film to disagree with where his placement is IRT other directors who are ahead of him. I think he is rated very fairly as he is put in the same range as Altman and Kurosawa (and again, this is where he hasn't hit the heights of either two, but didn't reach the lows considering how prolific he is)

[KDawg]

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I think a case could be made for him being the most important person in the history of American cinema.

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more important then Hitchcock? I'd like to hear this argument

[maltaille]

Underrated . . . nope, I can't go with you on this one. He is technically brilliant, perhaps more so than any other modern director; he is amazingly consistent, again, perhaps more consistent than any of his peers; and he does have as wide a range as any director working today; but he's also weak in the what I think is the most important aspect of a film, storytelling - weak enough that it often overcomes all his capabilities in other areas, and certainly more than weak enough to prevent him from being considered the most important person in American cinema.

You label him a "master storyteller," so perhaps we're using a different meaning for the word, but I think story is where Spielberg consistently lets himself down. His endings are notoriously weak (War of the Worlds, Minority Report, AI, Saving Private Ryan) and his sentimentality can be overwhelming at times (Terminal, AI again, Munich) but more than this, his storytelling just isn't up to the standard set by the rest of his capabilities. Not the stories he wants to tell - his subjects, especially in the last twenty years, are often as meaty as a subject can get, though you can argue that sometimes they're too meaty - but the way he tells those stories: the devices he uses, the scenes chosen to move us along the plot, and the archetypes and underlying symbolism employed. Whether its the middle section of Amistad, or the flatness of the Neverland sections in Hook, most of his films have something that lets them down like this.

Ironically he's pretty good at the thing I always think is the hardest part of storytelling, finding the right vehicle to carry the story - interplanetary invasion to tell the story of American resilience, or the retaliation for the Munich killings to tell the story of how actions determine character even for nations.

He's at his best when someone else is doing the story for him - adapting a novel in Jaws or Schindler's List, or collaborating with a good storyteller in Raiders of the Lost Ark (this is my dream team in modern cinema, Spielberg, the master of technique, and Lucas, poor at technique but masterful at storytelling, working together. Their one collaboration gave us the best adventure film of all time. Can you imagine Star Wars if both shared the helm the same way?). There are exceptions - ET is notably his own story, (though I think even there, while the end result is spectacular, the story is the weakest part of the mix), and Terminal was someone else's story, and it still didn't come out right - but I think the general point holds: most of the time his storytelling is weak enough to offset his technical brilliance.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting he's overrated either (though I would place him a lot higher than the 34th that They Shoot Pictures has him at, notwithstanding that this is the 3rd highest ranking for a currently working director). There are barely a handful of working directors in his league, let alone who could be thought of as better. And that's exactly how I think he's perceived by everyone other than willfully blind film elitists.

[KDawg]

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting he's overrated either (though I would place him a lot higher than the 34th that They Shoot Pictures has him at, notwithstanding that this is the 3rd highest ranking for a currently working director). There are barely a handful of working directors in his league, let alone who could be thought of as better. And that's exactly how I think he's perceived by everyone other than willfully blind film elitists.

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I also think he should be higher, but that list is more of influential directors rather then all time directors, so his placement can be argued in some ways.

The key also to that list is the fact that many of teh guys are dead, and those that recently died also had major landmark films that happened over 35 years ago, where Spielberg's first landmark film is just slightly over 30 years ago and un fortunetly it brought about the summer blockbuster type film(I'm referring to jaws, which itself is a great film, but the effects of it brought about a ton of crap)

I don't understand the under-rated feeling about him as this is a highly decorated director that has produced at a high level for a very long stretch of time.

[CharlieDontSurf]

Not top 3..not even close Id put him somewhere in the top 5-15...and that is due in large part to SL

Several episodes of BoB were far better as whole than the overall movie of SPR

[midnightpulp]

"Whoever accuses Hitchcock of lack of depth has simply not studied the films outside of "Vertigo" and "Psycho". Even Hitchcock's lesser works are overflowing with psychological nuance and mastery of form. He is a genius, who also happens to be entertaining.

Also, I can't agree when people say that Spielberg is "underrated". He is the most popular director alive!"

I agree. Hitch's works are fascinating; filled with as much social, psychological, and sexual elements as any Bunuel film.

However, I could see how some people would lose those subtleties by only focusing on his technical brilliance.

I think when people says Spielberg is underrated, they're referring to his perceived disrespect in serious, mainly academic, film circles. Ask any 20 year old film theory major what he thinks of him.

[midnightpulp]

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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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how's that critical thinking class going?



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Have no idea what you're implying.

Guess it's an NVG style insult(?) that goes completely under my head.

[sethypooh21]

Interesting post Dom. I tend to find Speilberg at his best when he doesn't have a point to make. I didn't much care for either Munich or Schindler's List to be honest (I thought they were important films, but you always got the sense THAT HE KNEW EXACTLY HOW IMPORTANT they were and wouldn't let us forget either. For some reason, the seminal example of this for me is the girl in the red dress in SL...)

That said, when he is just telling a story, it's wonderful, and this alone qualifies him as one of the greats. But then, I think that a move as 'pure entertainment' is an underrated art form.

[Zeno]

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I take umbrage: art is important, and debating its merits gives us more to do with our time than eating, crapping and sexing.

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Umbrage? Are you Bertie Wooster?

And where Spielberg ranks in some list of filmmakers is unimportant, to me anyway. Obviously others can and will have a different take on it all. But whatever anyone's personal ranking; Raiders of the Lost Ark is a ball of fun and so is Jaws.

And eating, crapping, and sexing is the main occupation of the majority of mankind. Art is overrated; sex is not.

Tommy Hobbes said something about this and he is right.

Le Misanthrope

[diamonddawg]

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As strange as it may sound, I believe Steven Spielberg to be an underrated tyrant.

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FYP
FWIW, and this of course has little to do with his ability as an artist and much more to do with general persona (in our tabloid inflamed culture), I can tell you from hands on experience over several films that working with him is 24/7 tension convention.
Be that as it may, he has made some ++ flicks; Indie4 should be v exciting from what I hear from the trenches.