EPISODE 340: All of Steven Spielberg's Theatrical Films Ranked - Part 5
Ok, we finally made it! Wrapping up our multi-part appreciation of the work of Steven Spielberg with Part 5. Spoilers for GYMKATA, ZODIAC, QUANTUM OF SOLACE and, of course, the films of Spielberg.
TRANSCRIPT
Gareth, to the listeners, I think we've made it. This is part five of all the Steven Spielberg films ranked. We thought we could do it in one show.
We thought we could do it in two shows.
Oh, we could do it in three shows.
I would say four. We're now in number five. Now there's a problem.
Spielberg has made another film since.
So you went back and revisited, yes.
We're gonna get to the theme music and the call to action in a second. I went back and, something was niggling at me, Gareth. Something was niggling at me, and I have now moved up.
I think I know what you're gonna say.
I have moved up my number 33 to number three.
Let's get right into it. Hey there folks. Welcome back once again to The Film Talk.
It's the ongoing more than 20 year conversation on movies, what they mean, how they can help us change ourselves and make the world a better place. I'm Jett Loe.
I'm Gareth Higgins. The conversation never ends. And it is our fifth and possibly last.
Well, actually I hope it won't be our last because I hope that there will be many more Spielberg films to come. But it's the last in this series of talking about all the feature films that Steven Spielberg has directed.
We have two left each of those. Do go back to the listener. Listen to the previous four episodes if you wish.
We do have number two and number one, but you need to tell me, Jett, I don't, much as I tried to memorize your list, it kept changing. What was your previous 33 that is now your number three?
My previous 33, a film I disliked ever since I saw it. Then I had an epiphany since we recorded part four.
You're having lots of epiphanies. You're having lots of epiphanies these days.
That's what happens when you get older. You think about who you are, what you've lost. The epiphanies come fast and furious.
The Lost World, colon, Jurassic Park.
I've been watching it in segments over the last week, late at night.
Here's the thing, dear listener, saw when it came out, thought it was terrible, so many reasons. And then I started thinking about it. Think about the opening of the film.
It does have a famous cut, right? A famous cut from a mom screaming. What can you only assume is her daughter being eaten alive?
To Jeff Goldblum yawning.
Yawning.
And what does this tell you? What does this tell you?
You're going to say that Spielberg is making a joke about how he feels about making this sequel.
Yes, of course. And about blockbusters in general. He goes from one of the most horrific things possible, a child, Spielberg loves children.
All of his films, just adoring childhood, what fairy tales, a child being eaten alive horrifically, to Jeff Goldblum being bored in his subway. So that tells you right away, you know what this is?
It's a satire of Jurassic Park.
Blockbusters in general, and all the blockbuster cliches. So the things that you think are false are actually intentional.
And he did the same thing at the end of Minority Report, in which the last 20 minutes of Minority Report is actually a fantasy, spoilers of Tom Cruise.
And you know that he's denied that. You do know that he's denied that. He's saying his denials are an act of tricksterism.
Gareth, I just saw an interview with Spielberg promoting Disclosure Day, and people are asking, what's your next project?
And he looks and goes, I'm just focusing right now on Disclosure Day. The man's a pro. In Jurassic Park, or The Lost World, Colin Jurassic Park, you've got Jeff Goldblum's daughter who fails in her gymnastics class, like in the parallel bars.
And then, you know, the horriest film cliche, guess what happens at the end, folks? Oh, look, there's parallel bars just randomly in a building that you can use.
This is right out of that mid-80s martial arts films, Gymkata, in which an Olympic medalist is like fighting in Asia. And look at this, there's all this gym equipment in a random ally in Shanghai.
This is all intentional, and especially in the scene, which I've talked about in our earlier Spielberg shows, in which we have one of our protagonists does heroic work. And yet nobody else in the film sees it.
We're privy in the audience to this man's sacrifice. And the fact that no one else does it is an inversion of heroic cinematic tropes. And it's deeply unsettling.
Looking at it this way, you realize this is an anti-blockbuster. And in that sense, it's absolutely brilliant. So I've moved it from 33 up to three.
The Lost World, Colin Dressipark.
Well, I think I think having watched parts of The Lost World at your recommendation over the last few days. You may well be right.
I remember that when it was coming out, that when he was promoting The Lost World, he said that the problem with sequels is that the audience wants two things. Do you remember this? The audience...
I can guess what he's going to say.
So the audience says, I want it to be completely different than the first one.
And don't you dare change a thing.
Yeah, exactly.
So, all right, I'll watch Lost World.
5:09
Garethʼs Sugarland Express
Is it possible, dear Jett, that you have revisited what I think was your number 29? Certainly in the high 20s or is it the low 20s if you're in ascending order?
And that is my number two film, the first film that Spielberg made intentionally for theatrical release, the Archetypal Road movie, a movie that gives the lie to the notion that Spielberg is pure sentiment.
It's a very bleak film called The Sugarland Express, that without which there would be no Thelma and Louise, there'd be no Queen and Slim. It builds on Bonnie and Clyde. It's the best performance I've ever seen Goldie Hawn give.
The notion that you've got this bedraggled couple who are just trying to be reunited with their family. Well, he's made some mistakes and you could say she's made a mistake.
Number one, dating Goldie Hawn.
What?
Good Lord. Imagine having this person in your life. It's a nightmare.
That's a terrible thing to say.
I don't mean Goldie Hawn, the real person.
I'm sure she's lovely. I'm talking about the character.
Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. They're broken people and they're being mistreated by the system. He also apparently is in a prison that they just let you walk out of, if you want to.
That's an interesting kind of...
That's a halfway. It's like a halfway house.
All right.
Okay.
You change your clothes in the bathroom. You walk out there. This film, it's Spielberg's Quantum Of Solace.
And you know what I mean by that?
Can I just stop you there, Gareth? There are some sentences that have never been uttered ever in the English language.
And many of them get spoken on this show. Well, Quantum Of Solace is really the only Bond movie that takes place in the real world.
Yes.
And the Sugarland Express, everything about it feels like it could happen. And you've got this sense of Highway Patrol people chasing after this vulnerable couple who again, nobody doubts they've made mistakes.
But the biggest vulnerability in their life is not of their own making. The biggest vulnerability in their life is that they are, and I don't mean this term pejoratively.
I mean this because this is the term that many people would use, poor, white, trash. There's a class dynamic in this film where their child is being fostered by wealthy people.
And it's clear that the reason that the wealthy people are considered good foster parents is because they're wealthy.
And the reason that these parents, that the actual parents are not considered good parents is because they're poor and kind of on the wrong side of the tracks. The sense of the highway, the highway patrol people swarming like ants around this car.
And then a, I don't know if it's prescient in the sense that it predicted the future. I think this was already present in US and American society.
And you certainly see it in British and Irish society as well, where ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances get projections of heroism put onto them.
There's this amazing scene where they're driving very slowly through a crowd of people who just want to touch her. Anyway, I could go on. I love this film, The Sugarland Express.
I'm happy that despite it being over 50 years old, I had never seen it until earlier this year. My first viewing of this film was in a theatre.
And as I've often quoted the wonderful Scottish film professor, Mike Caddo, the difference between watching a film in the theatre and watching a film at home is equivalent to the difference between going to the pyramids and going to the Egypt Room at
the British Museum. And I'm hoping, Jett, you might be willing to reconsider your tragically mistaken interpretation of this truly wonderful film, The Sugarland Express.
9:04
Sugarland Express Critique
I had not seen it either.
And in my mind, it was probably always a curio because it's his first theatrical film. And then after seeing it, I realized really what it is, is a curio because it doesn't really hold together as a mature adult film.
Other films before that, like Duel, I haven't seen LA 2017, but his Colombo episode is Great Murder by the Book, and he's flexing himself. And in some ways, I could see the criticism of Disclosure Day applied to Sugarland Express.
A lot of people didn't like Disclosure Day, but they will acknowledge the incredible fluid camera work of cars and chases.
And there's a significant part of Disclosure Day, which is a sort of homage to or rethinking of the ideas of cinematic cutting and camera work from Sugarland Express. And he's thinking about that. But the film to me doesn't hold together.
And you mentioned Thelma and Louise, and this is really interesting. It makes me think about the, if we see Thelma and Louise taking from Sugarland Express, that it's formal invention that works.
You talk about them being from the wrong side of the tracks or being poor white trash, but he's in prison, right? Thelma and Louise, the great structural innovation or storytelling innovation is that the crime is committed while they're out.
So I think the film, which is much stronger. So him already being a felon, that's an issue. If they had committed crimes in the service of trying to get back to their kids, I think that would have been a stronger film.
But it does have great camera work. I do not, Goldie Hawn was a star. It's a star vehicle for Goldie Hawn.
And that kind of unbalances the film. The film orbits around her and you kind of feel bad for poor William Atherton having to deal with this person.
Like we said before in our earlier Spielberg shows, the 20 of them we've done, however many, the 45 Spielberg shows, I wondered what it would have been like if it wasn't a star vehicle for Goldie Hawn, if we used another actress of her generation,
someone like young Meryl Streep or young Sally Field, I think it would have been fantastic. I think Sally Field would have been amazing.
Goldie Hawn is a great comic actress, of course, but her performance makes you wonder why are people involved with her? Does he just get stuck with her and he has a kid, William Atherton? If he didn't have a child, what's this about?
Mistakes were made. He's young, not that smart, criminal. What a screw up.
I just realized it, folks. Goldie Hawn is the shark. She's the shark from Jaws.
These poor people are in the orbit of Goldie Hawn in this film, Path of Destruction. Anyway, that's Gareth's number two. Should we do my number two?
May I say one more thing?
Of course, we have time.
About you, my dear friend Jett, after 20 years knowing each other, 20 years doing this show, you're a curio.
Okay.
And I'm assuming that's not pejorative, even though I may have used it in a pejorative sense. Somehow with me, it changes.
I thought you were being kind about the film when you said it was a curio, but I don't think that's what you were trying to say.
What do you think?
Curio, it's like, you know, it's like whatever it was, whatever was like in the corner of the temple in Peru, at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where he steals the idol. Like there would have been like some other trinket over there.
But you're glad it's there. You're glad it's there. It's always fun to find a curio.
If you weren't happy about it, you'd call it junk.
It's the three cent stamp in the last scene of Fargo. And if you don't remember that, it's my favorite scene in... It may be my favorite scene in all of cinema, actually.
It's a beautiful scene in which the Zodiac killer realizes that he has a lovely domestic life.
Don't spoil Zodiac.
Well, was he the killer?
Everybody needs the three cent stamp.
Do you know John Carroll Lynch? We were talking about Waiting For Godot the other week. John Carroll Lynch is in a production of Waiting For Godot in Minneapolis this September.
I don't know if he's playing Vladimir Estragon. Who's playing the other one? You would get on a plane or even drive to Minneapolis.
I'm thinking about getting on a plane right now.
Also, I can visit Paisley Park. Peaches and Cream. Who played John?
I don't know. Who is it? Who do we got here?
Strathairn.
Oh, yeah.
It might be worth it. The tickets are probably sold. Do you think there's scalpers waiting for Godot's scalpers out there?
I'd say that.
And then you wait for the scalper, and the scalper never comes.
13:27
Jettʼs Jaws Pick
My number two.
What's your number two? Yeah.
My number two is, do you know what my number two is? I'll tell you. And the listeners.
Can you guess?
I know. I know what it is. It's it's it's Richard Dreyfus of Andes' family.
It is not.
It's what?
It's it's it's Mithridemptive Violence. But we made loads of money. Both great films.
It's the fish film. The fish film.
Do you get a payout every time you say every time I say Mithridemptive Violence? You get like 20 bucks from like some foundation.
From Walter from Walter Wink's estate.
I'm from the estate.
Walter was a beautiful man. And his his his widow June is one of my best friends. But no, I do not.
I do not get a payout every time I mention it. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm fully signed up to to Walter's ideas about the Mithridemptive Violence.
Jaws, folks. So I was barely enough. I was I don't know if I was sentient.
I don't know if I had an inner inner life. But at the core, at the end of my street in Oakland, California, there was a theater on the corner and it played Jaws. And I don't know if this was during the theatrical release or afterwards.
You know, I was too young to I don't know if I could barely speak, but I would walk around my neighborhood in Oakland. And as a kid, a different time, it was like the Stranger Things, right? There you could just want you wander out.
And it played, I think, in my mind, it played forever. So it probably played for a year back in the days of movies. And I couldn't get in there.
You couldn't go in there. So I'm practically a toddler. I'm not going to walk in to see Jaws.
But the marquee just said Jaws. That's all it is, it said the one word Jaws. And it was there in my mind forever.
It was permanent. And I always wondered what was going on in the theater. I've never thought about this before until a few minutes ago, dear listener, as Gareth and I are starting to record the show and I'm just making my little notes.
Oh yeah, Jaws. And I can only surmise, but it's probably true, that there was this mystery in the corner to go into this dark building. What's going on in there?
And there was this film. And for me, it's a wonderful double with Close Encounters. In Jaws, you have to kill or be killed.
And in Close Encounters, you make art and transcend. And I just think that's a wonderful diptych. So much has been said about Jaws.
I don't need to say anything more about it, other than it's a just beautifully crafted, perfectly made film. It seems as if it always existed.
And like we talked about in the other Spielberg shows, how strange it was in the 80s, Spielberg was regarded as some sort of child filmmaker. Like it was a big deal when he did The Color Purple.
When he made films like Sugarland Express, like Duel, like Jaws and like Close Encounters, which are for adults, Jaws beautifully made picture wouldn't change a thing. My number two.
16:18
Jaws Violence Discussion
Okay, Ed, I mean, I would only change one thing about it.
It is a great film. It has three wonderful central performances. It's perfectly put together.
What I would change about it is that as spoilers, as Roy Scheider and Richard Riefers are swimming into the water, one of them would turn to the other one and say, what an adventure we've been on. It's sad that Quint died.
Let's be sure that we impress upon people that the killing of this human-eating shark is not a metaphor for anything. There really wasn't anything we could do by the time it got to this stage.
The best way to prevent a human-eating shark from eating humans is to not over-fishing the deep sea because by over-fishing the deep sea fishing stocks, we take away the natural course of their food chain, and that's why they come in close to the
shore. It's really our fault that this happened, and we should all study the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enumeration, understand that the myth of Redemptive Violence is the foundational myth of Western Civilization, and should be overcome by the
Genesis myth, because the Genesis myth, I don't mean to advance a Judeo-Christian notion of things, but the Genesis myth is the earliest creation myth in which there's no violence used to bring good and order into being. That's all I would change
about it. It's not much. They could have that chat as they were swimming in. They're on the barrels.
Well, would you do it as a-
They could have a conversation.
No, do it like a Marvel movie or Sinners.
Just do it like as a mid-credit.
Have Stan Lee show up or Marshall McLuhan like in Annie Hall.
No, no, no, no, no. Stay with me here now. Okay.
You're saying that they're like in a bar, that Stan Lee is in the bar and then Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss come in and he explains to them this, what's going on here. Is that what you're saying? I feel you're losing me.
I was with you.
Something like that.
But you do touch on an interesting point in that-
Curio, as it were.
Well, hold on. Stay with me now. So like it's not...
I know you were hoping for a bigger response from me, from what you just said and I'm sorry to disappoint you.
We've had 20 years of conversations about the method of Dramatized Violence and you've always been a good listener. I would say I feel like you've taken the baton.
Well, here's the thing. I think you really touched on something in the fact that it's not metaphorical, that it is to harkens to the age of the pulps, of pre-psychology, right? Because it's not a metaphor for anything.
It is, we just have to kill the shark.
Well, it's certainly not, it's not consciously intended as a metaphor.
No, and that, if we think about some of the criticism of the exoticism of the Ina Jones films, we think about Raiders of the Lost Ark, it's like, man, these aren't metaphors for anything.
They're about survival in a harsh environment when everything is trying to kill you. So it's almost like a pre-literature. And maybe that's why Jaws works so well too.
Maybe it's a pre-literate film. Angry people in a town, creature approaching us, we must survive. Absolutely brilliant.
What's your number one?
19:23
Ranking Series Continues
I don't think we have time to do the number one episode.
And so, I think it would be better if we do a sixth. Oh, shall we do it? Shall we do it?
Dear listeners, I have a hard out.
I've got, are you, is that a, are you joking with me and the listeners simultaneously?
I was just having a little bit of a little bit of fun.
All right, we can do it.
Are you ready?
Are you ready? But wait a minute though.
What?
Should, before we do the number ones, should I rewatch your number one? Because I have not rewatched it recently. I think I should rewatch it because I know what your number one is.
I should rewatch your number one.
Oh no, I am so sorry, dear listeners.
No, that's actually, dear listener, I've been completely honest.
I was joking when suggesting we should end it here, but actually that's a great idea and we should end it here. Part of it is the pathos. I don't actually want to stop doing our Spielberg episodes.
They've been so good. This, well, I don't know if they've been, I don't know if they've been a good record, hopefully a good listen.
I've always enjoyed talking with you Gareth. And folks, if you like to hear us talk, don't forget that we are listener supported. Just go to patreon.com at patreon.com/thefilmtalk.
And if you want to chat with us, we're also on the Facebook for some reason. People do comment there and always enjoy talking with listeners, facebook.com/thefilmtalk. I cannot believe this is happening.
This is completely genuine. As Gareth had said earlier, this is not another episode. This is not a bit.
We are actually...
Well, it's a great excuse. It's really a good excuse for me to watch Hook and you to watch Ready Player One.
Oh, oh boy. Folks, thank you so much for listening. It means the world to Gareth and I.
And I love being able to talk to you so directly, like Stephen Keigh said in his book On Writing, right? This is like telepathy. You're hearing my words exactly as I'm thinking of them.
I really appreciate it.
And it's a really good excuse for me to watch your number one choice and for you to watch my number one choice. And perhaps we might just as a little soup song of a bonus, even though we're not going to re-record the entire ranking.
But maybe when we record our number one episode, let's do like a final ranking of all 35 of the features and see where they've landed at this point.
Okay. We can do that. If we do that, we will not get that done in one episode.
Then it just goes on again.
We have to hold ourselves to the idea that we're literally not allowed to say. How about we try to do it and make a commitment that we're not allowed to say more than one sentence about each film.
Do you know what we're doing here? It just came to me in an epiphany.
What?
We could have followed Agamemnon and the known trade routes, but instead we're going over here.
We decided to go and see some of the world.
See some of the world.
All right, everybody, ladies, gentlemen and people across the gender spectrum, you're all welcome here. I've been Gareth Higgins.
I've been Jett Loe.
We'll keep talking.
Next time.