Word: spielbergisms
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...tragedy whose costs are still exacted on the street corners of America, at water coolers, in classrooms, along Sunday pews. Now is such a time. Last month in New Orleans, the name of George Washington, a former slave owner, was removed from a school. This week Amistad, Steven Spielberg's epic about a famous 1839 slave revolt, premieres. Currently in repertory at the Chicago Lyric Opera is Anthony Davis' opera, also titled Amistad...
...Despite Spielberg's efforts, however, certain techniques he uses seem to undermine his paradigm that the African is always right. On the boat, after the mutiny, the Africans speak their native language to each other without translation, while the Spaniards they kept alive to help steer the boat are provided with subtitles--a conspicuous effort to lend a sense of foreignness to the Spaniards and a universality to the endeavors of the Africans. The fact remains, though, that the audience does not understand what the Africans say, so while the Spanish dialogue has some import, that of the Africans...
...most detrimental fact to this paradigm is that the Africans in question were captured and sold into slavery by their fellow Africans, certainly a crime nearly as heinous as the actual practice of slavery. Spielberg does show us this, but very matter-of-factly, with nowhere near the emotional charge or passion with which he depicts the whites' treatment of the slaves. For the latter, he calls forth tempestuous lightning storms for back-drop, while he shows us shot after shot of pained, anguished, screaming faces in fast montage, while the former is simply and briefly shown with ordinary straight...
...Rainmaker--a Francis Ford Coppola film. Then, the script which he and his best friend Ben Affleck wrote together, Good Will Hunting, was finally picked up by Mira-max--the brilliant Gus Van Sant signed on to direct soon after. And next summer, Damon will headline in Steven Spielberg's World War II epic Saving Private Ryan...
...gotten to work with Coppola, Van Sant, Spielberg. Anybody else that you really want to work with...