According to media reports, Steven Spielberg’s coming-of-age film based on himself, ‘The Fabelmans’, will be screened in Los Angeles and New York on November 11 this year, and will open in Northern America on November 23, apparently for the awards season.
The film Spielberg not only directed, but also wrote the script with his long-time collaborator Tony Kushner (‘Lincoln’ ‘Munich’ ‘West Side Story’) (who in the world could know Spielberg better than Spielberg knows Spielberg better than Spielberg)
Photos from the set of ‘The Fabelmans’
It is said that the film focuses on the hero’s formative years and his relationship with his parents.
Instead of Steven, the male lead is named Sammy, played by Gabriel LaBelle. Michelle Williams plays Sammy’s mother and Seth Rogen plays Sammy’s uncle.
Spielberg lived in Phoenix from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, and his relationship with his father was described in detail in the documentary Steven Spielberg, which aired in 2017, and it can be said that many of Spielberg’s films project a father-son, family relationship.
Father helped him get into Universal
According to Spielberg’s biography, his father knew he loved movies and, during his summer vacation at the age of 16, contacted a Universal TV staff member through an intermediary and asked him to show his son around Universal’s workplace.
So Spielberg got his first glimpse of the real production process of the film and kept in touch with the crew intermittently.
Later, also because of this, he started working at Universal Pictures.
‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ is his most personal film
When Spielberg was a child, his father used to take him to see meteor showers and tell him that the sky was a place of wonders.
This made him feel that if alien civilizations and humans meet, they must be cordial and friendly, and there must be an exchange of dialogue.
He brought such imagery to ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, and Spielberg’s parents divorced when he was a teenager, an experience that was also brought to this work.
“Family ties” has become a signature theme in Spielberg’s work
The Spielberg family
At the age of 19, Spielberg’s parents divorced, but he was completely unaware of the details.
The mother fell in love with the father’s best friend, and the father told the children that he was getting a divorce to protect the mother, when in fact it was the mother who initiated the divorce. “I was still in love with her then.” Spielberg’s father said.
An unaware Spielberg believed that his father had abandoned them and therefore did not contact him for 15 years. To avoid establishing contact with his father, he immersed himself in his work.
The impact of family changes on Spielberg is also reflected in his work, as many of his stories are about family separations and reunions.
For example, Spielberg’s original idea for ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ was to see how divorce affects a child’s childhood, and how it can fill a child’s lonely and broken heart.
The role of the aliens is precisely to soothe the little boy’s empty heart after the loss of his father.
‘The Color Purple’, ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Empire of the Sun’, ‘War of the Worlds’, ‘War Horse’ and even ‘ Lincoln’ all deal with the theme of separation and reunion.
‘Saving Private Ryan’ mends father-son relationship
‘Saving Private Ryan’
It was not until 1998 that Spielberg made ‘Saving Private Ryan’, a production for his father.
“When I was little, my father always told me stories about World War II. His military friends would come over to the house.” Spielberg said.
After the release of this film, he began to regain contact with his father and became closer than ever before.
Funnily enough, Spielberg’s parents got back together as they entered their later years and the two had a sweet time. That is, until his mother passed away in February 2017 at the age of 97 and his father passed away in 2020 at the age of 103.
Related Post: Steven Spielberg’s new film ‘The Fabelmans’ announced for world premiere at Toronto Film Festival.
