Formal Film Studies: Steven Spielberg

I watched three films from the production of Steven Spielberg. The movies are The Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Poltergeist, and Saving Private Ryan. These movies were very similar in the form of grossness and/or scariness. The Twilight Zone and The Poltergeist were scary because they were about ghost or monsters. Saving Private Ryan was about war and it showed scenes of peoples bodies cut apart from the very beginning of the movie. The Poltergeist and Saving Private Ryan weren't that similar at all. The Poltergeist is about a house being haunted because of a graveyard that wasn't moved when these houses were built over them, so they ghost were angry at the people for doing that and tried to harm them. Saving Private Ryan is about Captain Miller and his crew on a mission to save Private Ryan, but during the journey to save him they go through a lot of problems because the fact that they are in the war. He losing two men from his crew on the journey and when they find Ryan he loses two more men and in the end he also dies. The Twilight Zone is a bunch of stories out together but I will talk about the story he directed for this movie. The story was named "Kick the Can" it was about a bunch of old people who wanted to be young again because they thought they couldn't play games anymore because they weren't kids. One old man thought this was true until the end when he saw himself and realized that it wasn't true at all. Another old man said and granted their wish to be young again and made them realize that you don't have to be young to have fun. 

Saving Private Ryan was the only one with a good background with history because it is about the war it is about World War II and the Invasion of Normandy. It is said to being very realistic for the scenes of combat. The scene on Omaha Beach has said to "be the best battle scene of all time." The big message in this movie is risking two three lives is okay if you are saving a bunch of other peoples lives instead. But it is also about brotherhood. Showing you what these guys go through in war, and things like that make you feel the need to have people in your life when the people you love are not with you. So you have your brothers at war. I think it show Americans as being good people because of the way they treated others or treated their crew with respect. 

The Poltergeist special effects looked good for that time period but for watching the now in our time period they looked low budget. They were very unrealistic, weren't very scary either and it was suppose to be scary. But there were some parts that were actually scary or gross like the clown scenes you never knew what was going to happen in those scenes. The political influences on this films were things like house building. The people wanted to built houses so bad that they built over cemeteries and never moved the bodies, only the headstones. Not caring about anyone but themselves. The film is an American film and I don't think it is saying good things about us because of people not caring about others. It shows that we just love the money not care for the feelings. 

The Twilight Zone: The Movie was not very scary at all and it got very boring after watching it for awhile. I kind of just wanted it to end. I think horror films were low budget because of how not scary it was. Steven Spielberg's section of the film wasn't even meant to be scary at all, I think it was more of a life listen than horror film. I think the technology was very good for its time period because there was a lot of cuts and edits to different scenes or to different films/stories. Just to say that this wasn't one of my favorite movies of all time. The movie did have really good makeup or costumes, from the werewolf animal or the monster on the plane. 

The key thing that I have learned from watching a lot of Steven Spielberg movies is that he really likes horror films or stomach turning movies. From the one of first ones I can remember watching (Jaws) to Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg likes to make you sick in the stomach when watching his movies, he likes to make you feel like you are there feeling what the characters are feeling at that time in the movie. I would say even though Steven Spielberg directs really gross movies, he is my favorite director.