Sentimentality and the movies

[Hlao-roo 388]

You see something like this all the time in film reviews:

"Any real interest in the characters is upstaged by treacly sentiment," or

"Instead of authentic emotions, we get mere sentimentality."

It's a frequent charge directed at Steven Spielberg, and those criticisms slightly tarnish the reputation of even some of his most well-received films -- E.T., Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan. (In particular, the esteem of the latter two films has fallen off markedly over the past several years as critics have found "unsentimental" counterparts to embrace -- like The Pianist and Flags of our Fathers). Even New York Times critic A.O. Scott, one of Spielberg's most vocal supporters, has remarked matter-of-factly on "the ruthless sentimentality that has been [spielberg's] greatest weakness."

So my question to you is: Can a movie really be "too sentimental"? (Isn't one person's sentimentality another's honestly earned emotionality?) If you say yes, where do you draw the line, and what are some examples from existing movies? Do you think Spielberg is guilty of "ruthless sentimentality"?

[robthehand 3]

Yes, a film can be too sentimental. I saw some crappy comedy last year that had Ice Cube in it, that was too sentimental.

I don't think Spielberg deserves all the criticism he gets in terms of sentimentality, but his films do occasionally slip in that direction.

[Ollie 859]

Spielberg can be too sentimental at times, A.I. would be another example of him going over the top. The "I could have done more." line from SL and the oepning and closing scenes that bookend SP are a bit over the top as well. Hook is another film that pushes the emotions hard and heavy at times.

As good as Peter Jackson's King Kong was I thought he pushed it a tad too far at the end with Kong's death and he may have gone a little overboard at the end of ROTK.

Movies are meant to invoke emotions in the audience and some succeed and some don't. If it goes over the top so be it, people are going to have different reactions to what they see.

I may be wrong but the majority of audiences want to see the good guy take out the bad guy in a blaze of glory, they want to see the guy get the girl (or girl get the guy) and live happily after ever, they want to see someone take a stand and do what's right. Sometimes it can be accomplished without pulling the audience to pieces emotionally but there are times when a film maker will go for overkill to drive the point home.

[robthehand 3]

I think the point you made about Kong and ROTK is a good one. I don't like it when a film tries to force me to feel a certain emotion, the best ones are the ones that make you believe that you're feeling that emotion naturally. Does that make sense?

[publicist 4,484]

Of course he is guilty.

I think it is common ground that some of Spielbergs work, be it the whole story or just separated scenes, tends to treat emotional 'mature' viewers, read:adults, like children and they react accordingly and f...k him, critic-wise.

The blatant kitsch which works in 'E.T.' does not in 'Hook', because the film feels fake from the beginning...in his grown-up-mode, i tend to like his POV for 'Empire of the Sun', even if manipulative at times, but can't stand the ruinous 'I could have done more'-scene in 'Schindler'. The 'Schindler'-syndrome of ruining perfectly good films with tacked-on scenes of sometimes disgustingly false 'wholesome' schmaltz has established itself through the course of the last 15 years.

'Minority Report', 'A.I.'(which i found terrible to begin with), 'SPR', 'War of the Worlds', even 'The Lost World', all instances where you would find not many viewers who wouldn't agree that the films were better off without the obvious kitsch.

'Munich' at least got the ending right.

[nicholas 1]

Couldn't agree more about the "Schindler"-syndrome. I have to skip that bit.

[Maestro 57]

Yes, a movie can be too sentimental. Example: Remember the Titans.

Spielberg is unjustly criticized for being too sentimental. He is, perhaps, a romantic. You see him try to capture the love of a family, or some kind of magic, or the heroism in war. He tries to find the positive and the beautiful even in incredibly dark situations. Yeah, sometimes it may feel slightly cheesy, but I think the critics who lambast him for being too sentimental have giant carbon rods up their cynical butts.

He listened too closely to these bitter, joyless critics when he made the absolutely unnecessary, offensive ending to Munich.

I've always appreciated Spielberg's more positive worldview and the way it manifests itself in his movies, even the darker ones. His sympathy and "sentimentality" only ruins movies like A.I. (my favorite film ever made) to those who are masochistic in their moviegoing experience.

[robthehand 3]

His sympathy and "sentimentality" only ruins movies like A.I. (my favorite film ever made) to those who are masochistic in their moviegoing experience.

That's not true. I'm not masochistic, and yet a film as sentimental as A.I. really does make me feel sick. The real problem for me was the clash between the very Kubrick-esque story (which was, as you could expect, cold and unsentimental), and Spielberg, who in my view absolutely smothered it with fake nice-ness and sentimentality.

I have this problem with a few of his films - but that doesn't mean I don't like sentimentality. I don't like it when it's applied inappropriately or in too large doses. Close Encounters definitely has a sentimental side to it, but the whole thing is balanced out perfectly. Same with ET.

[Ollie 859]

Some of the blame for PJ's Kong can be placed on JNH, although I'm sure Jackson had some say in the music.

A composer can overscore a scene with too much emotion.

[robthehand 3]

Yes, and I think a few scenes in Kong suffer from that. However, I think JNH did a great job considering the time he had.

[tpigeon 3]

While I agree that many of Spielberg's films often contain wholesome schmaltz (I like that term, by the way, publicist), I never quite understood the hatred of the "I Could Have Done More" scene from Schindler's List. People seem to fault Spielberg or the screenwriter for hammering home a message too much or going too far, but, observing the scene, I see it more as an extension of character. It was deliberate, and the result fascinating.

One of the interesting aspects of visual storytelling is how a film will focus on its central characters. Some expect that if a character is flawed, they eventually overcome that in the end and is a good person. A screenplay can only show so much in terms of what actually happens in the plot. Whether the film tells a good story depends on how it depicts the blueprint of a screenplay and makes its characters and environments exist as more than what's immediately visible. By the image of a film merely existing, it is creating meaning. It can't not mean, essentially. A character can't stumble on his or her own words or have some kind of irregularity without it being related to the plot somehow. Italian neo-realism turned this idea on its head and some filmmakers will forever be influenced by it, thankfully. Audiences are conditioned to accustom themselves to character building and that the meanings contained in the film are most always intended and structured deliberately by filmmakers. Certain kinds of films are so good because of their structured system of telling a story efficiently as determined by norms previously established. This works, this doesn't; this film is good (or bad) because it does (or doesn't do) x, y, and z. Why? Because based on how a viewer has seen and experienced other films and has determined what works and what doesn't based on their stylistic patterns and conventions, he or she can then determine whether the current film passes the test and gets a thumbs up or thumbs down. While some films are good because of how they may honor such norms and conventions and can be admired on the grounds of their structuring, the beauty of cinema is when a film can confound - build its images differently, using familar parts in new and exciting ways, having the stylistic elements interact different to create a new image.

Schindler's List, in many ways, adheres to many structuring devices of character arcs and scene design. However, what's so brilliant about it is that while it lives in some familiar molds, its images often refuse to defy easy labelling and require thinking, questioning, and emoting in different ways. When viewers are familiar with certain filmmakers and bring expectations and conceptions about those filmmakers, they can see the images how they desire to. We can't help but do that; it's really inevitable. But one can fight it as much as possible and attempt to be as unbiased as possible, however impossible it is. Having attempted to do that when watching films, I have seen a different Spielberg than many seem to have seen in the last ten years. In particular, Saving Private Ryan, A.I., Minority Report, and Munich I think are great films with much more to them than is often ascribed to them. If people would more rigorously examine his films in more detail and free of the "knowledge" of Spielberg as optimistic, manipulative, and feel-good, I think they'd be surprised. Interpretation is a funny thing.

Back to Schindler's List. To me, Schindler is a fascinating character, nuanced and developed. This particular scene has always moved me because for so much of the film's duration, he quietly saved people. It wasn't a revelation and he became Mother Theresa or anything. He still maintained his position and image while slowly and secretly helping people. We never get into his head. We never know why. he remains calm, cool, and collected through much of the proceedings and when he sees them all before him, he can't help but think that if he had not lived up to his image and just went for it, he could have saved more lives. As an omnicient witness of the story, it's easy for the spectator to shake his or her head and think that the storytellers are going too far in that the character cannot be satisfied with the good he has done and wished he had done more. The scene may not fit the themes as established in the film - largely that he who saves one life, saves the world entire - but the scene is an intensely personal examination of a very flawed, defeated man. Seeing them all before him, how can he not think that if he had done just one more thing, he could have saved several more people. He's no angel and he doesn't "save the world." The film is a very intimate observation of one man fighting his own values and institutions that put him in the position of power he's in for and preventing people from dying.

Say what you will about how flawed the scene is in relation to the rest of the film and its themes and how it paints him as desiring too much. I feel that it, along with many other Spielberg films (A.I., Private Ryan) are interpreted from the framed perspective of "Spielberg as sentimental manipulator." There is often much more to his images than meets the eye, and his films are much more nuanced than people often given him credit for. Nevertheless, he has proven me wrong in interviews and shown to sometimes to be exactly what he is accused of. And his films have definitely indulged a bit too much in sentimentality (Always, Hook, Jurassic Park, Amistad, The Terminal, the end from War of the Worlds, the end scene from Minority Report). Sometimes these are just bad scenes, and you have to wonder if Spielberg sometimes lives up to that image because it is often credited to him so much. Heavy-handed emotion used to come more easily and nauralistically to him back in his early days. Now it all seems pushed, like he has to live up to his old image as a feel good director. But his movies are so different now that when he tries to rekindle that old sense of heavily stated emotion, it often fails horribly and is totally out of place as in those examples mentioned above.

All that considered, I still stand by my belief that his public status as an icon and his cultural image has unfortunately led to confined and limited interpretations of his recent films, many of which have subtle riches and transcend that image. He may use storytelling structures of connecting the dots sometimes, but, like Hitchcock, I think he utilizes classical structures and even expectations of his work to convey much much more. It's a shame that some don't allow themselves to see it. He has had his share of misfires and bad scenes (even recently), but I think he has entered into one of the most fascinating and brilliant stretches of his career.

Ted, who is now exhausted from writing this long and probably incoherent post

[Romão 1,931]

Excelent post, Ted.

I think the term manipulative is thrown around too easily. Cinema is manipulation, making you believe what you see on the screen is actually happening. I don´t so much historical innacuracy, that scene in Schindler´s List gets me everytime. I´ve cried watching at least 7 of Spielberg´s films. He can overdue from time to time, but most of the time it just feels so genuine and such a naive and innocent view of the world, it does become very very touching.

And who are we, as film scores fans, to complain about movies being too sentimental? They give JW a chance to truly shine and he has always risen to the occasion.

[tpigeon 3]

Whether or not such a naive, innocent view of the world is possible or accurate isn't really the point. It's the desire to believe in it; for it to exist and live in your belief that it may. That's the beauty of the film, I think. Spielberg can tap into a hopeful and naive sense in a world that isn't much hopeful or make sense. Spielberg wishes to make sense of it, and in so believing and hoping can forge so much feeling into his film and characters.

Ted

[publicist 4,484]

I just skimmed through your engaging reply, my dear Ted .

Of course, you're right to a large degree. But i'm more pragmatic about these things: for me, Neeson just goes through an emotional striptease of 'Jerry Springer' proportions in this scene. I watch 'Schindler' as a reasonably emotional engaged viewer, which has seen a lot of nauseating things which still need time to absorb. Then this scene hits home all the OBVIOUSest (i know, that's no word) ideas of an emotional breakdown after seeing cruelty, sadism and hatred reign the world for too many a year, but i feel offended that someone dares to show such a blatant version of it...it feels as if someone is trying to milk me for the last drop of human kindness and here Spielberg miscalculates, IMHO.

It just wasn't necessary, period. Any halfway decent human being knows or can approximate what a human being may feel after living all this horror - wouldn't it be much more respectful to let him leave quietly?

It may be an european vs. american thing, though.

Addendum: i don't think i ever had a pre-disposition before watching a new Spielberg film. I would have laughed at 'A.I.' and 'WotW' if the credits would have said 'Directed by Akira Kurosawa'. Often i get the feeling it's a very easy way to counter Spielberg-criticism. Remember, often enough the criticism may be valid enough!

[tpigeon 3]

Must be a European thing.

Seriously, though, you make good points. I can definitely see now why it is so loathed and it makes perfect sense, but it never really felt that false to me. Far from one of the film's best scenes, and I like the film more for its subtltly, but I found it interesting and involving as an extension of his character. By that point in the film, I am usually so invested in it and enamored by it that I don't question something like that as much. By that point, my guard had slowly and surely been taken down. And that's what some Spielberg films can do best to me. Interpretation is a complicated thing, isn't it.

And by the way, I don't mean that everyone holds this image of Spielberg. I was speaking in generalities. I believe that you are as unbiased as you possibly can be, but to some extent we all do it. We bring conceptions of aspects about it and what we think we know, unless you know absolutely nothing about a film, which for all I know can be true in some instances. I'm not sure I agree with your last remark about something being valid if enough belief or statement of it is there. Sometimes that can be the most invalid of criticisms, but I suppose you can be correct depending on how you look at it.

Ted

[publicist 4,484]

While 'E.T.' may still provoke that reaction, even if it would force me to help it with some alcohol or other substance abuse (yes, just a joke , i tend to feel it is out of place in the more adult thematics Spielberg tackles nowadays.

A cool noirish technoid thriller like 'Minority Report' really suffers from all the goody-goody saccharine at the end, i don't particularly like Tom Hanks reciting his text like flowery prose in the 'High School teacher' sequence of 'SPR'. But i can see people feeling truly touched by these scenes - i just don't have any idea how this works.

'A.I' and 'WotW' are just misguided, though. No need to cite them for the saccharine. There may be lonely islands of good scenes in both, but on the whole, these films let me sit head-scratching what may have gone through Spielbergs head while making them.

[bondo 33]

YES, of course it's possible, just look at Pearl Harbor and Armageddon. They ram the sentimentality down your throat!

I think Spielberg was better an sentimentality earlier in his career, with ET and Indiana Jones. I didn't buy the sentimentality nearly as much in Minority Report or War of the Worlds.

[Morlock 9]

Of course a film can go over the top sentimentally, and, yes, Speilberg is more guilty of it than others. His sentimentality can leave a terrible after-taste in your month, and it left a terrible mark on an otherwise good film like War of The Worlds, or an otherwise great film, like The Terminal. In Minority Report, it felt like more of an after-thought, but, still, it left a bad taste in one's mouth.

Spielberg can be too sentimental at times, A.I. would be another example of him going over the top.

That's not true. I'm not masochistic, and yet a film as sentimental as A.I. really does make me feel sick. The real problem for me was the clash between the very Kubrick-esque story (which was, as you could expect, cold and unsentimental), and Spielberg, who in my view absolutely smothered it with fake nice-ness and sentimentality.

I totally disagree, I still think all those who accuse A.I. of sentimentality totally and entirely miss the point. It is one of the coldest films in Spielberg's ouvre, and IMO, a masterpiece because of it. All of the nice-ness and sentimentality were in the Kubrick version as well, and they are supposed to be fake, very fake, in both screenplay and film.

I do not think it applies at all to Schindler's List, nor to Saving Private Ryan. Sure, "I Could have done more" and "Tell me I've lead a good life" are sentimental, but I think they are totally and entirely appropriate, even necassery (Especially in SPR).

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

Tell me I've lead a good life" are sentimental, but I think they are totally and entirely appropriate, even necassery (Especially in SPR).

Rubbish, the last thing we needed, as an audience was Spielberg to tell us that Ryan "earned" the sacrifice that Miller and his group made for him.

Would it not have been so much more profound if Spielberg would have ended the film with the shot of Ryan, just before he morphs into the old guy?

It would have been a brave thing to do, but Spielberg chose to go with the "WWII Veterans are noble" routine.

[Morlock 9]

Rubbish, the last thing we needed, as an audience was Spielberg to tell us that Ryan "earned" the sacrifice that Miller and his group made for him.

....but he wasn't telling us that Ryan earned it. It was Ryan asking himself the question the film asks- why is this one man more imporant than eight others?

Would it not have been so much more profound if Spielberg would have ended the film with the shot of Ryan, just before he morphs into the old guy?

It would have been a brave thing to do, but Spielberg chose to go with the "WWII Veterans are noble" routine.

I don't think it is at all a bad thing, but you do have a point there. Ryan having to live with the sacrifice made for him would have been a bit more powerful if it wasn't spelled out for us. I hadn't thought of ending simply with him as an old man, no dialogue. Good point. I still don't think it hurt the film, but you do have a point that it could have been better that way.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

....but he wasn't telling us that Ryan earned it. It was Ryan asking himself the question the film asks- why is this one man more imporant than eight others?

And then his wives tells him that it was worth it, and his loving family gather round him in support. Illiminating any possibility that Ryan, perhaps might NOT have been worth it. Which is the films central question.

I agree that it doesn't hurt the film. but ending it on a less...resolved note would have made it even better then it already is.

The midsection is also a bit to "philisophical" though.

I can see Captain Miller talking like he does, but Sergeant Horvath?

[Morlock 9]

The midsection is also a bit to "philisophical" though.

I can see Captain Miller talking like he does, but Sergeant Horvath?

I don't know about that, I've had some pretty philosophical conversations in the army with people similar in sentiment to Horvath, and that's in a far less tumultous and devastating setting than France in WWII. Either way, I totally bought it in the film.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

 I don't know about that, I've had some pretty philosophical conversations in the army with people similar in sentiment to Horvath, and that's in a far less tumultous and devastating setting than France in WWII. Either way, I totally bought it in the film.

It's not like I don't buy it, but it's one of the lesser elements of the film.

SPR IMO is strongest when it is showing something rather then talking about it. The films best scenes are scenes with little or no dialogue.

The most heartwrentching scene, were mother Ryan collapses on her front porch after seeing the priest getting out of the army staff car has no dialogue what so ever, and is better for it.

[Morlock 9]

Very true.

[tpigeon 3]

Indeed!

Ted

[King Mark 2,924]

Sometimes the sentimentality works,such as in E.T.,I really cried.The end of A.I. gets me too.Sometimes the sentimentality doesn't work,but at the very least it provides for a great JW track every time.The Minority Report album would be a total waste without A New Beginning,if it had been replaced by some ending requiring more dissonant music.

K.M.

[Red 73]

With films like Schindler and SPR, I think that the sentimentality is certainly called for, and maybe even necessary. We see all sorts of horrific things in both films, so the endings may have been added as a sort of cushion for the audience. After all, Spielberg didn't set out to depress us (SL being a possible exception) with these films.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

yes that awful Robin Williams movie, with him as a doctor for terminally ill kids, after seeing that I wished I was terminally ill.

[Ollie 859]

The most heartwrentching scene, were mother Ryan collapses on her front porch after seeing the priest getting out of the army staff car has no dialogue what so ever, and is better for it.

I can't watch that scene without getting a lump in my throat.

[Red 73]

Can a movie be too sentimental? Definantly, but I think that this often coinsides with the particular film not being very good.

[Morlock 9]

Sometimes the sentimentality works,such as in E.T.,I really cried.The end of A.I. gets me too.Sometimes the sentimentality doesn't work,but at the very least it provides for a great JW track every time.The Minority Report album would be a total waste without A New Beginning,if it had been replaced by some ending requiring more dissonant music.

I actually don't like that track because of it's association with the sentimentality in the film. And MR is not a dissonant score at all.

[publicist 4,484]

My perception is that some films feel very natural in the way their narrative and scenes evolve - in which case you're ready to accept the human-kindness-schmaltz or whatever...others drop dead in the moment such a scene is happening and don't come to life before it's finally over. A howler like 'Fried Green Tomatoes' really works this way, the 'pre-cogs lived happily ever after'-scene doen't.

'Saving Private Ryan' certainly is a good movie, too, but after the first third you are conditioned to wait fearfully for the big MESSAGE scene...you'd know it would come sooner or later and bite your tongue till it's over.

Spielberg still has these 'showman' allures, courtesy of Cecil B. DeMille or Walt Disney. If he makes an 'important' film, goddamn, the whole world should realize it to their teeth!! It's just as if he can't find a better way to portray said feelings - what doesn't mean there isn't one.

I recently saw Ingmar Bergmans 'Fanny and Alexander', which is full of poignant scene, which feel earned...but again, it's director is a swede and the sensibilities may be very different. He doesn't make me bite my tongue.

[Damo 0]

In your opinion, can a movie be "too sentimental"?

Yes, it can be "too sentimental".

[Romão 1,931]

Spielberg may overdo it from time to time, but he has found the right balance of sentimentalism much more often than most directors.

[tpigeon 3]

I'm not sure Saving Private Ryan is as simple as some think. Spielberg's visual cues and Williams' score can be very deceiving. They may dictate how you "should" be feeling on the surface, but I think it goes much deeper than that. Like I said before, Spielberg has often proved me wrong in interviews when talking about bravery and noble heroes and so on, but I see Saving Private Ryan very differently and not at all a noble veteran movie. In a less successful way, it tackles the very same concepts of Munich, but it doesn't have the bravery to really follow through like Munich does. Spielberg very much is honoring the soldiers ("The Greatest Generation"), but he by no means buys the Good War philosophy as the General at the beginning of the film does. The movie is more about existential void than riteousness. Miller's "earn this" line resonates differently to me in that Ryan would then live his entire life not thinking he was worth it, and he still doesn't. Yes, he has the loving family and wife, but maybe because he saw a man die right in front of him so he could have it. Would it be more interesting if he didn't go on to have a fulfilling life? Perhaps. But how do we know he did? Because of his family? The point is that we don't know. Maybe Ryan looked to the skies his whole life seeking someone's approval as he does Miller's, self-consiously asking if what he has done was good enough. We have no inkling at all whether or not he was worth it, but the surface elements tell you he is. But I think there's more going on. What it is they fight for is something grappled with in Munich.

Even the action seems to reflect a greater theme of things happening for no reason at all: who gets shot, who suffers, who does something at the wrong time. There is no slow-motion or stylistic techniques used to make the action unrealistic. Spielberg is deliberately not making sense of any of it. In the end, Ryan survives. Miller doesn't. He has a life, the rest of the platoon doesn't. They are so far removed from the stagnant office of the General in the beginning who sits there and sees everything in an idealistic way, influenced by patriotism and building a lasting image for the public to buy. The scenes in which the soldiers are alone breaking down and crying is the most emotional stuff for me, or when they are so beyond feeling emotion.

I think Spielberg is trying to prompt a lot of thought and questions when he waves the flag in front of the camera at the beginning and end of the film. He is asking us to do more than honor the veterans and this country. Or so I think. Spielberg may not have the courage to really go for it in the film, but he gets his real feelings across not in the classical structure of Ryan and Miller's story, but through Upham.

Spielberg's brilliance is how he can use a familiar structure to really get at something else, like Hitch did. I think the movie is really about Upham. His character is fascinating and holds the key to understanding all of the movies themes. We can better understand the "main" story and character thrust through him. The Good War philosophy tells us to hate Upham for not getting up when he collapses in fear on the stairs as a fellow soldier is killed brutally. We have been conditioned by so much propaganda that his lack of action may come off as wrong or inexcusable. Leave no man behind. Well this film is one of the few to depict someone too afraid. We have been conditioned to hate these characters, but this film relates to him. We wish he could do something to save the American being killed, but we are as paralyzed as he is. Some may see his final action (killing the German) as poetic justice; him finally strapping on set and having the courage to pull the trigger. That's not at all what I see. That is the film's heartbreaking moment of defeat, the last gasp of hope, of idealism, a sense of home, love and family, and of reason: things we want and need to believe in to call ourselves human.

Ted

[Red 73]

Your a wise man Ted. Wiser than I.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,251]

The problem is that I proufoundly agree with that Greatest Generation crap Tom Brokaw saw fit to spew upon us.

Remember, this is the same generation that tried to halt the struggle of minorities and woman in the 60's.

The generation that fought to give Europe it's freedom also fougfht to keep things nice and segregated, like it "ought to be."

There is nothing proufound about them, they are just human.

Most are dead now actually.

Good riddens.....

[SturgisPodmore 0]

I really don't see what's so sentimental about Minority Report's ending. A program that could have saved hundreads of thousands of lives is destroyed, and crime and murder goes on forever. That's not really very sentimental.

Ted: in regards to your insightful thoughts on Saving Private Ryan, I totally see your point.

There is no slow-motion or stylistic techniques used to make the action unrealistic. Spielberg is deliberately not making sense of any of it.

YES, and this is something certain other directors don't get.

Speaking of which, I've rarely seen such an overly-sentimental ending than in Return of the King. Although I'm not sure which of the 171/2 endings it was that was so sappy.

~Sturgis, who thinks Speilberg can be a bit too sentimental at times, but he almost always nails it