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Terry Gilliam Talks The "Simplistic" Films Of Steven Spielberg


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It's certainly a more colourful film.

and coming from kaminsmk who is Cleary afraid of real world colors. He could make a beautiful bright sunny day at the beach look drab.
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Both are OK but somehow don't engage me in any meaningful way. TERMINAL actually is a spineless bunch of sickly crap - after 9/11 they didn't have the balls to make the guy a pakistani or arab (like the one the story is based on) but resorted to the old DYNASTY trick of inventing some fantasy Ruritania. The whole subplot about Hank's foreign co-workers is benign, paternalistic Spielberg at his worst. But the sets look gorgeous.

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I don't address his sequels as sequels are always made to leech off the original nor his films in the 21st century where the dynamic of the blockbuster has shifted dramatically.

The idea that two picture deals are another guarantee of blockbuster status is frankly hilarious. Again with Raiders SS was under scrutiny. After the failure of 1941 and of another huge failure the year before in Heaven's Gate the new breed of directors were suspect. Thankfully it worked out well for all of us. SS has pretty much always made the movies he wanted.

Let's get one thing straight: "1941" was not - not - a comercial failure. "ROTLA" was on the boards, even before "1941" went into production. I don't think that Paramount would invest $20,000,000 in a film if they didn't think they would get at least a fair-to-good return.

Artistic motivations or no, every film is made to make money for the studio. It's not called the movie business for nothing. Some films are successes, and some are not, but that doesn't stop them being good films (step forward "Blade Runner", if you please, probably the most influential film of the last 30 years!).

At the end of the day, SS is working for the man, and it is the man who dictates his successes, or otherwise. I believe that, like any shrewd businessman, SS does pay attention to how well his films perform, and he learns from his mistakes.

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Richard I was there, I was 19 at the time and counted myself among SS's biggest fans. 1941 was a critical failure and it failed at the boxoffice. I liked it, still do but recognize it is a mess. It went over budget and schedule. Steven learned a lot from that production.

Btw it cost 35 mil. in 1979 and domestically earned less. That help cement the idea in studio heads that SS was a director who always went over budget and over schedule.

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Quite right, except with the possible exception of "Twilight Zone:The Movie", which was, overtaken by...circumstances.

Stefan is right: SS never indulged in the same excesses again.


Richard I was there, I was 19 at the time and counted myself among SS's biggest fans. 1941 was a critical failure and it failed at the boxoffice. I liked it, still do but recognize it is a mess. It went over budget and schedule. Steven learned a lot from that production.

I was also there, Joey, and I saw "1941" twice in its run at my local flea-pit. It made $80,000,000 worldwide on an budget of approximately $26,000,000. As Bob Gale says on the documentary: both studios did o.k. from "1941".

Yes, it got mauled by the critics, but it also got some technical Oscar nominations. It's time for a major re-appraisal of "1941" !

If it was released today, it would go through the roof.

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1941 is a film that is less than the sum of its parts.

So many things that are wonderful...

Swing swing swing, John's score. Wendy Jo Sperber. The Radio Joke. Eddie Dezien, the ferris wheel disaster. The art direction. The Jaws parody. John Belushi. DUMBO!

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Nope. It's still a very flawed film.

It's Spielberg's Heaven's Gate but the world forgave him while Michael Cimino remains forever out of grace. Crazily enough, more and more people are discovering that the DC of Heaven's Gate is actually a good film. Yes, the tide is turning for Heaven's Gate as more and more film enthusiasts and critics are calling it a misunderstood modern masterpiece. Cimino truly is a symbol for the death of the golden age of Hollywood.

Alex

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So, what makes "1941" less than the sum of its parts?

It's often bloated and loud and mistakes that for fun. The main characters - Wild Bill Kelso excluded - are not very memorable.

It's Spielberg's Heaven's Gate but the world forgave him while Michael Cimino remains forever out of grace. Crazily enough, more and more people are discovering that the DC of Heaven's Gate is actually a good film. Cimino truly is a symbol for the death of the golden age of Hollywood.

Alex

HG was a chore to sit through - and that is not just a phrase, it sucked on a TREE OF LIFE scale.

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HG was a chore to sit through - and that is not just a phrase, it sucked on a TREE OF LIFE scale.

I saw the three-and-a-half hour version of Heaven's Gate for the first time a few weeks ago, and was engrossed almost all the way through. Twice. (Haven't seen The Tree of Life yet.)

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The Tree of Life is one of the dryest things I've ever seen. And it likes to randomly use fake space footage, which theoretically would make it easier to go through. Quite hard to explain. I think that film is in serious need of taking some stuff out and adding different connective tissue.

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That's not what I'm reading at all.

"It (the film or the director) likes to randomly use (fake) space footage ..."

That implies the space clouds are placed into the narrative without purpose.

Alex

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