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Spielberg talks to BBC Radio 5’s film programme with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode.
A.I. and Hook fans should pay particularly close attention. There’s a great discussion about how views of A.I. have changed over time, and Spielberg reveals that he doesn’t like Hook.
“It’s about life and saying it while you’re here and doing it while you can.”
This is Spielberg discussing Always, one of his most overlooked pictures, but also one of his most important - if for nothing else than this quote. All Spielberg’s films are, up to a point, about “doing it while you can”, but with Always it became a fully formed theme.
Look, for example, at Last Crusade, in which Indy realises he has to make peace with his father while he still can, or Hook, in which Peter Banning realises he has to spend time with his kids while he still can. In Jurassic Park, Alan Grant has a similar experience after narrowly avoiding death in the park.
The theme can also be seen in Spielberg’s serious films. Oskar Schindler realises he has to take action against the Nazis and regrets not doing so sooner in Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan is almost entirely about the transience of life and “earning it” while you can.
Always may not be one of Spielberg’s better achievements, but it is a starting off point from which great things would emerge.
In 1992, critic Henry Sheehan wrote a significant and influential overview of Spielberg’s work for Film Comment magazine. The essay was split into two parts, the first can be read here, the second here.
While I don’t agree with everything Sheehan writes, the context of the article makes it an incredibly bold piece of work. This was before Schindler’s List established Spielberg’s reputation as a great dramatic film-maker and directly after Hook had recieved a critical drubbing.
Spielberg’s stock amongst critics was as low as it’s ever been, but Sheehan’s essay went some way to helping re-build his credibility. His final sentence is particularly wonderful.
“By revisiting a classic children’s tale [Peter Pan, through Hook], Spielberg has shown how what is born within us as children guides us through maturity, if we are just willing to use art to remember and to reconcile. And that is a theme rich enough, and put so eloquently, as to be worthy of any artist.”
This is an interesting, and slightly strange, story. Apparently Dante Basco, who played Rufio in Spielberg’s Hook, is looking to make a prequel to the film, focusing on his character.
Speaking to Crave Online, Basco said:
“There’s a film in development, the Rufio film, where a hotshot group of kids from the East Coast graduated and they wrote this whole script, the prequel to Hook and it’s the Rufio story…I’m attached to produce so that’s actually in development right now which’ll be cool, a Rufio for a whole new generation.”
