Spielberg presents Munich and Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner with the Paul Selvin Award at the Writers’ Guild of Awards West ceremony in February 2013.
“In nearly all films, Spielberg’s included, killing in the name of family is the noblest, most necessary choice there is. In Spielberg’s previous war films killing and dying in the name of country was just as vital, or at least respected— but not in Munich. It is not just blockbuster genre standards or Tom Cruise starpower that makes Ray the clearer hero of Spielberg’s 2005 films. It’s his choice to fight for the only thing that matters— family— and to avoid any conflict beyond it. That’s not the attitude Spielberg had with Saving Private Ryan, and it’s not what he’d express six years later in War Horse, but it was the only one possible in 2005, when death and disaster and quagmire seemed endless in Iraq and in Israel’s own ongoing conflict. It’s jarring to look back and find the big-hearted, humanist Spielberg there; you want to jolt him forward to 2012 and the passion for American exceptionalism he showed in Lincoln. But pairing War of the Worlds and Munich provides an unforgettable, sobering portrait of America in the middle of the last decade, when heroism seemed so distant that the best choice was to hold close to loved ones and wait for the storm to pass.”
An incredible essay about the similarities between Munich and War of the Worlds from Katey Rich of Cinemablend. One of the best pieces of Spielberg writing I’ve read.
Janusz Kaminski, who has shot all of Spielberg’s films since Schindler’s List, gives his thoughts on some of his most famous images in this fascinating interview with Vulture.
Minority Report, A.I., Catch Me If You Can and Saving Private Ryan are among the films mentioned, and Kaminski has some very interesting things to say.
Of the above shot from Minority Report, he explains:
“It’s just a gorgeous shot of two lost people. I used a bluish side light, which to some degree glamorized them, but also made them very lonely and alienated from the rest of the scene. You work in metaphors through lights and composition, and the worst thing for me is to see a movie that doesn’t have that. You see a cinematographer’s work and there are no visual metaphors, or they are so afraid to create a style that it just becomes this nothing.”
Tony Kushner has revealed that he is working on a new project for Spielberg to follow-up their collaborations on Munich and Lincoln.
Speaking to EW, Kushner said: “I haven’t told this to anyone, but I’m already working on a new script for [Spielberg]. So we’ll be talking all the time again. I just started on it a couple of weeks ago.
On his working relationship with Spielberg, Kushner added: “He has other go-to guys. But I like working with him and I think he likes the difficulties that working with me presents. I take a long time, and I can’t do it until I’m ready to do it, and I’m not an experienced screenwriter, and I’m too old at this point to learn how to start being one. I want to be a playwright. That’s what I am.”
It’ll be interesting to see what this project turns out to be. Spielberg always has a few films in the mixer, but at the moment my money’s on the Moses biopic that was rumoured earlier this year.
Some great pictures for any Spielberg fans interested in the director’s historical films. Robert Capa, whose work had a huge influence on Saving Private Ryan, is featured.
If you guys are interested in history I created davincings a couple days ago it’s still a work in progress (like all my blogs).
