Spielberg’s depiction of family has always been more complicated than many critics give him credit for, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a great example.

The film, of course, introduces Indy and Marion Ravenwood’s son, Mutt Williams, and concludes with the three of them forming a family unit when Indy and Marion finally tie the knot.

So, a typical Spielbergian tale of familial unity then? Not quite. This is a family unit that has spent the better part of two decades apart, and the father isn’t the man who raised the son. 

Not only that, but in the opening act of the film, we are taken to a nuclear testing site that is disguised as a fully constructed town. It’s a perfect picture of idyllic suburbia and American family life, right down to the mother, father, son and daughter watching Howdy Doody in the living room of one of the houses.

This utopia is ripped apart when the A-bomb hits and Spielberg shows the carnage in detail, with close ups of the dummies disintegrating and the town being swept away.

This scene mocks the familial ideal Spielberg is often criticised for craving. It shows that the perfect family unit is a fantasy, as ridiculous back in the 50s as it is now.

Yet, the brutality with which it is destroyed lends the scene a sense of tragedy and Spielberg’s reformation of the family at the end of the film suggests that he still laments the family unit’s dissolution.

Perfect familial harmony may be difficult to achieve and it may not come in the form expected, Spielberg says, but it is worth striving for

SPIELBERG THEME - EYES: Minority Report is one of Spielberg’s most explicit explorations of eyes and vision, and the prominence of the theme is suggested in the opening sequence, which witnesses a vision of a murder and repeatedly makes reference to indicators of sight.

1) A man, Howard Marks, climbs the stairs at his home, unaware that his wife is in their bedroom sleeping with someone else. Spielberg’s shot is hazy and stylised; Marks is isolated in a black iris. We are being reminded that we are watching a something, that we are voyeurs.

2) Marks, who had left for work earlier, is returning for his glasses (“You know how blind I am without them”) and Spielberg frames his adulterous wife and her lover within one of the lenses of the spectacles.

3) The sequence jumps back and forth in time and during one of the short flashbacks we see Marks cutting eyeholes in a cardboard Abraham Lincoln mask.

4) Marks brutally stabs his wife and when the frenzy is over, Spielberg shows us a shot of one of the woman’s blank and lifeless eyes.

5) He then cuts abruptly to another eye, this one disembodied and filling the whole frame.

6) Spielberg pulls out of the eye to reveal a face, that of Agatha the lead pre-cog. “Murder,” she says.

SPIELBERG THEME - EYES: Basie is one of Spielberg most complex and ambiguous father figures, and he establishes this in the character’s first scene by concealing his eyes throughout. Only at the scene’s end do we see his full face, and even then his eyes are still hidden by his sunglasses.

SPIELBERG THEME - CINEMA: Jurassic Park is one of the most self-reflexive films of Spielberg’s career. It is a blockbuster about blockbusters, with characters referring to event films of the past (“what do you think they have in here: King Kong?”) and the character of John Hammond acting as a thinly-veiled representation of Spielberg himself - an entertainer who’ll do anything to please his audience.

In this fun gag from the T-Rex attack sequence, Spielberg turns the attention towards that audience. During the attack, he cuts to a shot of Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm in the other tour car. A concerned Grant is looking on helplessly, but Malcolm can’t. His vision is blocked by steam on the window. He quickly wipes it away so he can see properly.

Malcolm has to watch this amazing sight. It’s something he’s never seen before and he won’t be denied it. Like the audience, he is hooked.