It is quite an achievement to direct one movie in a year, let alone two. And I don't think nearly enough emphasis has been placed on the fact that Steven Spielberg has done this SIX times in his career!
There’s the 1989 Last Crusade / Always combo; the 1997 Lost World / Amistad combo; the 2002 Minority Report / Catch Me If You Can combo; the 2005 War of the Worlds / Munich combo; and the 2011 Tintin / War Horse combo. Phew!
But there’s no doubt that 1993 was the most pivotal dual-movie year of Spielberg’s career. Everything changed for him after that. And by extension, everything changed for George Lucas too.
There aren’t many literal inflection points in cinema that we can point to.
For example, the question of who “invented” movies is a hard one to answer because several different people were working on several different inaugural aspects of filmmaking at the same time all around the world in those early days. But in the special effects arena, there is no question that Jurassic Park is the defining film of the digital age.
Everything that became possible after that point started with the dinosaur herd Alan Grant marveled at beside that sparkling lake.
We’ve already analyzed why JP was so impactful. And a huge contributing factor to said impact was the pioneering CGI – in short, the fact that those computer-generated dinosaurs looked and moved so authentically made us all feel a deep, seismic cultural shift in how stories could be told.
So much so that when George Lucas first saw footage from JP, he was moved to tears. (This might very well be apocryphal, but it feels right because goddamn was I emotional when I first saw those dinos too.)
At last, Lucas had seen proof that technology had finally caught up to the images in his head. He was bombarded with new and exciting and innovative techniques to create living, breathing characters and immersive worlds in ways that were impossible only a couple of years before.
And perhaps this is when Lucas also learned to be careful what you wish for.
JP inspired Lucas to revise the Star Wars Trilogy in 1997, making them truer to his original vision. And this in turn was a proving ground for what became the Prequel Trilogy just two years after that.
And, well, it turns out that Star Wars fans are very protective of Star Wars. Who knew?
To this day, many of them are still bitter that Lucas’s Special Editions messed with “their” stories. (Toxic nostalgia notwithstanding, these aren’t “their” stories, but that’s another post.) And that divisiveness only deepened when the PT came out. Not only were these bitter fans disappointed that the prequels didn’t feel like the movies they grew up with, but they didn’t look like them either.
And so, after years of hate mail, death threats, and fan-made attack videos, Lucas seemed to have had enough.
You could sense it in the interviews he gave at that time - he seems to feel like the fans turned on him. As a result, he then later sold the huge universe he created to Disney and moved behind the scenes as a consultant. And now many of these same Goldilocks fans aren’t happy with the current iteration of Star Wars either (and they never will be), which means that the problem was never its creator.
Regardless, that’s how 1993 changed everything for George Lucas. Ironically, the newfound visual-effects technology that made him feel like a liberated storyteller may have inadvertently led to his early retirement.
As for Spielberg, after reinventing summer movies yet again in 1993 with Jurassic Park – no big deal – he went on to reinvent himself with Schindler’s List.
There are no words that can do this vital historical epic justice, which is fitting since it contains the most ethereal, emotionally draining imagery of Spielberg's career - images that are absolutely devastating in their silence.
These unforgettable compositions that are forever burned into our souls - the girl in the red coat, the liquidation of the ghetto, the death camps, the children in hiding, the boy in the latrine - were brought to life by the haunting black-and-white cinematography of Janusz Kaminski (marking the first time Spielberg worked with his longtime DP).
Kaminski’s documentary-like style is the key sign that Spielberg tapped into a completely different aspect of himself here. It’s apparent that he felt a massive sense of responsibility, and he wanted to convey this story in a way that was as truthful as possible in honor of those who endured the terrors of the Holocaust.
This important film also features several iconic performances, including the subdued heroism of Liam Neeson, the insane callousness of Ralph Fiennes, the quiet bravery of Embeth Davidtz, and the stalwart dignity of Ben Kingsley. It is fueled by Steve Zaillian’s moving masterclass of a screenplay, which is complemented by Michael Kahn’s intricately structured editing. It is uplifted by the most soulful score of John Williams’ career. And it is the winner of several well-deserved Oscars.
It is a true work of art.
Given what we know about Spielberg’s psychology*, that last factor might be a major reason as to why his self-reinvention actually stuck this time (he had tried to make “serious” movies before but was never taken seriously by the Hollywood brass).
The glass-half-empty folks say that if he hadn’t won those Oscars for Schindler, if he hadn’t finally been recognized by his peers, then Spielberg most likely would have retreated to his supposed wheelhouse for good. But the glass-half-full folks (which is the side I’m leaning toward here) say that he probably would have pivoted anyway after such a transformative experience.
Either way, whether it was due to the acclaim, or whether he had finally gotten his passion for fantastical stories out of his system, or whether Schindler’s List had forever changed him, Spielberg was never the same again as a storyteller.
*Watch this video of Spielberg reacting to Jaws’ Oscar nomination snubs, especially Best Director.
“This is called commerical backlash…”
Spielberg’s next popcorn film, The Lost World, was considerably more cynical and meaner than Jurassic Park. And his next few sci-fi films, A.I., Minority Report, and especially War of the Worlds, were far grittier than anything else he has ever made in the sci-fi space. All in all, it was fascinating to see Spielberg make darker, less optimistic films in the genres that made him.
Most crucially, 2018’s Ready Player One seems to indicate that Spielberg has said goodbye to popcorn movies for good. And seeing as that film is chockfull of references to the pop culture of the ‘80s that Spielberg himself helped establish, it definitely comes across as a “retirement from this kind of movie” swansong.
And wow, was it fun while it lasted.
That said, Spielberg’s subsequent non-fantastical films after 1993 only benefitted from his newfound confidence with challenging material.
Amistad (1997), an overlooked historical drama that explores the importance of communication and the strength of hope quite admirably, is the prime example of a film Spielberg wouldn’t have been able to make as effectively if not for Schindler’s List. Certainly, having tapped into the generational pain of the Holocaust on such a personal level must have helped Spielberg find the unimaginable pain inherent in the holocaust of another race.
With that in mind, the prolonged Middle Passage sequence depicting what it was like for so many innocent African men, women, and children to be ripped from their homes and treated like cargo is as harrowing and emotionally affecting as anything shown in Schindler’s List. I sincerely hope there was some semblance of catharsis for those who needed it when they watched these kindred films.
To backtrack a bit for comparison’s sake, The Color Purple (1985) was Spielberg’s first attempt at more challenging material. And while it doesn't shy away from some of the harsher aspects of its story, Spielberg nonetheless brought his larger-than-life storytelling ethos to the table here.
As such, that stylistic choice imbued this underrated gem about sisterhood and perseverance with a fairytale-like sheen, culminating in the kind of emotionally resonant payoff Spielberg does so well. But overall, the critical reception was mixed. Some felt that Spielberg’s direction elevated the film, while others felt it proved he was in over his head and kept himself at a distance from the material because he wasn’t comfortable with it.
In contrast, while Color Purple does contain a great central sympathetic performance by Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, we wouldn’t see a genuinely multilayered female lead in a Spielberg film until 2017.
In The Post, Spielberg deftly guides Meryl Streep to a wonderfully nuanced performance as Kay Graham, the first female publisher of a major American newspaper who finds herself caught in the eternal battle between a free press and a secretive government.
Here, both director and actress aptly capture Kay’s struggles in a man’s world at the crossroads of information and politics. This is starkly exemplified by the striking tracking shot that follows a dignified Kay as she walks past a supportive group of female secretaries right into a dark room full of threatening businessmen - the symbolic lion’s den of the patriarchy.
All in all, if he hadn’t been able to tap into the emotional complexity that he needed to make Schindler’s List, it’s unclear if Spielberg would have been able to handle these evergreen women’s issues with the grounded sense of understanding and subtlety he displays here.
With his 2021 version of West Side Story, Spielberg seemingly tried to make up for some cinematic representation missteps of the past. (We’ve already discussed some of Spielberg’s own missteps.) And again, this signifies an enlightened perspective that not only comes with age but also comes about after making a film about how your very heritage was almost wiped from existence.
It’s impossible not to see the world differently after that. Because yes, cliches be damned, representation does matter.
The truth is that the original 1961 West Side Story is one of those classic films that helped define the term “a product of its time,” with actors in brownface being the most glaring problem. And it certainly seems as if Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner took the six decades of criticism* from many Latino luminaries to heart when they approached this remake.
*As a Cuban American who has had Scarface lines thrown at me when I’ve mentioned I'm from Miami – in Al Pacino’s over-the-top Tony Montana accent, no less - I wholeheartedly understand and respect where those criticisms are coming from.
This version makes sure to portray the Puerto Rican Sharks as hard-working, proud men who are unfortunately misguided by hate. Furthermore, all the characters on both sides are given dimension and agency, most importantly Maria. Some of the lyrics were changed to make it clear that certain songs were meant to be satirical as opposed to perpetuating stereotypes. And casting original West Side Story actress Rita Moreno as the voice of wisdom who tries to stop the violence was so important. Specifically, giving the film’s centerpiece song “Somewhere” to Moreno’s character now makes the film feel like a true testament to the power of connection and acceptance.
Throw in some swooning romance, exhilarating musical set pieces, lush production design, and nuanced writing that makes a profound lesson about our world feel even more relevant today, and here we have one of the few remakes that improves on the original.
Those may be baby steps in the grand scheme of things, but if every filmmaker felt the responsibility to listen and make things right like Spielberg seems to be doing here, then we will continue to get art that feels more welcoming and truer to life. And that is never a bad thing.
So, there you have it. To this day, I still don’t know why it was so hard for so many to accept that Spielberg could be a great director of popular entertainment and a great director of dramatically complex films simultaneously. It’s not apparent to me why those have to be mutually exclusive in so many people’s minds.
In fact, that’s why I love the dichotomy of 1993 so much: It’s a year that perfectly encapsulates all of Spielberg’s skills, and it showed us that no artist should ever be underestimated.
The bottom line is that a towering pinnacle of blockbuster filmmaking and a towering pinnacle of dramatic filmmaking now sit on a shelf side by side, there to be cherished for as long as there are movies.
The best of both storytelling worlds.