The Cinema of Steven Spielberg

Download or read book The Cinema of Steven Spielberg written by Nigel Morris and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-13 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cinema's most successful director is a commercial and cultural force demanding serious consideration. Not just triumphant marketing, this international popularity is partly a function of the movies themselves. Polarised critical attitudes largely overlook this, and evidence either unquestioning adulation or vilification often vitriolic for epitomising contemporary Hollywood. Detailed textual analyses reveal that alongside conventional commercial appeal, Spielberg's movies function consistently as a self-reflexive commentary on cinema. Rather than straightforwardly consumed realism or fantasy, they invite divergent readings and self-conscious spectatorship which contradict assumptions about their ideological tendencies. Exercising powerful emotional appeal, their ambiguities are profitably advantageous in maximising audiences and generating media attention.