Citizen Spielberg

1. "I'm Sorry I Didn't Tell You about the World": Spielberg's Science-Fiction and Fantasy Films

1 “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Tell You about the World”: Spielberg’s Science-Fiction and Fantasy Films Science-Fiction and Fantasy Films Science-fiction and fantasy films reveal more about the cultures that spawn them than the imaginary worlds they ostensibly describe. By extending contemporary societal problems far into the future, or by inserting fantastical elements into present-day environments,these movies encourage viewers to contemplate disruptive communal questions made less volatile by the mediating distance of time,the remoteness of space,and the illusion of supernatural encounters. Fanciful creatures (such as aliens, ghosts, or pixies) interjected into ordinary life, or diverse life forms confronted by human beings in galaxies far, far away, become representatives of “the cultural other,” allowing filmmakers to explore current dilemmas of ethnic, racial, sexual, and gender differences freed from the confinements typically associated with depicting daily life. Similarly, films about the problems of futuristic societies set on remote planets reflect social realities and ethical dilemmas on earth.The science -fiction and fantasy genres grant their practitioners license to ponder complex moral and cultural questions, while they simultaneously provide fertile opportunities for dazzling visual spectacles, imaginative creations, and inventive narrative structures. Although each chapter in this book opens by broadly defining the genre into which various Spielberg films fit, these segments provide only limited space to consider complex definitions and broad historical questions,certainly not enough room to examine them fully.Here,it is necessary to note the general distinctions film scholars make between science-fiction and fantasy films 12 . citizen spielberg before discussing Spielberg’s individual works within these genres. Because films iconographically identified with one genre inevitably poach narratives, ideas, and stock characters from other genres, critics often struggle when attempting to make clear distinctions between film categories.Commentators who investigate the boundaries between science-fiction and fantasy films,for example, usually cite the intimate relationships between them, noting how they often spring from similar sources.A fundamental narrative pattern ties these two genres together:supernatural occurrences disrupt comfortable daily routines and challenge characters’ conceptions of reality. Ordinary people with whom the audience can identify find their lives irrevocably altered by encounters with supernatural situations that force them to reconfigure their conceptions of the world and their place within it. The Fantasy Film In his classic book The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov asserts that three narrative structures constitute fantasy fictions : the marvelous (events that involve the supernatural or spiritual), the fantastic (events that question common reality), and the uncanny (events produced by the unconscious). Always fits nicely as a “marvelous” narrative and Hook as a “fantastic” or an “uncanny” one,depending on whether Neverland is conceptualized as an alternative reality or a mental projection. Building on Todorov,Wade Jennings argues that the only “indispensable element in a fantasy is a central situation that defies rational or even pseudo-scientific explanation. . . . The chief distinction between fantasy and science fiction is that in science fiction the drive is toward explanation, toward resolution of the mystery and its attendant problems,whereas in fantasy the situation cannot be explained; it must simply be accepted” (249). Classic fantasy films, as diverse as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Lost Horizon (1937), Mary Poppins (1964), and the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–3), rarely explain how their strange worlds and exotic characters were created: instead,they provide the complex pleasure of allowing us to “believe without really believing” (Todorov 56). We watch these movies knowing that they defy the laws of common reality, giving ourselves up to the delight of accepting them on their own terms. Fantasy films often invoke a perilous quest that necessitates an equally significant internal journey of personal understanding and self-realization. Protagonists in fantasy films discover or rediscover joy and freedom and eventually comprehend that rational knowledge alone is insufficient to survive the arduous tests they must pass.Fantasy worlds are commonly populated by science-fiction and fantasy films · 13 three general character types: 1) the superman with powers beyond ordinary beings; 2) the child hero who battles evil armed with natural innocence and goodness; and 3) the supernaturally wise mentor to the human hero (Jennings 252–53).The initially dislocated protagonists must find a new place for themselves in these fantasy realms, choosing either to stay within the new environment or return to their old worlds,forever altered by the lessons they have learned...