73. THE FABELMANS (2022) dir. Steven Spielberg

If you're to ask "Who's the greatest living American director?", I think the answers often lie in one of two camps: Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg. It's the "Beatles or Stones?" question for movie nerds. And while Scorsese has firmly wormed his way into my heart, I always respect Spielberg. Maybe it's the kind of respect that comes with making capital-C Classics: JAWS, SCHINDLER'S LIST, JURASSIC PARK, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. However, it wasn't until Susan Lacy's 2017 documentary "Spielberg" (a must-watch on HBO Max, like...right now) that I stopped seeing the director as the - director - but more as a man, riddled with the same neuroses stemming from our universal human condition. He's scared of damn near everything. His parents had a rocky marriage. Being part of one of the few, if any, Jewish families in Northern California comes with its pile of Anti-Semitism. He and his dad argued over Steven's directing ambitions. His mom struggled with mental illness. As I've read on Film Twitter, "men will make movies instead of going to therapy," which is why I can't examine THE FABELMANS for what it is on the surface - a coming-of-age drama - and instead, tack on the Spielberg connection. Sammy Fabelman's (Gabriel LaBelle) story IS Spielberg's story: the story of a kid who falls in love with movies after trying to figure out how the train crash in THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH happened.  He's mesmerized by the sway of the inexplicable, the intangible but oh so very real. In that way, he's Mitzi Fabelman's (Michelle Williams) child.  He's driven to precise execution, obsessive with controlling every detail, with complete understanding of how and why each piece works. If he's not Burt Fabelman's (Paul Dano) kid, I don't know whose else he could be. Dress this against the backdrop of '50s and '60s America, the deserts of Arizona and the beaches of California, the kinds of secrets that age a boy too soon and good ol'-fashioned bullying and you get a helluva breeding ground in which a promising artist carves his way. Spielberg's playful. He's mischievous. He's splaying himself wide open. It's the kind of movie that takes a 76-year-old to make because that layer of self-consciousness is flattened thin by time and its reflections. It's the story of a grieving son, his "thank-you" and "I love you" to the two pillars of his understanding, not only of film, but also the world. The dancer and the computer. --------------------------- Review THE MOVIES on Apple Podcasts & I'll read it on the next episode!Follow The Movies on ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠Financially support the podcast via the ⁠⁠tip jar!