Many years ago, Steven Spielberg conceived the idea of the movie based on the story of his family and growing up in various states, cities, and towns across the US. By his own admission, he has told the parts of the story in many of his films. For a long time, he could not come to terms with his parents' divorce when he was a teenager and for many years, he blamed his father and almost did not communicate with him. Over time, he learned details that he did not suspect, and in the last years of his parents' life, he was close to both. Both of his parents lived to a ripe old age. His mother died at 97 and his father at 103. While himself in his 70s he was blessed to be a son of two loving living parents. After their death, he finally decided to tell the story about them, about his childhood and adolescence, about the origins of his love for cinema, the love that became his calling, profession, and obsession for life.
The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg's most personal and touching film. It is his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Amarcord, the New Paradiso Cinema, Radio Days, and The Mirror. While the themes of adolescence and becoming a creative person are similar in these very personal films of the great directors, The Fabelmans is unmistakably a film that only Spielberg, an artist at the peak of his talent and vision, could conceive, write, feel and stage. It is a dedication to the main tool of the filmmaker, his camera, to power and magic with which it entertains, delights, opens up new dimensions, stops moments, and highlights the unexpected essence of things, but can also break hearts and lives. Manipulating the camera shots and angles, Spielberg achieves in the best scenes of his semi-biographical movie the Rashomon's effect and opens his soul to the viewer in a way he has never done before. By the power of his talent, its creator captured the important, happy, and painful moments of the search for meaning and put them on screen as a compelling family portrait. Such sincerity and frankness will be appreciated by the viewer, who is ready to accept them. But the same sincerity and frankness can cause bewilderment, misunderstanding, and even rejection. Spielberg must have known about it, but he had to make the movie anyway. In my opinion, The Fabelmans is an honest, beautiful, and memorable film.
The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg's most personal and touching film. It is his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Amarcord, the New Paradiso Cinema, Radio Days, and The Mirror. While the themes of adolescence and becoming a creative person are similar in these very personal films of the great directors, The Fabelmans is unmistakably a film that only Spielberg, an artist at the peak of his talent and vision, could conceive, write, feel and stage. It is a dedication to the main tool of the filmmaker, his camera, to power and magic with which it entertains, delights, opens up new dimensions, stops moments, and highlights the unexpected essence of things, but can also break hearts and lives. Manipulating the camera shots and angles, Spielberg achieves in the best scenes of his semi-biographical movie the Rashomon's effect and opens his soul to the viewer in a way he has never done before. By the power of his talent, its creator captured the important, happy, and painful moments of the search for meaning and put them on screen as a compelling family portrait. Such sincerity and frankness will be appreciated by the viewer, who is ready to accept them. But the same sincerity and frankness can cause bewilderment, misunderstanding, and even rejection. Spielberg must have known about it, but he had to make the movie anyway. In my opinion, The Fabelmans is an honest, beautiful, and memorable film.