Minority Report: The Last Great Spielberg Film?

Minority Report not only happens to be the last film screened for this class, but it is also the last Steven Spielberg movie that I consider to be one of his great films. Its superb story and equally impressive execution make the film innovative, interesting, and one that will continue to be talked about for years. Watching this film for the first time in an academic setting, I was amazed that I hadn't previously noticed the overwhelming number of references to eyes, seeing, lack of sight, etc. Clearly all of these things are important to the plot and themes of the film, but it is absolutely amazing to see how many times Spielberg brings up or refers to the idea of eyes or sight throughout the movie, with allusions in literally every scene. For example, after the film begins with one of Agatha's pre-visions ("seeing" the future), there is a close up on Agatha's bright blue eyes, followed by more of her pre-vision where we see someone cutting out the eyes from an Abraham Lincoln cardboard cutout. That's a lot of eyes in just the first couple minutes of the film, and it continues like this throughout the rest of Minority Report. References such as these are a small part of what makes the film so well integrated, creating its "organic unity" as Warren Buckland would say.

However, surprisingly, Buckland argues that Minority Report as a whole ultimately does not manifest organic unity, despite such acheivements as "effective narrational strategies" and "links between scenes." Buckland claims that the film doesn't acheive organic unity because of its numerous "gaping plot holes" as well as Spielberg's use of "inappropriate" or "unmotivated" humor. He says that this inappropriate humor leads to a loss of the film's credibility, and "ends up (along with the plot holes) destroying the film's overall unity." While I can agree with Buckland that Minority Report does have a signficant number of plot holes, I think that this is forgivable since nearly every science fiction film, especially those that have to do with predicting or changing the future, are always wrought with them. I don't think that such plot holes ruin the story in Minority Report or make it any less compelling. I feel the same way about Spielberg's use of humor. I find it odd that Buckland would argue that this ruins the unity of the film, since quirky and out-of-place humor has become one of Steven Spielberg's trademarks, and it hasn't ruined a number of other great Spielberg achievements. (For example, take the scene where Goeth is hung at the end of Schindler's List and the stool must be kicked out from under him before he finally falls.)

In any case, I disagree with Buckland that Minority Report ultimately fails to attain organic unity, since I don't think that something as minor as humorous moments or insignifcant plot holes can detract from the other amazing things that Spielberg does in the film, including things that Buckland highlights, like the "smooth integration of cinematography and set design" or "virtuoso camera movements." Use of techniques such as this, especially in the brilliant opening scene, make introductions of characters and enormous amounts of exposition seem both subtle and entertaining, something that is very hard to pull off even for the most experienced of directors. Although Steven Spielberg's more recent films have not shown quite as much technical mastery or brilliance of storytelling, I am sure that we will have another instant classic from Spielberg in the coming years. Since, as Minority Report shows, he remains one of the most talented and promising directors working today. And though many remember him for his early masterpieces like Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark, I believe that he will continue to direct outstanding motion pictures in the future; and who knows, perhaps the best of Steven Spielberg is yet to come!

Artificial Ending: How Spielberg Ruined Kubrick's Story

Okay, so the title of this blog entry might be a little unnecessarily harsh. However, I do think that the ending of Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence essentially ruins the rest of the film (which has a fittingly dark and mature tone given the subject matter), by "artificially" tacking on a typical Spielbergian "happy ending." I really wanted to like A.I., and throughout the film I enjoyed the interesting dynamic of human characters that were more "robot-like" than their mechanical counterparts. I started to really get into it, loving the Pinocchio connections, and if the film had ended with David underwater talking to the Blue Fairy and asking to be made into a real boy for the rest of eternity, I would have thought that the film was a near masterpiece of a tragedy. Unfortunately, Spielberg added on about twenty more minutes of absurdity, with mind-reading super-robots that could bring humans back from the dead but only for one day (for some unknown reason). This allowed David to finally see his mother once again and have her treat him like a real boy, turning the film from a tragedy into a perfect example of Spielberg's oft-criticized overly wish-fullfilling happy endings.

Despite there were a lot of things in A.I. that I found very interesting. The question of whether robots could ever feel emotion is a very compelling idea, and I thought that Spielberg did an excellent job of exploring that in this film. Since most science fiction films that involve robots attaining artificial intelligence usually have those robots then turn against humans and trying to destroy them (as in The Terminator series or I, Robot), I thought that the choice to show robots from a sympathetic perspective was very innovative. This became especially clear when the meccas were "mistreated" by their human counterparts, almost as an inferior or rejected race of people. The Flesh Fair as well as the interactions between David and Martin (and his friends) truly showcase the potential for human cruelty to those who are different from us. Although, is it even reasonable to call it cruelty if they're being "cruel" to what are essentially just machines?

Overall, I guess A.I. wasn't a total disappointment, since the film raised a number of deep and moving questions, and the performances were great across the board (especially Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, and that's saying something coming from me, since I don't usually like him as an actor). However, I do wish that I could just chop off the last portion of the film or pretend that it never happened. I wonder how similar (or different) the film would have been if Kubrick had directed it as planned, but I would bet that the ending is definitely one thing he would have improved upon. Either way, after giving it some more thought, I don't really believe that Spielberg "ruined" Kubrick's story, since he did many things very well. And perhaps, since I have only seen the film once, I will grow to appreciate it more upon repeated viewings. Maybe next time I'll just accidentally press "STOP" twenty minutes early...