With a career spanning more than four decades, Steven Spielberg has a number of Hollywood box office hits under his belt. Whether its soldiers, dinosaurs, or aliens, the US director has a talent for bringing any character to life. As US author Dean Kowalski put it, “Few movie directors have had a greater impact on popular culture than Steven Spielberg.”
His work Ready Player One, a sci-fi adventure, scored 9.2 out of 10 on Chinese social networking website Douban.
The movie tells a story set in 2045 about people who escape their tough reality by visiting a virtual world where imagination is the only limit. Ready Player One poses a question to its characters, and indeed to those who watch it: With a readily available world of fantasy to escape to, is it possible to strike a balance between real life and virtual reality?
In the film, people find it hard to say goodbye to their virtual life every night, because “the world of 2045 can no longer provide the social interaction and human connection they crave”, The Guardian noted.
This is a typical way Spielberg reflects both reality and humanity through his movies, drawing attention to how society could possibly change to work better.
Spielberg believes that “the way you create a better future is by studying the past”, as he said during a speech at Harvard University in 2016.
His Jewish roots and his fathers experience as a soldier in World War II encouraged him to study the history of the Holocaust. In Schindlers List (1993), Spielberg tells the story of this terrible incident through the eyes of German industrialist Oskar Schindler.
The director feels that one of the most fulfilling things in his career is having “the public discussing history again”, he told the National Endowment for the Humanities.
One of Spielbergs best-known works, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), presents sentiments about the Cold War through the loving story of a child and an alien from outer space. “If a young boy can bond with a life-form from a distant world, there is absolutely hope for one to be at peace with his fellow man, sharing the same small planet,” Matthew Honovic of Long Island Film Society commented.
To the average person, Spielbergs movies are nothing more than entertainment. “However different their subjects, his productions have a common thematic DNA of humanity, so we are enlightened as well as entertained,” Tom Brokaw of Time magazine wrote. “The power of his films remained long after the closing credits, and so it is with his career.”
從影四十多年来,史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格执导了多部好莱坞票房大片。不论是大兵、恐龙还是外星人,这位美国导演有着能让任何角色栩栩如生的天赋。正如美国作家迪恩·科瓦尔斯基所言:“几乎没有哪个电影导演能比史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格对流行文化的影响大。”
他的作品《头号玩家》是一部科幻冒险片,在中国社交网站豆瓣网上获得9.2分(满分10分)的高分。
电影讲述了一个发生在2045年的故事。为了逃避残酷的现实,人们前往一个虚拟的世界,在那个世界,凡是你能想到的都能得以实现。《头号玩家》向影片中的角色,甚至是影片的观众抛出一个问题:如果有一个现成的能够供人逃避现实的幻想世界,人们有可能平衡现实生活和虚拟现实吗?
影片中,人们每晚都对虚拟生活恋恋不舍,因为“2045年的世界无法给人们提供他们渴望的社交互动以及人际关系”。《卫报》指出。
这是斯皮尔伯格通过电影反映现实和人性的典型手法,让人们关注如何能够让社会变得更好。
斯皮尔伯格认为“了解过去才能创造更好的未来”,这正是2016年他在哈佛大学的演讲中说过的话。
斯皮尔伯格的犹太血统以及他父亲的“二战”从军经历促使他去研究第二次世界大战中纳粹对犹太人的大屠杀的历史。在电影《辛德勒的名单》(1993)中,斯皮尔伯格通过德国工业家奥斯卡·辛德勒的视角,讲述了这一可怕的事件。
这位导演认为,他职业生涯中最有意义的一件事便是“让公众再次探讨历史”,他曾对美国国家人文基金会这样表示。
《外星人E.T.》(1982)是斯皮尔伯格最知名的电影之一。影片是通过一个孩子和一个来自外太空的外星人之间的爱的故事,来呈现对冷战的观点。“如果一个小男孩能和一个来自遥远星球的生命建立起亲密的关系,那么人们之间也绝对有可能和平共处,共享这个小小的星球。”长岛电影协会的马修·霍洛维科评论道。
对于普通人而言,斯皮尔伯格的电影不过是消遣罢了。“不论电影的主题有多么不同,他的作品中都带着共有的人性主题基因,所以我们在得到消遣的同时也受到了启发。”《时代周刊》的汤姆·布罗考写道:“影片结束之后,他的作品所带来的影响力依然长久不衰,正如他长青的事业一样。”