«The Fabelmans»: Spielberg puts his dreams on hold

The «king of entertainment» returns with a semi-autobiographical film. The Fabelmans is not very original in its storytelling, but it's so human that it's a wonder to behold. A simple, lively story, with a screenplay by Spielberg.

After the release of Babylon last month, another declaration of love for cinema is born. Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans an intimate film inspired by his own childhood, steeped in the seventh art.

We follow Sammy, a young American who grows up with dreams of the silver screen. His parents, Mitzi and Burt Fabelman, took him to see his first film at an early age. After that, the boy never let go of the camera, which he asked for for Hannukah. He's always having fun staging his scout troop and his family. Aware that their son's hobby is becoming a growing career opportunity, his parents deal with it in a very different way. And Sammy will try to keep his dream alive, sometimes brought down to earth, sometimes sent to seventh heaven.

The director's view of his childhood could not be more sincere. We feel his immense tenderness towards his family. Yet the film never lapses into mawkishness. Spielberg also confronts a heavy family secret. For the director, this film was the ultimate way to «get closer to his family». He did the same with his audience.

Doing a lot with a little

In The Fabelmans, Spielberg doesn't hesitate to depict his first steps as a filmmaker with self-mockery, via his main character. It's the weekend. Sammy goes to the Arizona desert to shoot a war film with forty friends. The kid cobbles together an array of special effects, each more inventive than the last, to recreate bloody battles that become highly comical. Aspiring director Sammy also attempts to direct his lead actor for the final scene. He's dealing with a great simpleton, but one who forgets his role and ends up giving the performance of a lifetime. Spielberg has just filmed a nanardesque production of his alter ego and made it one of the funniest scenes in the film.

Changing registers, the mother rehearses a Beethoven piece in front of her family. It was a performance of mastery and emotion, but the audience remembered most the clicking of Mitzi's fingernails on the piano keys. An evocative moment in the personality of a woman as talented as she is giddy.

The film is punctuated by scenes that lend themselves to both laughter and tears. The whole is guided by camera movements that offer a great deal of closeness and identification with the characters. The director is also ably assisted by John Williams, who, as is often the case, makes his long-time colleague's film sound even truer.

An irreparable tear

Nothing seems to be able to happen to the endearing Fabelmans, but the family is slowly disintegrating because of its antagonist: art. As Uncle Boris tells Sammy, «you're doomed to be torn between your art and your family». This duality is embodied by the Fabelman parents.

Burt is an engineer, with all the pragmatism that goes with it. For him, his son's cinema is nothing more than a fad, which he will try to extinguish in favor of a more prosaic activity. It's hard to blame this ex-war veteran, sometimes a bit of a killjoy, who nonetheless holds the family at arm's length. He is played by Paul Dano, who brings a touch of candor to the family man. Mitzi, the mother, is a professional pianist. An incurable dreamer, she lets herself be guided by her art and her emotions, much to the chagrin of her family. Nevertheless, she is a loving mother who will do anything to nurture her son's dreams. Michelle Williams is perfect in the role, and a real heartbreaker.

The duo forms the narrative dynamic of the film, where children's and adult worlds collide. As is often the case with Spielberg, the dream wins out in the end. Not without cost.

When autobiography is universal

The Fabelmans offers a tale of family initiation which, on paper, doesn't really seem to have the potential to bring audiences back to the cinema. In the end, it delivers two and a half hours of rare sincerity.

Steven Spielberg seems irresistible in his ability to draw viewers into his story. This time, it's not thanks to the imaginative prowess for which he is renowned (JurassicPark, E.T...), because The Fabelmans relies on an unadorned, simply visceral narrative.

And while Spielberg's approach to telling his own story in a film could have been curiously self-centered, in the end it gives rise to a film with universal appeal, one that we can easily relate to.

Write to the author: jean.friedrich@leregardlibre.com

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