The Fabelmans

2022 - 9 - 11

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

In 'The Fabelmans,' Steven Spielberg Himself Is the Star (The New York Times)

But it's Michelle Williams who burns brightest in this film based on Spielberg's childhood, which just premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

[“Bridge of Spies”](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/12/steven-spielberg-bridge-of-spies-new-york-film-festival-premiere) and “Lincoln,” the Cannes premieres of “ [E.T. Even Spielberg, sensing all the hype in the room, sought to downplay speculation that “The Fabelmans” served as any sort of magnum-opus finale. [late mother, Leah](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/leah-adler-dead-mother-steven-spielberg-was-97-978312/), Mitzi is a dramatic personality, prone to flights of fancy and intense mood swings, and at any given moment, she’ll laugh, cry, sing or pack the kids into the car for an impromptu tornado chase. “Don’t believe any of that!” His dad, Burt (Paul Dano), is too swept up in his computer-programming job to understand Sammy’s artistic inclinations, but his mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), is a free spirit who never got to realize her dreams of working as a pianist and encourages Sammy to follow his bliss. And as the family moves from New Jersey to Arizona and then finally to California, the ties that bind begin to fray. Their mother-son bond is strong, and when Sammy films her dancing on a family trip and later shows her the edited footage, Mitzi beams. That claim would appear to sweep away the New York Film Festival showings of Based on Spielberg’s But Sammy sometimes sees too much: As he gets older, he notices that Mitzi’s strong bond with her husband’s best friend (Seth Rogen) borders on an emotional affair. Even Spielberg himself got carried away in the madness. And at the Saturday-night premiere, the collective excitement was making people lose their minds.

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Image courtesy of "ABC News"

Steven Spielberg debuts his movie memoir 'The Fabelmans' (ABC News)

Steven Spielberg premiered his much-anticipated “The Fabelmans” to thunderous applause at the Toronto International Film Festival, debuting his most ...

“I made all the behind-the-scenes stuff in this movie much better than the actual films I made when I was Sammy's age," Spielberg said with a smile. “It will take you to into a place of safety and right through safety is something unexpected and scary," said Kushner. “The goal was to capture a life lived.” It was Spielberg's first film at TIFF, and he said while introducing the film that it was his first time ever in a film festival's official lineup. The two-and-a-half hour film was immediately received as a grand and personal opus for Spielberg, all but certain to play a staring role at the Academy Awards. And that was worth making the film for.”

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Image courtesy of "Vanity Fair"

Spielberg Shares an Emotional, Complex Self-Portrait In 'The ... (Vanity Fair)

The 75-year-old directing icon debuts a movie about the man behind the movies, at once both revealing and politely measured.

That tension is vividly described to him in a masterful scene featuring Judd Hirsch as Sam’s oddball great uncle, a former circus performer who drifted into the movie business in the 1920s and sees in Sam the pain of an artist. In Spielberg, Kushner, and LaBelle’s portraiture, Sam is a decent kid, but we can also see him receding into the privacy of his passions. The man who’s made so many indelible images of childhood awe also has an oeuvre full of violence and horror, but often delivered with a formal dispassion. The film concerns a boy named Sam, whom we first meet when he is young and scared to go into the movies, where, he’s heard, everyone on screen is big and scary. Once his parents finally coax him into the theater, to see The Greatest Show on Earth, something burrows into Sam’s head and heart. Steven Spielberg has probably earned the right to some public self-reflection, which he does in rich abundance in his new film, The Fabelmans, which premiered here at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.

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Image courtesy of "Los Angeles Times"

Steven Spielberg's 'The Fabelmans': What to know from premiere (Los Angeles Times)

At a Q&A after the world premiere screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, Spielberg and his cast shared some insight into the movie, which is ...

And that was worth making the film for.” pragmatism, the patience of my dad, the deep, profound kindness of my father and the genius that he had in the world of computer design.” “And it also brought my sisters, Annie and Susie and Nancy, closer to me than I ever thought possible. “Bullying is only a small aspect of my life,” he said. He said when it finally dawned on him how large the part he’d been cast in was, he said, “It was very spooky. ... It really reminded me of my grandfather as well, so I was trying to bring something from my life with me. I think it was a Steven Spielberg movie. It’s not a problem; it’s who they are.” [and] as things got worse and worse, I just felt if I was going to leave anything behind, what are the things I really need to resolve about my mom and my dad and my sisters — who are here tonight. Tony kind of performed the function of a therapist, and I was his patient. But just how “personal” is it, really? “Tony [Kushner, his co-writer] and I started talking about this possibility when we were making ‘Lincoln’ [2012].

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Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

The Fabelmans review – Steven Spielberg's sweet but sanitised ... (The Guardian)

Toronto film festival: the director goes back to his childhood for an endearing, if overlong, film with an Oscar-tipped Michelle Williams as his mother.

As he grows, we spend the majority of the film with his teenage self, played by an excellent Gabriel LaBelle, as he wrestles with his passion while grappling with the slow decay of his parents’ marriage, played by Paul Dano and While Spielberg avoids the easy, soapy conflicts such a situation could lead to (there are barely any moments of characters raising their voices), he also avoids showing us the bigger, messier picture. Determined to recreate the train crash that has filled his nightmares, to control and understand his fear, he begins a journey of home movies, both encouraged by his parents while reminded that a hobby should only take over so much of his time.

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Image courtesy of "TMZ"

Steven Spielberg's Movie 'The Fabelmans' Gets Standing O at TIFF (TMZ)

Steven Spielberg has done it again -- his latest flick got a standing ovation at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend ... and the Oscar buzz is so loud ...

Considering the Academy's long history of loving/voting for movies about movies, this one is sure to do well come awards season. Essentially, it's Spielberg's love letter to cinema -- and based on the response it's getting so far ... According to critics and journos who were there ... Twitter Tweet Unavailable and story about how he got into filmmaking. and the Oscar buzz is so loud you'd think it was a chainsaw.

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Image courtesy of "Deadline"

Steven Spielberg Talks “Daunting” Experience Of Bringing Teen ... (Deadline)

Semi-autobiographical feature The Fabelmans delves into director's own family life and teenage experiences that led him into filmmaking.

I was the very last person to cut on film in Hollywood.” [Tony Kushner](https://deadline.com/tag/tony-kushner/) into his “therapy” and “counsellor” as they tried to get the story out of him. You literally had to glue the film together. You had to sit there with a bud splicer and scape the emulsion off in order to get a seal when you put glue on it. I know the material and I’ve known all the characters my entire life, but I found it to be a very daunting experience,” Spielberg told a Toronto press conference. “As we started working on this, I realised there would be no aesthetic distance between me and the experience.

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Image courtesy of "Los Angeles Times"

'The Fabelmans,' 'Glass Onion' shine at Toronto Film Festival (Los Angeles Times)

Steven Spielberg's warm semi-autobiographical memory piece and Rian Johnson's twisty sequel to "Knives Out" deliver old-school razzle-dazzle at the Toronto ...

The politics are subtler and sharper; the scrumptious eat-the-rich buffet of “Knives Out” has given way to a pointed sendup of the contemporary billionaire class and the hacks and cronies who cling to it like barnacles. It’s one more reason I was grateful to be in Toronto on Saturday night to catch this oddly complementary double bill, this inadvertent snapshot of a medium in flux. The first “Knives Out” grossed more than $300 million worldwide, a rare and deservedly robust total for an original property. And so “The Fabelmans” becomes a gradually developing road map to Spielberg’s career, in which some of his most cherished career motifs snap carefully into place. The pandemic is in full swing, one of several nods to current events in a comedy whose jabs are always fastidiously up-to-the-minute. “The Fabelmans,” a lovingly fictionalized re-creation of a life lived in thrall to the power of cinema, makes that theme explicit from the start. “Glass Onion” continues to give America’s entitled scumbags their due, though this time the focus isn’t on a family but rather an inner circle of self-styled disruptors. But to get hung up on exactly what did and didn’t happen seems especially limiting in a movie that, like most magic tricks, relies on a sly weave of substance and illusion. More than once we see Mitzi huddling in the dark to watch one of her son’s short films, and each time what she sees takes her by surprise, not always pleasantly so. (He’s played in his teenage years, and for most of the movie’s 2½-hour running time, by Gabriel LaBelle.) That ending was one of a few enchantments in store for audiences fortunate enough to find themselves at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night. Spielberg, who’s been criticized over the years for his supposedly weak kickers, sticks the landing here with a wit and grace that might leave you wondering, “How’d he do that?,” even as it becomes clear he couldn’t have done it any other way.

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Image courtesy of "Screen International"

Steven Spielberg on TIFF premiere 'The Fabelmans': 'I set out to tell ... (Screen International)

Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner used a TIFF press conference on Sunday (September 11) to discuss co-writing The Fabelmans on Zoom in the pandemic, ...

“I’ve been very sad in my life at times, all of us have, and divorce is something that traumatises you, so I set out to tell the story of my mom and dad’s divorce. The Oscar winner continued, “I was the last person to cut on film in Hollywood and I miss the evolution. Loss and danger and risk is part of existence and so in the writing experience I just found that, thinking about Steven’s life. “We’ve been working together now for 20 years and I think the thing that makes him who he is and makes those movies as great as they are is that there’s an emotional depth and power in everything he does. But I miss the smell of the celluloid and getting your hands and cutting yourself on the Butt Splicer. “Not a lot of people were going out and shooting 8mm and it was physical, it was a craft.

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