by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

Two of the main preoccupations of Steven Spielberg’s career have been childhood, and exploring stories inspired by real events – often with a flexible approach to the truth. These two themes are most crystalized in two of his films – his latest, The Fabelmans, which is a fictionalized version of his own childhood and teen years, and 1987’s Empire of the Sun which is a fictionalized version of the author JG Ballard’s childhood and teen years. 

Spielberg has been praised, since his earliest days in the 1970s, for how he works with child actors and how he encourages his audience to empathize with the child’s point-of-view. The apotheosis of this is widely considered to be 1982’s ET: The Extra-Terrestrial and it’s easy to understand why. In ET, adults are the enemy and not to be trusted – which culminates in the terrifying scene in which men dressed in spacesuits invade the Taylors’ home. Spielberg’s work with Henry Thomas to get his astonishing performance as Elliott can be seen in audition and interview footage from the time. Just recently, on Drew Barrymore’s (who of course played Gertie) talk show, she said that she thought ET was real and Dee Wallace (who plays Mary Taylor) said; “Steven appointed two guys to keep ET alive, so whenever you came over to talk to him, he could react to you.”

In Spielberg’s career he has made around ten movies that have been inspired by true stories – to varying degrees. His historical work has included The Color Purple and Amistad, as well as his highly-praised second world war movies Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. Fatherhood is very much a prominent theme in 2012’s Lincoln, and the concept of home being tied to a place or people is a strong theme in 2005’s Munich. Apart from Empire of the Sun, the most interesting movie in Spielberg’s career that blurs the reality and fiction line more than any other is his 2002 masterpiece Catch Me If You Can.

Catch Me If You Can is about a real-life con-man called Frank W. Abagnale – the entire film is about lies and the creation of characters - but the fraud extends even further than this. The extent to which Abagnale’s book, which has the sub-heading “the true story of a real fake,” is non-fiction has been called into question. The veracity of his claims has been widely disputed, including passing the bar, working as a doctor, and escaping prison. They were all exaggerations or fabrications, but make for a great story – and that is what Spielberg is interested in. Frank’s relationship with his father, played by Christopher Walken, and his mother (Nathalie Baye) are also fascinating, particularly in relation to Spielberg’s own story. There is a heartbreaking scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s Frank goes back to his mother’s house, only to realize that she has a new family.

Spielberg’s gift for conveying the childhood experience and their relationships with the (frequently disappointing) adults in their lives can be explored purely through food and dinner table scenes. The most memorable scenes in movies which feature aliens or monsters can be the simplest interactions between children and adults around a dinner table. In Close Encounters, it is of course when Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy starts to scare his children by obsessively forming mashed potatoes into a mountain, before breaking into sobs because he doesn’t know why he’s doing it. In War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise’s Ray is divorced, and has his children for the same weekend that there happens to be an alien invasion. He manages to get his kids as far as his ex-wife’s house and tries to make them peanut butter sandwiches; “I’m gonna feed you.” He’s trying to hold things together when his daughter tells him she’s allergic to peanut butter and his son says he’s not hungry, prompting him to throw a sandwich at the window.

In ET and Jaws – two of the best scenes in two of the best films of all time are small, perfectly-calibrated moments between children and their parents. In Jaws, right after Brody has been slapped by Mrs. Kintner on the dock, there is a beautifully tender scene with his younger son Sean. Sean mimics Brody’s gestures, watched by his mother Ellen, who is emotional. Brody asks his son to give him a kiss “because I need it.” It’s a gorgeously small moment of Brody just being a father and it adds so much richness to his character.

In ET, after Elliott has first encountered the alien, his family don’t believe him. There is a dinner scene, in which Elliott’s bitterness over his parents’ divorce, as well as his mother Mary’s struggles spill out. Elliott calls his older brother Michael a “penis breath,” prompting Mary to laugh – an extremely relatable moment for parents. Elliott says; “Dad wouldda believed me” which leads to Mary getting upset. Again, an extremely economical few minutes which adds so many layers to the family dynamic and explains so much about who Elliott is. The ages of Gertie, Elliott and Michael are perfect for seeing childhood development. Going from innocence, to (in some cases) confused and rebellious because of being selfish and only understanding how things affect you, to being older and starting to view your parents as human beings with thoughts and feelings, hopes and desires that exist outside of you. This is very much the journey that Sammy Fabelman goes on too.

Two stories which have been adapted so many times they have become akin to traditional fables are Peter Pan and Pinocchio. These two myths are perfect for Spielberg – one is about a boy who refuses to grow up, and one is about a puppet who longs to become a real boy. Spielberg’s twist on the Pinocchio character was one of his best (but vastly underrated) films; AI: Artificial Intelligence. In this absolutely devastating film, Haley Joel Osment plays David – a robot boy who is adopted by a family while their child is ill and placed in suspended animation. A cure is found for Martin, and a jealous rivalry forms between the two ‘boys.’ There is an earlier dinner scene with just David who loudly bursts out laughing when he sees spaghetti dangling from his mother’s mouth. After Martin returns, he goads David into eating spinach, which causes him to break – with the skin on one side of his face seemingly melting off his robot interior. Once again, Spielberg uses dinner table scenes to quickly show developments in character arcs.

The other way Spielberg shows the point-of-view of children, and childlike wonder is in his scenes featuring feasts or banquets. The most well-known of these is in his spin on Peter Pan – 1991’s Hook. The lost boys invite a grown-up Peter (Robin Williams) to a long table covered in bowls, spoons etc but there is no food. They tell Peter he must imagine the food, which he initially dismisses, until he manages to conjure the food from his imagination and an enormous food fight ensues. In several cases, the food is either respite from – or can lead to – danger. In Jurassic Park, Tim has an ‘electrifying experience,’ and he and Lex are helped by reluctant father-figure Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to finally make it back to the visitor’s center. There, they find a sumptuous buffet full of delicious desserts. This brief celebratory moment, of getting to dive into such a feast (as only children can), is interrupted by Lex’s shaking green jello signifying that they have been found by the deadly raptors. The banquet that Indy, Willie, and Short Round are invited to at Pankot Palace in 1984’s Temple of Doom is filled with wonder for the excitable orphan (played by Ke Huy Quan). Short Round is further amazed when the maharajah is revealed to be a child of a similar age to him. The banquet ends up consisting of live snakes, beetles, eyeball soup, and chilled monkey brains. This scene (and much of the film) is culturally insensitive, to say the very least, but there’s no doubt that it’s the scene that stands out the most if you’re watching it as a kid, and the one that remains burned in the brain for years afterwards.

In Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale’s British school boy Jamie is separated from his parents when Shanghai is invaded by the Japanese in 1941. He makes it back to his home, which has been abandoned by the servants and tries to hold out there for as long as he can, but the food quickly runs out. One night he finds a treasure box of jewel-colored liquor chocolates to gorge on. Later when in the prisoner-of-war camp, he sensibly advises his reluctant care-giver Mrs. Victor (Miranda Richardson) to eat the weevils in their rice rations because “Doctor Rawlins says we need the protein.” The whole film features long stretches of near-starvation, followed by brief moments of feasting – whether its on the bowl of hot rice that Basie (John Malkovich) gives Jamie, or at the end when the Americans drop metal canisters filled with spam and Hershey bars after the camps are liberated.

Empire of the Sun is based on JG Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel, which was heavily influenced by his own experiences as a child and teenager. The protagonist is named James Graham, which is Ballard’s first name and middle name. He is first nicknamed Jamie by his parents, then when he gets to the POW camp and starts to mature, he prefers Jim – especially as this is what his hero, the American renegade Basie, calls him. The main difference between what really happened to Ballard – as can be read in his autobiography Miracles of Life – and what happens to Jamie is that Ballard was not separated from his parents. 

As much praise as Spielberg gets for his portrayals of children in the likes of ET, Empire of the Sun is rarely brought up because it is often completely overlooked in his filmography. Spielberg and his cinematographer Allen Daviau (who passed away in 2020) center Jamie and his child’s point-of-view of war at all times. The most astonishing aspect is that the 12-year-old Bale so brilliantly portrays the naïve 10-year-old ‘Jamie’ and (after a 4-year time-jump) the 14-year-old world-weary ‘Jim.’ We see a boy who loves planes and idolizes Japanese pilots enter the camp, and then there is a jump to the tail-end of the war in 1945. The British are exhausted and sick, their privileged colonial lives have come undone, and the Japanese are getting desperate as they’re aware that they’re losing this fight. 

After the time-jump, Jim is more worldly in many ways, having been raised by the conflicting mentors of Basie and Dr. Rawlins. He has also been going through puberty with a total lack of privacy – just a thin rag hung as a curtain to separate him from Mr. and Mrs. Victor. The notion of trustworthy and untrustworthy adults is very much a theme here too, as it is in ET. Basie is an opportunist, who uses Jim to help him acquire items and maintain his position as the head honcho in the American dorm. Even after everything Jim has been through, he still isn’t fully matured and can still only view the war in terms of how it relates directly to him (much like Elliott in ET). For example, when the atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, he believes it’s the soul of Mrs. Victor ascending to heaven.

In Spielberg’s latest work, The Fabelmans, he takes the same approach to his own memoir as Ballard did – by changing all of the names. Steven becomes Sammy, and yes, it’s a little heavy-handed that he brands himself a fable-man, but Spielberg has earned the poetic license. We initially meet Sammy as a fairly young child, when his parents take him to the movie theater for the first time. Sammy is scared of it being dark, and the people (on the screen) being huge. It's the Greatest Show on Earth, which features a spectacular fiery train crash – which leaves Sammy equally terrified and excited. Much as Jamie views war via the glamorous pilots, and sets fire to one of his toy planes to replicate a crash, Sammy immediately sets about recreating the train crash at home with his models, and filming it.

Like in Empire, there is a time-jump in The Fabelmans to a teenaged Sammy – and Gabriel LaBelle plays him from approximately 14 to 18 years old. Sammy’s relationships with both of his parents shift throughout the film. His mother is more artistic and flighty – encouraging him in his creative endeavors - and his father is more technical and scientific, and wants Sammy to have a good education and good job. As we’ve seen in many Spielberg movies – dinner table scenes are extremely important in The Fabelmans and they are a time and place when many of these frustrations come out. But Sammy’s mother’s table-clearing and dishwashing method - picking up the plastic tablecloth covered in paper plates at the end of each meal - means that the slate is wiped clean each time. Sammy must also contend with which adults to trust – there’s Uncle Boris (an extremely impactful cameo from Judd Hirsch), and ‘Uncle’ Bennie (Seth Rogen), his father’s best friend.

Some people may wonder why Ballard and Spielberg chose slightly fictionalized versions of their own stories, rather than slavishly sticking to real names, places and timelines. There’s a degree of protection for yourself and your loved ones, of course, that comes with the distance of different names. There’s also the truth that real life is messy, and especially when it comes to film, the narrative needs to fit a coherent structure. In Empire, Jamie arrives at the camp, there’s the time-jump and he becomes Jim at the 1-hour 10-minute mark, then there is 50 minutes set at the camp, followed by around 30 minutes after the camp breaks down and they leave. Real life does not neatly fit a three-act structure such as this and some things need to be changed to fit. Similarly, in The Fabelmans, the movie is divided between the places where the family lives – in New Jersey, Arizona, and California – which were all the places the real Spielberg grew up.

It's also important that Empire is JG Ballard’s memory of his childhood and adolescence – at an extremely stressful and vulnerable period of his life. It’s a child’s point-of-view of a specific community (British ex-pats in China) in the war and therefore extremely subjective. The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s memory of his adolescence, again at what was frequently a stressful time. His parents’ marriage was breaking down, and he was subjected to antisemitic bullying in high school. It’s extremely important to realize that we are seeing his mother and father (brilliantly portrayed by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) via Sammy’s (and Steven’s) eyes. Spielberg’s camera lens already offers one filter, but by having the ‘character’ of Sammy there, this offers another layer of distortion and distance from reality.

While Spielberg is keen to emphasize that The Fabelmans is by no means a swan-song, it certainly feels like the culmination and crystallization of so many of the themes he has explored in his career. Many connections can be made between this semi-autobiographical memoir and many of Spielberg’s best-known movies. But if you’re interested in Spielberg’s relationship with truth, and memory – you should look at Catch Me If You Can, and especially Empire of the Sun.