Abstract
In attempting to understand the degree to which a filmmaker controls the construction of narrative (Bordwell’s ‘intentionality’), we also need to ascertain which agent or agents are responsible for specific parts of a film: the director, the producer, the writer, the star, etc. A contrasting perspective can be seen in Janet Staiger’s (2003, p. 31) consideration of W. K. Wimsatt and M. C. Beardsley’s ‘intentional fallacy’ where the emphasis on the meaning in the narrative is placed with the spectator. Gregory Currie (1995, pp. 245–249) forgoes his ‘Real Author Intentionalism’ for ‘Implied Author Intentionalism’ suggesting that how works are interpreted is more important than authorial intention. Torben Grodal (2004) considers the links between intentionality, consciousness and free will and the claim that these are superseded by ‘… language, culture, discourses, or unconscious traumas’ (p. 27). Arguing for the role of intentionality in the creative process he points out ‘Somehow, the fact that the function of consciousness and intentions are influenced by non-conscious factors has been interpreted as if consciousness has no role whatever’. Staiger (2000, pp. 37–39) constructs ‘perverse spectators’—her term for audiences that do not necessarily perceive or react as expected. Criticising the ‘normative description’ as a blanket definition for the nature of the audience, she lists seven instances of inaccuracies in the way audiences are defined. These range from their artificial construct at the hands of scholars to a lack of recognition in audience variety, erroneous assumptions about why audiences watch films and inaccuracy in the assumed knowledge of audiences.
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Notes
- 1.
King is clearly referencing Spielberg’s own experience of his parents’ divorce during his childhood.
- 2.
Spielberg as signature applies literally in the case of the Universal Studios series of laser discs noted in the introduction. Released in the late 1990s, they were marketed as the ‘Signature Collection’ with Spielberg’s signature featured prominently as part of the artwork. Spielberg’s signature also appears on a recently released Blu-ray set from Universal , Steven Spielberg Director’s Collection.
- 3.
For example, as Raymond Bellour in The Analysis of Film (2000) illustrates in his prominent, shot-by-shot analyses of scenes from Hitchcock’s films first published in the 1960s.
- 4.
Always also under-performed at the box office. As already noted, The BFG is a recent big-budget production that delivered disappointing box-office returns.
- 5.
- 6.
Khan did not edit E.T. as he was cutting Poltergeist (1982), which was written and produced by Spielberg.
- 7.
Bordwell has made a similar observation of this director.
- 8.
Julia Philips (1991) claims that while taking publicity stills with the camera team during the production of Close Encounters, Spielberg refused to allow any photos to be taken of her looking through the film camera.
- 9.
Williams did not compose The Color Purple or Spielberg’s segment of The Twilight Zone Movie (1985) and he was unavailable for Bridge of Spies because of illness. He did compose the score for the two Amazing Stories episodes directed by Spielberg.
- 10.
Melissa Mathison wrote both E.T. and The BFG.
- 11.
A.I.’s box office was considered disappointing by Spielberg standards and the film was harshly criticised by some critics for supposedly distorting Kubrick’s vision—criticism rejected by Spielberg.
- 12.
Coverage refers to the camera shots used to shoot or ‘cover’ a scene.
- 13.
This conception of the camera as replicating spectator perception is revisited in cognitive theory and examined in Chap. 8.
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Mairata, J. (2018). Spielberg as Filmmaker. In: Steven Spielberg's Style by Stealth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69081-0_3
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