For the rabid movie fanatics
among us, lashing together an all-time top-10 list
can be brain-baking
torture.
The problem, of course, is the
enormous quantity of transcendent, life-affirming,
wholly wondrous filmed entertainment.
How does one leave out any of James Cameron’s
early work? Or Stanley Kubrick’s? Or Frank Capra’s? Or the Coen Brothers’?
Yet, inexplicably, a whopping 110
In Focus readers rose to the challenge.
We didn’t make it easy. We provided no list of nominees. We didn’t
limit the field to comedies or dramas or actioners. We barely bothered
to concoct a ballot. And still these brave 110 took
it upon themselves to evaluate nothing
less than a century of world-beating cinema.
They pondered and culled and narrowed
and reranked and made hundreds of impossible choices. “Fight Club” or “Pulp Fiction”? “The Graduate” or “Dr.
Strangelove”? “Sunset Boulevard” or “Some Like It Hot”? “Casablanca” or “It’s
A Wonderful Life”? “A Night at the Opera” or “The Wizard
of Oz”? “Metropolis” or “The General”? “Raiders” or “Terminator”? “Godfather” or “Jaws?”
Here’s how the tally works. Any film squeezed into a top 10 list was considered
as worthy as any other, the 10th film on each list carrying as much weight as
the first. The film that appeared on the most lists (Hint: It’s
got robots and spaceships in it!) is the top-ranked. Simple.
Famed online critic Alexandra DuPont,
who routinely, wittily and thoroughly evaluates current
and classic cinema for dvdjournal.com and aintitcool.com,
offers her
thoughts on why these 10 films might have inspired such ardor among
this magazine’s
readership. – Ed.
1. Star Wars
These days, it’s tough to write reverently about
the mythic underpinnings of “Star Wars,” that “Lord
of the Rings” for the shag-carpet set.
For one thing, all that Joseph Campbell
hero’s-journey/mythological-archetype
claptrap has already been packaged and sold to you by Lucasfilm’s
marketing department. [Now available
at a Barnes & Noble
near you: “Star
Wars: The Magic of Myth” (hardcover) and “Star
Wars: The Power of Myth” (softcover). Then of course
there’s the Joseph Campbell/Bill Moyers “Power
of Myth” book/miniseries combo, which Lucas crashes
like a drunken frat boy. Try to imagine Richard Donner
publishing a book titled “The Themes and Archetypes
I Was Exploring in “Superman,” and you’re
beginning to grasp the absurd arrogance at play.] And
of course, in the wake of “Episode
I,” many of us feel more than a little chagrined
over our (only recently) boxed-up collections of “Star
Wars”-themed games, books, action-figure playsets,
comics, soundtrack albums, die-cast replica spaceships,
and blinking LED gewgaws.
But still. Strip away the merchandising
bureaucracy, and who hasn’t pined for a Luke Skywalker-style call
to destiny? [I had the good fortune
to watch the “Star
Wars Special Edition” in London at the Empire Theatre
in 1997. Not only was the screen roughly the size of the
Death Star, but the English were letting down their collective
reserve and enjoying the film as if it were a boisterous
footy match. My favorite moment was when Hamill rushed
into Princess Leia’s prison cell and doofily exclaimed, “I’m
Luke Skywalker – I’m here to rescue you!” The
audience laughed sort of derisively, but then they immediately
burst into warm applause that erupted into loud cheers.
You just couldn’t help but root for the Tatooine
dork.] Who hasn’t wanted to feel alive like
that?
The plot structure in “Star Wars” is actually
pretty goofy – the hero, for one thing, doesn’t
show up for something like a half-hour. But Lucas’ genius
is that he creates a perfect narrative snowball. The film
gathers characters like lint – two fugitive robots
run into a dead-end farmboy and are found by an aging general
who leads them to a mercenary who takes them to a princess
who gets them sucked into an entire resistance movement.
And the stakes escalate relentlessly. Luke sets out one
morning to find a runaway robot; seemingly by day’s
end, he’s blowing up a space station that destroys
entire planets.
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
It strikes me that
all the movies on this
In Focus top-10 list engage
in an unusual amount of “world-building” – transporting
viewers to fully designed, culturally foreign universes.
Nobody on the list goes further with his world-building
than George Lucas, and yet “A New Hope’s” characters
and situations are also totally relevant, human and inspiring.
It’s an extraordinary achievement.John Williams puts
it nicely in his liner-notes interview for the “Raiders
of the Lost Ark” soundtrack CD: “It was a moment
almost of revelation about Harrison Ford ... . [He] created
a memorable American film character on a sort of Bogart
level, something that really found its way into the cultural
fabric.”Yes, Messrs. Spielberg and Lucas crafted
a perfect collection of set pieces, with nary an editing
or camera-placement misstep.
Yes, the music is note-perfect and sticks pleasantly
in one’s
mental craw. Yes, the Lucas/Kaufman/Kasdan story – an
adventure movie that’s all good parts – is
so obviously correct that it seems as if Our Lord had
already written it and they simply dug it up, dusted
it off and
started
filming.
But it’s Harrison Ford’s hot
blood that gives “Raiders” its
heartbeat. Few actors have ever interlocked with a part
more solidly that Ford did with Indiana Jones.[In
the two decades since “Raiders” was released, I
can only think of a few American actors who’ve taken
the reins of their genre roles with as much assurance:
Christopher Reeve as Superman, Russell Crowe as Maximus,
Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and, well, Harrison Ford as Han
Solo. It’s a wee little fantasy pinnacle.] The actor’s
larger-than-life mannerisms – the pointing Finger
of Doom, the Smirk, the Look of Horror – were perfect
for a guy walking around in a fedora, carrying a whip and
punching
Nazis. No actor has ever taken an onscreen beating better,
and no one’s ever shifted as effortlessly between
tweediness and scruffiness.
It was Ford, I’d argue, who kept us coming back for
two flawed sequels – movies marred by both an increasing
silliness and soggy heroines who never matched the chemistry
created by Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. When sexy, scrappy
Marion punches Indy in that Nepalese bar, you can practically
see flint sparks coming off his chin.fedora, carrying a whip
and punching Nazis. No actor has ever taken an onscreen beating
better, and no one’s ever shifted as effortlessly
between tweediness and scruffiness.
3. The Godfather
According to Hollywood lore [Or
at least according to Peter Biskind's “Easy Riders,
Raging Bulls,” from which I shamelessly pilfered
the quote.], after
watching “The
French Connection” Francis Ford Coppola lamented
that, with the soon-to-be-released “The Godfather,” he'd
taken “a popular, pulpy, salacious novel and turned
it into a bunch of guys sitting around in dark rooms talking.”
This is, of course, just the sort of bombastic,
tortured, vaguely clueless self-analysis one expects from
Coppola
in his pre-lithium days.[Such comments
alternated with Coppola’s bombastic, narcissistic,
self-inflating manifestoes of greatness – which are
sadder to recount, coming as they do from the director
of “Jack” and
the “Zoe” segment of “New York Stories.” For
a healthy dose of both brands of self-analysis, rent Eleanor
Coppola’s documentary “Hearts of Darkness” – sadly
MIA on DVD at this writing, with no relief in sight – or
read Biskind’s “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.”] It
also misses the point – one
of the greatest things about “The Godfather” is
that it makes “guys sitting around in dark rooms
talking” seem utterly profound, occasionally frightening
and deeply, terribly sexy. (Yes, sexy. Viewing this film
in a college class, I'll never forget a friend's visible
arousal whenever Al Pacino flexed his mental muscles.)
Americans love to watch their fictional
protagonists navigate the workplace [See
the setting for every sitcom or lawyer-themed television
show produced
in the past decade (“Ally McBeal,” “The
Practice,” every NBC sitcom set at a magazine or
radio station). “Seinfeld” is one of the only
notable exceptions to this trend; its characters’ “workplace” takes
social, non-office forms.] – be it a boardroom
or the setting for a jewel heist. They love their characters
to scheme,
succeed and/or fail miserably while pursuing the brass
ring. “The Godfather,” of course, feeds this
peculiar viewer addiction at crack-cocaine levels, meditating
as it does on The Corrupting Power of the American Workplace
(and its Correlation to the American Family). It's the
capitalist social code writ large – to the degree
that cc-ing your memo to the wrong department head means
you sleep with the fishes. It's American cinema lifted
to Shakespearean heights.
To Coppola's credit, though, the
movie's also a ripping good yarn, beautifully written,
acted, and
photographed.
In making its thematic points, it never succumbs to the
overt preachiness one finds in, say, an Oliver Stone
Film. When we think of “The Godfather,” we think
of the passion in its dialogue, the poetry of its compositions,
the juxtapositions of shocking violence with the elegance
of timeless family rituals. It put a coat of lacquer on
the gangster film that only “GoodFellas” (and,
later, “The Sopranos”) managed to rub off.
4. Pulp Fiction
The only major (and perhaps
valid) criticisms I’ve
ever heard of “Pulp Fiction” are that (1)
it’s
not ultimately about anything other than its own cleverness,
and (2) its paragraph-long dialogue makes it more of
a filmed play than a movie.[The
former criticism comes from the contrarian Greg Dorr,
who has also argued (convincingly,
at his Website dorrk.com) that Leatherface is a more
moral creature than Forrest Gump. The latter criticism
comes
from, of all places, Film Threat magazine.]
Both of these critiques are probably on
the mark. But neither one changes the fact that Quentin
Tarantino’s sophomore
effort is a peerless Orgasmatron for fans of trashy crime
stories (and neither one changes the fact that this film,
and not the more thematically cohesive “Reservoir
Dogs,” made this reader’s-poll top 10).
Many movies (and plays) have tried to re-capture the magic
of Tarantino’s epic script [The
worst effort I can think of being the caper film “Judas
Kiss,” which
tries way too hard on every conceivable level and which
features Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson trying to deliver
snarky banter through faux-American accents while playing
ill-matched law-enforcement officers, and which also features
the usually charming Valeria Golino speaking with a hammy
Southern accent for no other reason than that it sounds
a bit more “actorly” and Jim Thompson-esque,
and which even features Emma getting her nose broken during
the climax – a bit like spray-painting a mustache
on the Mona Lisa.] – but have any
of them ever topped “Pulp Fiction’s” effortlessly
delivered rants and dissertations and footnote-like digressions
[Digressions that, as you can imagine,
appeal powerfully to this writer ...] as uttered
by Ving Rhames and Samuel L. Jackson? Have any
of them ever tickled the brain so pleasantly, with characters
dying and re-appearing thanks to Tarantino’s temporal
fiddling? [I’ll never forget one Travolta-loving
friend practically begging for Vincent Vega to be resurrected
following Bruce Willis’ gunning him down in the toilet – and
then that same friend’s delight when, thanks to the
film’s structure, he got his wish.] Have any of them
produced a scarier, weirder, funnier, or more bloodlust-satisfying
sequence than the
rapist-hillbilly short story that bisects the movie? Have
any of them produced a film that is more unbelievably maddening
to watch in pan-and-scan?
5. GoodFellas
I’ve read writers who
describe HBO’s “The
Sopranos” as “a new ‘GoodFellas’ every
week” – and for my money that sells both
creative endeavours a little short.
To be sure, “The Sopranos” owes
more than a little to Scorsese’s masterful crime
epic [I’m
sure the phrase “‘GoodFellas’ in the
suburbs” was uttered at some point during creator
David Chase’s initial series pitch meeting – and
it was probably uttered by a suit.], but
it transcended comparisons almost immediately thanks
to the
depth of its characterization and the sheer number of
narrative/thematic plates it manages to spin.
Similarly, “GoodFellas” (as
In Focus readers have recognized) deserves better than
dismissal as the precursor to a classic TV show.
As mentioned earlier, Scorsese’s adaptation of Henry
Hill’s autobiography is cinematic paint thinner,
stripping the lustre off organized crime that “The
Godfather” so skillfully applied. Much like “Fight
Club,” “GoodFellas” spends its first
half building up a seductive worldview – only to
demolish it in its second half.
Ray Liotta’s character clearly enjoys the rush of
gangster life, and as seen through his eyes, so do we.
But when decadence and paranoia set in – in the form
of cocaine abuse, horrible late-’70s interior design
and a series of assassinations – “GoodFellas’” illusion
of a protective “family” of law-flouting Merry
Men crumbles into dust.
And it crumbles in such fine, subjective
style! Who can forget Liotta’s coke-sozzled Day
of Paranoia, in which he tries to ferry people and firearms
around town
while cooking a good Italian dinner and dodging a police-surveillance
whirlybird? Who can forget Joe Pesci’s impeccable
onscreen meltdowns – a performance so good that
the actor dined out on it for several years before Hollywood
realized he wasn’t leading-man material? [“The
Public Eye,” anyone?] And for
pity’s sake, who can listen to Clapton’s
final soaring guitar solo from “Layla” without
seeing that crane shot of the bloody, dead couple in
the pink
Cadillac?
For my money, Scorsese never played with
film narrative – with
over-the-top performances [Case
in point: the infamous “GoodFellas
laugh” – that weird, forced, wide-eyed cackle
the gangsters ejaculate whenever they're sitting at a
table listening to Pesci tell a story. It’s perfectly
emblematic of how much the characters want to believe
their gangster’s-paradise
mythology. A decade later, one particular group of my
friends still recreates that laugh in public places – most
notably in bars and at weddings – and it never
ceases to amuse/disturb.], with narration, with
freeze frames and temporal juggling and avant-garde tricks – with
as little seeming effort as he does here.
6. Gladiator
To be honest, this is the only
movie I think won’t
make this list a decade from now. [In
fact, here are a few films that failed to make this year's
top 10, but still managed to land on at least 7 percent
of all top-10 lists submitted, and all of which for my
money are going to be remembered far longer than "Gladiator": "Citizen
Kane," "Saving Private Ryan," "Aliens," "E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial," "The Wizard of Oz," "The
Godfather Part II," "It's a Wonderful Life," and "The
Usual Suspects," among others.] Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” is
potent stuff, to be sure – thanks almost entirely
to its raw CGI spectacle and Russell Crowe’s lead
performance – but I also think the movie suffers
from structural problems. (The hero spends the last half
of the film being acted upon, rather than acting, for
one thing – and a promised sacking of Rome by a
rogue garrison of Roman warriors is never delivered,
for another.[And
the action sequences are cut with a blind eye toward
spatial relationships (pop quiz: How many tigers are
chasing Maximus
around the arena?). And every CGI matte painting of ancient
Rome is given “texture” with a flock of birds.
AND, as my friend Damon Houx puts it, “It shouldn’t
be called ‘Gladiator,’ it should be called ‘Roman
Politics’.”... In fact, I’m going to
go out on a fairly unpopular limb here and suggest that
Tony Scott – Ridley’s oft-dismissed brother – is,
on balance, the better director. Tony’s action
is easier to follow (“Top Gun”), his films
grant more respect to the writer (“True Romance,” the
middle section of “Crimson Tide”), and also
let’s not forget that Tony Scott directed “The
Last Boy Scout” - an astounding action film that
manages to deconstruct the late-’80s/early-’90s
action genre while remaining a solid entry in the field.
Seriously – rent “The Last Boy Scout” on
DVD and marvel at its spoofy genius. And while Ridley
has two films that are better than anything Tony’s
ever made (“Blade Runner,” “Alien”),
Tony directed the single greatest filmed scene produced
by either of the Scott brothers: I’m talking of
course about the Dennis Hopper/Christopher Walken confrontation
in “True Romance.”])
But still. Unlike most Ridley Scott “visions,” “Gladiator” is
packed with rich characters – Richard Harris as a
wrinkled, tired Caesar, Joaquin Phoenix as the puffy, pitiable, “vexed,” incestuous
villain, and, of course, Russell Crowe, delivering with
a vengeance on his “L.A. Confidential” promise
and underplaying his dialogue to devastating, Oscar-winning
effect. People forget that he more or less quietly muttered
his infamous “On my command, unleash hell” line;
unlike so many of today’s leading men, Crowe – like
Mitchum and Eastwood before him – understands the
value of a certain minimalism to offset his violence. As
Maximus, he gave pretty little “Gladiator” an
epic sweep - and box-office success - that might have
eluded the film otherwise.
7(tie). The
Empire Strikes Back
People who today
dismiss George Lucas as a “corporate
weasel” out for their hard-earned action-figure
dollars would do well to remember that, in 1980, he gambled
heavily
by personally financing a little film called “The
Empire Strikes Back” – a movie that maliciously
screwed with beloved characters, staged its biggest battle
in its first 40 minutes, thoroughly routed its heroes,
threw in a dangerous plot twist and had an unhappy, unresolved
ending. Oh, and he let Irvin Kershner direct it – you
know, the proven auteur behind “The Return of a
Man Called Horse”?
It isn’t “Citizen Kane” or anything,
but “ESB” was indeed an aggressive, foolhardy
move on Lucas’ part - a gamble
that paid off, giving him creative and financial control
of the “Star Wars” universe
and making him, for better or worse, one of the 20th century’s
most influential filmmakers. [And
paving the way for Ewoks and Jar-Jar Binks. But still.]
As I get older, the other “Star Wars” movies – even “A
New Hope,” particularly in the wake of “The
Phantom Menace” – just seem sillier and sillier.
But “Empire” is pure music. Buoyed by John
Williams’ sinister, romantic score [I
ask you: Was any film composer trafficking in glorious
bombast ever
better than John Williams was between 1975 and 1984? “ESB” is
my favorite Williams score by an order of magnitude.],
the movie itself ebbs and flows like a symphony. Unlike
the
later “SW” films,
which more or less marinate in noise, “Empire” embraces
the quiet moments before the storm: a soldier stands
above a trench scanning a snowy plain before a brutal
ground
war; Princess Leia sits in a cockpit pondering a love
affair before her ship is attacked by wire-chewing space
bats [I know, I know: “Mynocks.”];
Luke silently stalks a catwalk before Darth Vader, exploding
out of nowhere,
chops off his hand and blows his mind.
Even the acting is better: Remember how
many times you forgot Mark Hamill (Mark Hamill!) was talking
to a puppet?
7(tie). The Matrix
I had the good fortune
to interview “cyberpunk” author
William Gibson back in 1999. Like countless illiterate,
movie-besotted gits before and since, I asked him what
he thought of “The Matrix.”[And
I asked him using a “sarcastic” doofy voice
in an attempt to make fun of people asking this stupid
question
while simultaneously
asking the question myself – which I’d imagine
Gibson recognized for the transparent geek query that it
was, but graciously answered anyway. If you want to read
the whole interview, visit www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=5140 – it’s
a staggering example of an interviewer boxing way outside
her weight class, but Gibson’s responses are marvelous
and insightful.]
Here, to my mild and delighted surprise,
was his answer: “I
was extremely reluctant to go and see it ... and I really
liked it. I thought it was so well-done, and basically
I thought it was, in its subtext, a very good-hearted movie – in
a way that is unusual at that budget level. It didn’t
have the kind of crypto-fascist subtext that one might
expect with that kind of money. I took it to be a fable
about the price of becoming more conscious. I thought that
was most beautifully expressed by the Judas character’s
deal he cuts, saying, ‘Okay, I’ll betray this
guy, but you’ve got to guarantee that I’ll
be in complete, airtight denial about it. I won’t
know that you exist.’.... It’s simple stuff,
but I thought it was good stuff. It was a very generous
movie - it really gave the audience a lot of stuff, frame
by frame. As far as having been an influence on it, I thought
they had digested their Gibson very well – and also
obviously taken quite a lot of Philip K. Dick ... . And
you know, that’s fair – I mean, I do that myself
all the time.”
Well, exactly. Like “Star Wars,” “The
Matrix” is a pastiche of disparate source material
- a blending of different sources that produced something
utterly unique. If “Star Wars” synthesized
Kurosawa, Westerns, Flash Gordon and Joseph Campbell, “The
Matrix” synthesizes wire-fu epics, anime, William
Gibson, and, um, “Star Wars.”
But it also amounts to something more. For
one thing, the movie’s broad exploration of the price of spiritual
awareness is positively Jesuit. For another, the Wachowski
Brothers give life to that dark childhood fantasy that
the world is really an elaborate play put on for your amusement,
with people moving props around behind you at all times.
(Frankly, I’m a little surprised that impressionable
schizophrenics never opened fire in public places, using
the paranoid “Matrix” worldview as justification.)
On a nuts-and-bolts narrative level, I’ll also give
the movie “props” for two major achievements.
First, it packages its exposition beautifully. When you
think about it, like half the damned movie is characters
explaining how things work, and once the movie sets these
rules, it plays with them responsibly. Second, “The
Matrix” – coming on the heels of Jackie Chan’s
U.S. invasion – finally weeded the amateurs out of
American fight-scene photography. By importing Yuen Wo-Ping
(and by embracing technology that made shooting in that
style both flashier and safer), the Wachowskis ushered
in a new era in Hollywood action cinema. If you don’t
believe me, go rent an old Steven Segal film and shudder.
9 (tie). Casablanca
My pal the DVD Journal editor used to teach a dramatic-literature class to students
at
a small
college. “Casablanca,” believe
it or not, was on his curriculum right next to Mr. Shakespeare.
“Most of them were, ‘Oh, it’s in black-and-white?’ I’m
joking,” he says today. “No, most of them had
never seen it before, and they were surprised at how enthralling
it was... . I knew if I turned it on, within 10 minutes
they’d be engrossed.”
On the telephone with me, he pulls up the
text of his old “Casablanca” lecture,
speaking rapidly in an effort to make note-taking as difficult
as possible. The gist of his lecture was that the movie
is obsessed with “duality of character” and “the
hidden aspect of self.” Every character in “Casablanca” he
says, is wearing a social mask “because of convenience,” and
struggling with the dual personality that mask creates
- the “cynic/idealist,” the “loyal wife/passionate
lover,” the “freedom fighter/loving husband.”
What makes “Casablanca” so life-affirming,
the DVDJ editor says, is that most of the characters embrace
their ideal selves by the end of the movie. As he rather
indelicately puts it: “There’s a moment where
it suddenly hits Rick that – oh, shit – all
of this stuff is going on around him, he’s running
a bar in the middle of the desert!”
“Casablanca” is a perfect object,
rising by alchemic chance out of the quick-and-cheap 1940s
studio system.
I first saw it in the perfect venue - on
the big screen with a responsive audience during its 50th-anniversary
theatrical run. I remember being struck by how intricate
and funny it was, by how perfect its performances and Max
Steiner score were. I remember being struck by Rick’s
20-minute flashback between sips of whiskey.[I
was also struck by how Rick Blaine was the perfect old-school
liberal
when being a “liberal” meant something more
Hemingwayesque and common-sensical – something cynical,
self-possessed, dedicated to human freedom. P.J. O’Rourke
riffs briefly on this notion, if memory serves, in the “Republican
Party Reptile” chapter where he takes a river cruise
with a bunch of old Communists and is deeply depressed
to discover that they’re nothing like Rick.] And,
most of all, I remember that perfect ending – so
appropriate that it filled you with sadness, longing, laughter,
hope
and pride all at once.
9 (tie). Jaws
When I was wee, “Jaws” was
sublimely scary. Today, I’m mostly awed by it. More
specifically, I’m awed by the unholy manipulative
power Steven Spielberg wielded at such a tender age.
If I may adopt a little faux-clever blurb-speak
for a moment, “Jaws” is
simply masterful and masterfully simple. [Simply
masterful and masterfully simple!” – Alexandra
DuPont, In Focus. If my prose
continues to devolve at this rate,
I’ll have to start paying royalties to Gene Shalit.] Faced
with a broken mechanical shark during production, Spielberg
shot
around it – infusing the film with an unusual depth
of character for a “monster movie” and emphasizing
suspense over spectacle. It’s also subplot-free [And
this was intentional; in Benchley’s original novel,
there were subplots aplenty – including Hooper having
an affair with Brody’s wife and some sort of nonsense
involving the mayor and the Mafia. Good Lord – if
that stuff had been left in, “Jaws” would have
played like “Airport ‘77.”],
allowing Spielberg to stretch his narrative thread like
a garrote, loosening and tightening his stranglehold with
uncanny precision. It really is the best Hollywood has
to offer.
There’s one brief, beautiful, relatively unimportant
shot in “Jaws” that always sells the film for
me. It’s right after the first barrel chase, and
it’s a simple straight-on shot of Quint leaning back
on the Orca’s prow railing, smugly enjoying his greenhorn
crew’s newfound state of alertness. The light’s
dusky and perfect; the camera’s fixed to the deck,
lending a sense of unease as the water bobs and sways behind
him; and Quint’s leaning with his gun across the
railing in a way that sort of forms an image of a man on
the cross – either a dandy bit of foreshadowing or
me reading way too much into a single shot. Either way,
it’s a witty punctuation mark at the end of a bravura
sea chase. Spielberg just spent an extra five minutes giving
that throwaway shot some thematic and compositional
kick, you know? For me, it’s emblematic of Spielberg’s
approach to the entire movie. And for that I will forgive
him a thousand “Hook”s, “A.I.”s
and “1941”s. 
