{"id":13798,"date":"2011-12-16T05:07:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T05:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=13798"},"modified":"2011-12-16T05:08:21","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T05:08:21","slug":"the-spielberg-face-video-essay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/12\/16\/the-spielberg-face-video-essay\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spielberg Face"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Spielberg-Face.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13799\" title=\"The Spielberg Face\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/The-Spielberg-Face.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"280\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This video essay by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fandor.com\/blog\/?p=9436\">Kevin B. Lee<\/a> highlights a signature feature of director <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Steven_Spielberg\">Steven Spielberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Whenever you watch a Spielberg movie there is a good chance you will see the camera zoom in on a character looking at something (or someone) in awe.<\/p>\n<p>As the video points out it was not a new technique, but the enormous success of his movies meant that it became synonymous with the wonder of his films.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VS5W4RxGv4s\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It is an effective technique as it literally draws us closer to the characters and stokes our imagination as to what is being looked at.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it goes back to the famous &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dolly_zoom\">Dolly zoom<\/a>&#8221; shot of Roy Scheider on the beach in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0073195\/\">Jaws<\/a> (1975) where we get a disturbing close-up before cutting to glimpses of a dreadful shark attack (it&#8217;s around 2.01 in the clip below).<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rW23RsUTb2Y?hd=1\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But the visual motif also functions as a metaphor for his career &#8211; a director who cares deeply about his audiences before providing them with something of wonder to look at.<\/p>\n<p>&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fandor.com\/blog\/?p=9436\">Transcript of the essay at Fandor<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; Steven Spielberg at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000229\/\">IMDb<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/mubi.com\/cast_members\/16878\">MUBi<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theyshootpictures.com\/spielbergsteven.htm\">TSFDT<\/a><br \/>\n&gt; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/08\/23\/agents-of-chaos-cinema-shaky-cam-avid-quick-mtv-editing\/\">Chaos Cinema the Rise of the Avid<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This video essay by Kevin B. Lee highlights a signature feature of director Steven Spielberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[73],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13798"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}