I can't think of a single Spielberg movie that used children to manipulate emotion who weren't already characters in the film. Just because Spielberg chooses to make films about children, or that include children, doesn't necessarily make him more manipulative than other directors.

I don't get why people get so offended when they feel the director is manipulating them for an emotional response. A great director will use any tool he has to make the movie better whether it be through music, camera angles, or specific dialogue, etc.

I know Spielberg tends to get heavy handed at times, but I like that in a movie, and the best movies that I truly love are the ones that invoke some type of emotional response. Doesn't it get old to watch things blow up for 2 hours?

It's not the emotional response that some people are objecting to - it's the methods employed in order to evoke that response.

When some cheap, cliched or desperate element is used, especially when it's so obvious, it can really degrade the viewing experience. For example, despite the technical virtuousity, I really object to putting a falling baby carriage in the line of fire in THE UNTOUCHABLE just to create a cheap thrill. Schindler's breakdown towards the end of SCHINDLER'S LIST struck me as melodramatic. Even worse, the "there's so much love in this house!" monologue from MINORITY REPORT made me gag, as did the extended ending of A.I. (a movie which I still admired very much, for all its faults). The father-son reunion in BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES was out of place and laughable, and just about every Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie is about as predictably sentimentallty sloppy as the worst soap operas.

In other words, the objection is the crass and shameless ways in which emotions are manipulated, as opposed to responses which are elicited more subtly and with genuine pathos.

Yeah, but where was this in E.T.?

I'd like to pick out three directors at random who, during their active careers, were accused of being any or all of the things Spielberg has been called in this thread.

Frank Capra
John Ford
Alfred Hitchcock

Clearly, history has been unkind to their bodies of work, right?

I can understand if a movie doesn't work you, cause every movie is different for each person. But if it does work, why even question whether it is manipulative or not?

Think about a movie like Field of Dreams, that is one of my favorite movies, and the ending always works for me everytime I watch it. Is it manipulative? I guess you could say with the music, the father/son catch, and the camera panning away as you see all the cars driving up. But who cares, the movies is gold to me, and isn't that what counts when watching a movie?

I'm sorry, it's just my sheer hatred of John Williams and the esteem he gets for what I feel are basically fraudulent reasons.

You know, when I was in film school a teacher of mine, in a class about composition for film, played us selections of the E.T. score and then one of Beethoven's symphonies. I could have sworn it was the 5th, but I could have been mistaken about that. I'll look around and see if I can find the correct one and if I can find any place that identifies specific passages.

As far as David Lynch goes, he does use bizarre imagery, but it's not always to create unease. And while he's quite good at manipulating audience expectations, he generally leaves his movies open to a wide variety of interpretations. This is the exact opposite of Spielberg, who makes his intentions so loud and clear that you'd have to be deaf and blind to miss them. Lynch at his best will make you think. Spielberg rarely does that.

Tarantino is a master manipulator, but again, he manipulates the audiences expectations, not necessarily their emotions. One of the best examples of this is the opening of Pulp Fiction. The first time you see it, you don't see the robbery coming at all. When it does, it puts all the previous dialogue in a new light. Again, Spielberg's manipulation is not something that changes the way the audience perceives the film, it tells the audience how they're meant to see the film.

On one of the recently released Kubrick discs, there's an interview with Spielberg who said that he learned from Kubrick that he needs to trust the audience more and allow more master shots which give the audience the ability to choose what they want to look at in the frame. So even Spielberg would tell you that he has a tendency towards these things. And it's not always a criticism. Again, for a movie like Indiana Jones or Jaws, it works perfectly. Because terror and exhilaration generally do have to be constructed in order to work on screen. But dramatic emotions can be had with less direct involvement from the hands of the filmmaker. That's why I think a movie like E.T. suffers for the manipulation instead of benefits from it. It's hard to believe the emotions are genuine because it's so blatant that Spielberg and Williams are telling you how you must feel at every moment.

If you want a good example of a film that uses very few of the techniques found in E.T., well, all you have to do is look at that other sci-fi film that came out in 1982, Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is a flawed film. I couldn't care less about anyone or anything in that movie. Pretty to look at, but that's about it.

I watched E.T. last night due to this thread, to see if somehow I am being manipulated. I never felt that way. It's a very touching story, and it's really about something, unlike Blade Runner, which only pretends.

I couldn't disagree with your Blade Runner assesment more. There are so many layers to that film. The major idea is what is life, what is reality? But then you have Deckard's depressing existence, and the question of what makes life worth it? All the characters have their own questions, and they all fall back to that main idea. It's a very well constructed film, with a lot to think about.

Which is exactly why I love recent Spielberg so much, he's more prone to leave things open. AI and Munich don't give us the answers to their questions. They set up the table for discussion. Even Minority Report leaves you with questions, and that film can be interpreted in a few ways.

Let's just say that Spielberg does manipulate the audience. First of all I feel like I'm sophisticated enough to not necessarily feel the way the director wants me to feel. If he/she wants me to feel sad then maybe I will and maybe I won't.

As far as E.T. goes I don't see what the big deal is. Ok...fine Spielberg and Williams want us to feel sad or happy at certain points. Big deal. What is so surprising that we're supposed to feel sad when E.T. dies? He was a cute and funny character that we've watched develop a special friendship with a little kid for the last hour. When he dies I feel sad. So sue me. It has nothing to do with the fact that the director wants me to feel sad. I just feel like he did a good job directing those scenes because they were sad scenes and I ended up feeling that way. I don't feel maniuplated at all. They're meant to be sad scenes is all.

On the flip side when E.T. wakes up and they get away from everybody and he goes home those are happy scenes. Again, for the last hour we've watched this little guy get stranded on an alien world, try like Hell to get home, die and then miraculously he wakes up and his people come get him. A little sappy sure, but it makes the audience feel happy. The audience connected with that character and therefore feels sad when bad things happen to him and they feel happy when good things happen to him. I think it's very simple.

It is very simple, and those are all very good points. Sometimes you just have to accept a movie and its story for what it is, and not read into it that there's some kind of sinister plot where the director and his composer are trying to toy with our emotions and/or make us feel stupid for feeling what they're trying to convey with the elements of the story.

Yes, Spielberg has gotten better as he's matured. No doubt about it.

As for Brack, these discussions with you make me feel like I'm in the Monty Python argument sketch. All you're doing is naysaying any point anyone makes.

You honestly cared what anyone in this movie was going through. Really? They were some of the most uninteresting characters in a beautiful looking film that I've ever seen. Deckard was a nothing character. Maybe that was a point, but I felt no sympathy since we never get to know any of the characters. There is almost zero character development. None of the characters appear to think about much, other than themselves.

Read the above response. I've seen Blade Runner several times, seeing if I've missed anything, since it's claimed to be a classic, but each time I take away nothing from it.