 is the Fableman's movie, A True Story. We're gonna explore that today with our movie guru, aficionado reviewer person, Steve Gutman, who is a lawyer and who really likes movies and writes a blog about it, as a matter of fact. Welcome to your show, Steve. Well, thank you. Thank you. So today, we're gonna do the Fableman's and it's very interesting that they chose the Fableman's as the name. That's a fictitious name, but it sounds a lot like Spielberg, doesn't it? Spiel, Biel, Tell a Story, Fableman's, Fable, Tell a Fable. Okay. Yeah, that's, I think the heart of this is as you watch this movie, you keep thinking about the fact, is this a true or is it not true? To what degree is it autobiography and to what degree is it just simply an interesting story being told by an excellent filmmaker? That keeps coming up as you watch the film. The movie itself can be divided into three parts. You have the opening segment as a young child, then you have his teenage years and then you have the third segment, which is very different when he's actually in the family moves to Northern California and then his high school with a little bit of a postscript in terms of a interview with John Ford and questions come up that Spielberg really have that interview with John Ford. So you've got some very interesting elements that are occurring as this movie unfolds. It opens with, well, the Spielberg character's name is Sammy in the movie. And in the opening sequence, the camera is focused on Sammy as his parents are talking to him, getting him to be relaxed as they stand in line to go see of all things a movie. The movie is The Greatest Show on Earth, which was a Cecil DeMille film. Best as I can remember, it's been decades since I saw that film. I wasn't particularly impressed by that particular film, but they're talking to him, trying to make him calm. It's real clear Sammy was not his idea to go go see a movie. But in the movie, there's a train wreck, am I right? And he comes onto that. That's what actually triggers this after the opening sequence and then, and they show the train wreck scene from the Cecil DeMille film. Then the next scene is back at his home, at their home in New Jersey. And the time is December of 1952. And it's not real clear as to exactly how old Sammy is when they're, in terms of this particular sequence, but based on things you learn, particularly back when you get to the high school, it's presumed these would be six years old at the time he's seen this particular person. That sounds like the same age that Spielberg would have been. When Spielberg had a promotional panel on this, which was when it came out, which is a few months ago, he said he was 75 then. So that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. They give the date of when he's in line to see the movie, but there's no real comment about age. And you kind of work backwards because at the high school, they say he graduated in 1964 from high school. So using that as the trigger date, you kind of work backwards and you get six. That's probably the age when I first saw my film, my first film. I have no remembrance of what that my first film was, but back then when you went to the movies, you got a film, you got a cartoon, and you got a serial that would bring you back each week because it was ongoing episodes. And interesting enough, I do remember scenes from the serials, I have absolutely no remembrance of any of the movies I would have seen back then. Do you have any idea, Jay, when you first saw a movie? I remember there was a camel in the movie. My uncle took me and my brother, we went together to see this movie with a camel. My brother turned to me and he said, I want a Clark bar, which at the time was using camels to advertise. Oh. It's Clark bars. That's all I remember. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I just remember on Saturdays, my mother giving me, because movies weren't that expensive back then, there's some change and it would get me into the theater and be able to get a snack and just be able to sit back and spend a few hours, because at least two, probably more like three, at the movie theater on a Saturday afternoon. But as to the incident with the train and the movie, what happens is Spielberg goes to bed, wakes up and then the shouts out that he now knows what he wants as his Hanukkah gift. It's a train set. And the parents get the train set thinking that it was just simply the train themselves and the old Lionel train system, which were fun. I remember having one of those. But instead, it was the crash. It was actually the actual crash that really got Sammy interested in wanting this particular train set. And then the mother knew that it was not gonna be something tolerated in terms of him crashing the trains, because obviously they're not gonna last very, very long. So she suggests that they do one crash and they film it. And that's what they do. And that's actually the trigger point for Spielberg to start his film career was filming this crash scene from the train. So it's a very, very interesting story. Well, the reviews Steve said it was touching and beautiful and the script was beautiful and touching. Did you find it that way? And if so, why? Because it was such a family interaction. It's real clear through this movie because they actually have a very short Hanukkah scene with the gifts and so forth. This is a very middle-class Jewish family living in New Jersey in a very Christian neighborhood. And that is a theme that Spielberg comes back to again, particularly when you get to the last third of the movie. He talks about anti-Semitism and then the connection between his experiences around anti-Semitism in various places they lived and Schindler's List, which was a tremendously powerful statement about the Holocaust. I found it interesting because I thought from looking at Schindler's List that Spielberg was a religious Jewish person and his family was a religious Jewish family. But I suspect that the movie did not depict him as religious. They depicted, however, as part of a Ukrainian family, which I thought was very interesting, especially now. That's really not something that he runs with in terms of anything with Ukraine. But it's real clear that right from the beginning that this is a Jewish family telling a Jewish story. A couple of things really struck me in reading up on this movie. One is, you asked a seminal question, is it true? And I think the answer is, in part, it's semi-autobiographical is what it is. And further, that it was made during COVID. It was made in 2021, I think. And what's interesting about that is that there's a lot of precious movies about people, famous people making movies about their lives in this period, in the COVID period. And you wonder, and of course, some of them are purely autobiographical, documentaries per se and others are semi-autobiographical. But there's a question on whether there's a vanity element here. I guess he decided he wanted to give credit, give some credit to his parents and his home and his family and his youth and all that, but it's his story. That's what it is. I mean, you might find things in there that are fictitious, like the name, for example, and some of the events maybe. But this to me struck me, the question has to be asked, was this precious? Was this his legacy, a statement? He's into legacy. Spielberg did, for example, the Schindler's List movie as a matter of legacy. And a lot of things he's done included elements of his childhood and things he wanted to leave behind for posterity. And I think this has to be especially in that category, don't you think? I'll give you an example of legacy. Yeah, it's his girlfriend say that one of the reasons she enjoyed being with him was because he's a great kisser. Yeah, other than a little pat on the back for himself of being a great kisser, he really didn't need that particular. But the whole scene with the girlfriends, which is what occurs in the latter third, is there's some real question in terms of just how accurate that that is. The interaction was, she tried to convert him to being a Christian. There's a great scene where she has the two of them where they're supposed to breathe in Christ, and it immediately leads to a very passionate sense of kisses between the two of them. So that whole scene. There was a lot of privacy things in there. He talks about his parents and he reveals things that are not necessarily complimentary. In fact, they had a very strange falling out. And years later, I don't know if it was in the movie or not, years later, the husband, Spielberg, I forget his first name, who was a successful tech entrepreneur. Yes, he was a successful tech entrepreneur and he seemed like a nice guy in all this. He found that his wife left him. And as I recall, Spielberg was 19 at the time. That must have been traumatic for him. And later on, he found that the reason that the marriage dissolved was because his mother was having an affair with the father's best friend. That's kind of also traumatic. And what's interesting too, in terms of revealing private things, and I don't know if this came out of the movie or just the reviews, but later on, not too long ago, they reconciled. And it's a really in and out kind of marriage. And that must have been troublesome for him. But at the same time, he revealed a good part of that in the movie. And when one of the reviewer asked him, weren't you concerned you'll be making your parents unhappy? He said something like, no, truth. They're okay with truth. And that's a central thing. It's so interesting that when he speaks of this movie and when he speaks of filmmaking, he's talking about finding and revealing the truth. And yet, movie isn't all true. How about that? How about that? But the particular sequence is actually in the movie where his father asked him to put together a little film on a camping trip that the family had taken together. And as he's putting together the film of the camping, all of a sudden he's noticing that his mother is walking hand in hand away from the group with what is described as Bert's best friend, Bernie. And the two of them are going off. And that scene, Spielberg has been quoted as saying is accurate, that actually is what he saw. At that particular point, he probably was either 17 or 18. He would not have been 19 yet. But I think he was in his senior year in high school when that occurred. And the kids were told apparently that it was the father that wanted the divorce. But in fact, it was the mother who wanted it. And she then went on and married the so-called best best friend and remained married for a number of years. Yeah, until they reconciled. This is a very interesting life story. So one of the things that came out for me, Spielberg, is that his mother was an accomplished concert pianist. Yes. And both parents were accomplished. She was the critical person in terms of letting him find creative ways of doing it. And in terms of letting him find creativity. I think his father wanted him to do something more mundane, but his mother said, no, go for it. Do you want to do film? Do film. And they gave him room, or she gave him room and encouraged him. And I think the message that he's giving is he would not have been a filmmaker and a great filmmaker had it not been for her allowing him to find his passion. And that's very important in terms of telling us what the family dynamic was and suggesting to all families that you can have a Spielberg on your hands if you just let him run. Of course, that isn't necessarily true, but I think one of the elements that I saw in my reading on this is that anyone who is permitted by his family or her family to find his talent can do better, can be another Spielberg. Just let him run, let him go, let him find his talent. And to me, that's a big takeaway from this movie, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. The father viewed the filmmaking as simply a hobby. And it was not something that you could make a career out of. And that is a reoccurring theme throughout the movie. The mother was definitely a very highly skilled pianist. And actually, well, in Phoenix, apparently it appeared on TV a few times with concerts and so forth that Spielberg kind of hints at. But she clearly has some mental health issues and there's some real problems. What's also interesting throughout the movie, neither, even though it starts from when he's six and goes up through about the age of 20, the parents don't age. They look exactly the same at the end of the movie as what they look like right at the beginning. Well, I'm sure there's a meaning in that, don't you think? He was trying to tell us something by not having the mage. He had complete control over the environment to this movie. And that I suppose was a message to us that in his mind's eye, you used the term remembrance a little while ago and I'm reminded of Marcel Proust, one of my favorite French authors who wrote Remembrance of Things Past, Ray Sherstiton Perdue. And it talks about the importance of your childhood and how you need to look back at it. You cannot appreciate your life yourself, your accomplishments, your, the definition of you without looking at your childhood. So Spielberg looks at his childhood and he sees his parents frozen in amber. They were always lost. That's, isn't that interesting? That's the way he sees them. So he lets them be ageless. Yeah, and they clearly are, they clearly are. But what's, the film takes on a whole different texture in that last third when they moved into early California. There may have been some anti-Semitism that he was running into in Phoenix where the family, the film starts in New Jersey. Dad get, father gets promotions, get gets new jobs, goes to work for GE. They moved to Phoenix. Then there's a whole series of interactions that occur there. And then he gets a job at IBM and they moved to Northern California. It's when they move up to Northern California that suddenly the anti-Semitism just becomes front and center with one of the high school students just being an out and out bigot and using language that is as anti-Semitic as you can get. And they fight, they fight, right? And there is a fight. What's interesting is that the males that are at the high school are all passive as to when this anti-Semitic remarks are being made. The females are much more, you know, hey, you shouldn't be talking that way. It's not that you keep, they weren't criticizing them thinking that way, which is it wasn't something you should be verbalizing. You shouldn't be talking that way. But that's all for the females and the males are reacting very differently. It's a neighborhood that he's moving into that I can relate in some ways because I grew up in suburbia in Southern California. Spielberg comments that as far as you can remember, there weren't any other Jews at the high school. I'm kind of the same way other than my three cousins and my sister, I'm not aware of any other Jews that were in the high school that I went to. And I also remember thinking at various times, gee, it's probably a good thing that I don't have an obviously Jewish name given some of the remarks that I would be hearing at various times. Though I never ran across anybody as anti-Semitic as the character that Spielberg presents in the movie. Now, it's interesting because we see and hear all this rhetoric about anti-Semitism these days. We hear the stats, it's a great concern. But the fact is it existed when you and I were kids. I was there. Yeah, and we grew up with it. I grew up in Queens County in New York and a lot of Jewish people there. Also a lot of Italians and Irish, by the way, and Asians. But there was anti-Semitism you had to deal with it. It wasn't a new thing when I came up with Trump. Anyway, I wanted to go into attention to detail. One of the reasons Steve that I like opera is because a good opera always has attention to detail. And I think one of the reasons that the country and the world like Steven Spielberg's movies think of any one of them is attention to detail. He's a director foremost. And he watches every single little detail. And in this movie, he directs it. And he's heavily invested because it's about him. So he attends to every single detail. And one of the interesting parts is his home, and I guess it was in New Jersey, where he recreated his home from the 50s. Right on down to the books on the shelf, the plates, the table, the silverware, everything in the house, it wasn't available. It's not like he held on to it all those years. It's just that he had people who helped him recreate it accurately from photographs of his home back in the 50s. That's the mark of a great director. You can look around and it transports you back to that time. If you look carefully, you're there. You're there with him. And I think therefore I think he put a lot of energy into this. It was kind of a COVID vacation, if you will, from other filmmaking. I think he took a break from other larger films, although this is a large film, too, and studied his own life and recreated the environment of his own life. What an experience that is. I go back to the fact that it's precious and maybe vain in some ways, but it is a tremendous effort. When you bring his talent to a film, any film, especially this one, you get a tremendous result. The production values here were as good as any film he's ever made. Yeah, he even had, his dad did, he earned some extra money to repair work as to TVs. And you have a bunch of old TVs that are just sitting on shelves that they're there because that's what the dad did, apparently on the weekends, to make some extra money. And finding those old TVs was probably not easy at this point. So yeah. Steve, do you think that Spielberg's effort here, the making of this film, which is special, will be remembered and he's doing all he can to promote it, by the way. He's not sitting on his stuff over this. He's going out there and talking about it. Another point of dedication to his family. But do you think it changed him to have this, when I call it experience of making a film, this expiation of memories, long lost, long of times, long gone by. What do you think it does to people to have this autobiographical experience and share it effectively with the world? Well, I can actually answer that one by giving the example of when I was thinking about, until you're making some notes in terms of, for this particular presentation. And the fact that at the high school, there weren't other Jewish girls that you could be dating. And I started thinking of them for the first time in decades, I remembered, gee, right at the end there at the high school, the lady I was dating was Jehovah's Witness. We obviously never talked about religion. So we were able to keep the relationship going during that senior year. But yeah, I think it does bring back a whole lot of memories that are very interesting. Well, it did for Proust. I swear to God, I kept thinking of Proust while I'm reviewing this. And the other thing is, why do we care? Why do we care about Spielberg's life and times? Why do we care about Spielberg's childhood? You know, there's so many other things to care about. Why that? I think a lot of people have a lot of different answers, but I'll tell you one answer that comes to me, and which means I will study this film more again. And that is it teaches you about high quality film. It teaches you how to be a storyteller. Fableman, if you will. And how to be a director. So if you have half an interest in making films, and the number of people who have that interest grows by leaps and bounds every day in the sport because of the technology. If you care about being a director and making films, this is a praisey. This is something you can learn from. So as an example, that reality is quite often even stranger than fiction. I mean, you have things like with again, with the mother, she brings home as a pet a monkey. They apparently helped her with interacting with the monkey in terms of her own mental illness while everybody else was off to school and husband was working and so forth. But the monkey scenes Spielberg says that's all true. That was not made up. There's also a scene in the movie where there's, takes place in Phoenix where there's a tornado. The mother grabs the three kids. She never got two sisters, has two sisters. She grabs and puts them in the car and she drives towards the tornado while he's got cars going, everybody else is going in the opposite direction. And then when she really gets close to it, she all of a sudden realizes what danger she's put her own family by doing what she did. It's actually a very excellent acting performance by the mother, but also then reminds you of some scenes like in Jurassic Park where the kids are reacting to what's occurring. So it's, yeah, I think it was very therapeutic probably for Spielberg in a lot of ways. But it proves up something that is central to all his movies. And as he said a number of times, all his movies have something of him in them. He takes his personal experience, his personal life, and he puts parts of it in every movie he makes. Steve, we're out of time. Thank you very much for this review. Really appreciate it. I hope people go out and see this movie real quick. What rating do you give it on a scale of one to 10? Oh, it's up there with an eight or 8.5, almost a nine. Okay, not a 10, but it's definitely entertaining. So to mention long, you know, it's two and a half hours. Oh, that is not necessarily a good thing. Anyway, Steve Goodman, attorney and film aficionado, we'll be back with more films with Goodman's garage. That's the name of the show. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.