From the Trivia section:
<< In the end, 'Steven Spielberg' was so disappointed with this film, he took his name off of it when it was released. >>
Is that true? He put his name on Continental Divide, and not this?! Of course, this was the same year he did Amazing Stories...I guess Fandango put him off because Truman wasn't forced to land on cartoon wheels...
http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?id=joshacid37share
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He may not have liked it but his company logo (Amblin Entertainment) is there at the end credits, so Steven I think you need to view it again, it was an excellent film, jump back on the wagon and take some credit, lol
“Do not fear death... only the unlived life.” - Natalie Babbitt
There are very specific reasons why Spielberg distanced himself from this (see my comment under the handle jldmp1, for more).
It's a matter of film 'religion', I guess...Fandango runs completely against everything he believes in. Reynolds chases a feeling (the memory of the times) and finds a story. Spielberg always goes the other way: using his stories to coax feelings out of the audience.
But there are two reasons to love Fandango: because you love cinematic narrative films, or because you dislike Spielberg's engineered salesmanship...I put myself in the former category.
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Funny, as this is one of the few silms of his that I think is artistically exceptional. Other films produced by his company have an entertainment value, but this one is truly a film worth remembering.
I can't imagine why he'd be upset at it.
I think his problem is that he just couldn't relate to the content. From what
I know of his bio, I doubt that he ever experienced anything like doing a "wild"
roadtrip with a bunch of guys, nor much agonizing over Vietnam/the draft, and
how it changed things amongst friends. I would even go so far to say that he
may have been jealous of this effort by what would have been a young director
much further down the food chain compared to Mr. S. He wrote a great story,
got great acting out of basically (for the most part) unknown actors, and
ended up with a great film, not lacking in any of it's components. A very
difficult thing to do even with the biggest budgets and with all the power
that goes with a Spielberg project. In fact, I could see where this film
and it's director/writer could have been very intimidating to Mr. S. at that
point in his career. The big film companies were dropping millions into his
projects with varied results, and yet here's this very small, inexpensive film
that has succeeded without needing to have him attached, other than whatever
distribution deal was done with Amblin. I'm assuming Amblin had the distro
rights on this film, and that may well explain why it took decades to finally
get a print to DVD..
Never underestimate the dangers of Hollywood ego's, There's probably a few
hundred "Fandango's" that will never be seen due to these kinda problems.
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Agreed to all. At the end of the day Spielberg has almost no artistic stride. He's made his share of great films (Empire of the Sun and Munich) but overall a hundred of him couldn't equal one Kevin Reynolds.
Fandango is a classic, while Empire of the Sun isn't even close to the level of Fandango. Empire seems to be missing a certain touch, or maybe it needs to have less of the story. It seems like he wanted to make sure you understood the message of Empire but ruined it in his attempt to do that. That exact moment in Empire where it is too heavy handed is when the supplies start dropping from the sky. Since we don't see of hear the planes that dropped the supplies, is it a message that they are from God and he is finally answering the prayers of the people who were held prisoner for years?
shareThe problems with Empire and Spielberg are a tough one to nail down.
I tend to think that what's difficult with Empire is that there are
no real connections between the people in the camp. There is a hierarchy
that they follow, with the cool British demeanor of really never
allowing any warmth to come to the surface in those characters.
Most of the scenes where there's any type of humanity almost seem
to be in a dream state, where the day to day message is one for all,
each man for himself, dog eat dog, and that can start to wear on
you. At the time this was filmed, we (the US) had been living through
a long stretch of Reaganomic's which preached the same idea's, if
you worked yourself to death, in the end you will be rewarded, and
in this case it literally was "Trickle Down" in the overflowing
gifts from above. Maybe now that as society is starting to figure
out that all that was just somewhat the Hollywood story of the
American Dream at that time, it doesn't sit so well with us at
this time. I know, it's a huge stretch, but I feel that same kind
of human isolation in Empire that I see when the news is talking
about all the home foreclosures, displaced folks from Katrina, it
just wears on you... Like my post..
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