A train smashes into a car and sends it cartwheeling into the sky. That scene in Cecil B. deMille’s ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ made the audience gasp, amongst them, and the most awestruck, is the young Sammy Fabelman. Ironically, Sammy’s parents had to virtually drag him into the cinema as their description of the big screen that shows giant-sized people, scared the wits out of him.
On getting a model train set, Sammy wants to see it crash just like in the film. As it is such a well engineered and expensive train, his mother Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams) buys him a movie camera so he can watch it crash lots of times without ruining the real thing. This was what started Sammy, an autobiographical version of Steven Spielberg, to embrace the wonders of cinema and the rest is history.
Like Cecil B. deMille’s name back then, now Steven Spielberg’s name has become universally synonymous with being a great film director. Since the blockbusting success of Jaws in 1975, he has not only made some of the most successful films of all time, like E.T. The Extraterrestrial and the Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones franchises, he has also gone on to make more serious films like The Color Purple and Schindler’s List.
The Fabelmans goes on to show Sammy gaining valuable experience making amateur films, including a Western ‘The Last Gun’ and a WWII epic ‘Escape to Nowhere’ with his local Boy Scouts troop. They both get a rapturous reception from the audience. Spielberg himself re-shot these films using a 8mm camera, but admits he could not resist using better camera angles and positioning to make them look far better than his original amateurish efforts.
As a fan of Close Encounters of the Third Kind it is a shame nothing is mentioned of his 1964 production of ‘Firelight’ that was a 150 minute long science fiction epic featuring aliens terrorising a small town. He funded it with $600 dollars of his own money, and after showing it to a paying audience at the Phoenix Little Theatre he made a profit of $1. As with his other amateur films it does highlight how he used the very same sf and WWII interests and themes in his professional career, and in the process has made far more than $1.
Much of The Fabelmans is about their family dynamics. Burt’s focus is largely on his high-powered job in computing, whilst Mitz is a highly competent pianist who could have been a successful concert performer. She is involved in a secret liaison with Burt’s best friend Bennie Loewy (Seth Rogan) that strains the whole family structure to its limits.
The scenes of Sammy’s filmmaking using his sisters as the main characters, and the clever tricks he uses for his Scout movies, and his beach movie for his College, are funny and show his skill as a storymaker. Yet, every time they are shown he is in a personal crisis. Furthermore, his father Burt Fabelman (Paul Dano) regards Sammy’s filmmaking as a hobby rather than a suitable basis for a career.
This is Steven Spielberg’s filmic version of his early life, and as such it could have been portrayed through rose tinted glasses, but he does not flinch from the terrible anti-semitism and bullying he suffered at college or the pain of his Mum’s frustrations and anxiety. At college he also meets devout Christian, Monica Sherwood (Chloe East), who has pictures of pop stars and Jesus on her bedroom walls. Although she is rather creepy, Sammy’s interest in filmmaking is rekindled when she says he can borrow her father’s 16mm Arriflex camera
There is a stand out performance by Judd Hirsh, who plays Sammy’s Uncle Boris. He tells Sammy in a dramatic fashion how creativity is something that dominates your life and goes beyond family or anything else. He underlines this by telling how he used to work with circus lions, with the trick being not to get your head bitten off. That would certainly be worse than a bad review.
Gabriel LaBelle as the 16-year-old Fabelman/Spielberg is perfect casting, as he displays the right amount of vulnerability, determination and curiosity. It is also wonderful seeing film director David Lynch play the part of the grizzled cigar chomping Western film director John Ford.
This is a perfect homage by Steven Spielberg to the process of moviemaking, his early amateur filmmaking career and to the highs and lows of teenage life where everything can potentially be the greatest show on Earth.
The Fabelmans is screening at Plymouth Arts Cinema from Saturday 11th – Saturday 18th February with Bringing in Baby – Wed 15th February, Relaxed Screening – Sat 25th February.
Reviewed by Nigel Watson
