The Steven Spielberg production that defied convention: “It still holds its own against any movie or TV show made today”
It might not be true in every case, but it’s reasonable to assume, for the most part, that filmmakers don’t go into a production with the intention of crafting something truly timeless. Then again, Steven Spielberg has managed it on multiple occasions.
The effects might be rudimentary, but Jaws holds up as well as ever almost half a century on from its release. The heartfelt emotions of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the gut-wrenching impact of Schindler’s List remain as powerful as ever, the D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan has lost none of its visceral immediacy, and Jurassic Park boasts better and more convincing CGI than many modern blockbusters.
He’s always tended to be at least one step ahead of the curve, and in keeping with the habit of a career, he went against the grain to upend established convention for the purpose of ensuring that a project he wasn’t even directing would stand the test of time and survive the inevitable antiquation that comes with technological evolution.
Co-created by Spielberg and Tom Hanks, Band of Brothers isn’t just one of the greatest TV shows ever made, but it was instrumental in ushering in the ‘Golden Age’ of small screen storytelling it helped ignite alongside HBO stablemate The Sopranos, a fruitful period that’s still going strong almost 25 years later.
These days, creators and showrunners have become bizarrely reluctant to admit they’re even making TV shows anymore, with the number of talents instead suggesting they’re crafting six, eight, or ten-hour movies growing increasingly weary. Spielberg would never call Band of Brothers anything but a series, although he was cognisant of using cinematic techniques to ensure it didn’t lose any of its audio-visual polish in the years to come.
As writer John Orloff explained to Task and Purpose, the three-time Academy Award winner was always thinking cinematically, even when it couldn’t be appreciated by a decent percentage of the at-home audience. “Band of Brothers was one of the very first TV shows to be shot and broadcast in widescreen at a time when very few televisions were made that way (most people originally saw the show with black bars on the top and bottom of their square TV screens),” he said. “Same thing with the sound.”
Hanks and Spielberg “insisted that it be mixed like a movie in surround sound,” even though “very few people had home surround systems.” Times have changed, but thanks to those calls, Band of Brothers has barely aged a day in the 20+ years since it first premiered.
“I am convinced that if we had not done these things – at Steven’s insistence by the way – that today, the show would look and hear antiquated as if from another era,” Orloff continued. “Instead, technically, it still holds its own against any movie or TV show made today.”
