The Steven Spielberg movie John Carpenter called “pretentious”
The 1970s were a thrilling time for filmmaking, seeing the emergence of new minds and talents keen to imprint their experimentation onto the industry. The ‘Movie Brats’, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, quickly established their names, whilst other burgeoning directors like John Carpenter and Ridley Scott also rose to critical and commercial prominence before the decade was out.
Of the aforementioned names, it was arguably Spielberg and Carpenter who both made the biggest splash in the industry, appealing both to critics and general audiences with such movies as 1975’s Jaws and 1978’s Halloween, respectively. Lovers of frivolous cult cinema and classics of the arthouse scene, both directors became icons in the 1970s and beyond, thrilling fans with some of the most definitive masterworks of the late 20th century, including The Thing, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Big Trouble in Little China and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
“Pretentious” is probably the last word you would use to describe either of their filmographies, with both realising their skills and playing to them with deft ease, yet Carpenter didn’t think so fondly of Spielberg’s films.
In an interview from 1979, Carpenter reflects on the decade just passed and on the many classics of Spielberg’s filmography, including Sugarland Express, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg’s first of many alien flicks. Yet, although Carpenter is a prominent lover of sci-fi, he was vocal in his dislike of the latter, believing Close Encounters was a “pretentious piece of cinema”.
“I didn’t care for it,” the filmmaker said of Spielberg’s beloved 1977 film, “It was pretentious and I think it got out of control, I think he lost control of it. There were parts of it that were not well done, it didn’t have a single purpose and it went off in several directions”.
Continuing, he adds: “One of the things I admire about a great work is that even if it’s flawed that the director is completely in control of it, he directs the film or tells the story with a great deal of authority and I felt that that wasn’t there in Close Encounters”.
Written and directed by Spielberg, the sci-fi flick tells the story of an electric lineman whose humble life is turned on its head after a close encounter with an extraterrestrial lifeform, changing the way he sees the world around him. Winning an Academy Award for ‘Best Cinematography’ whilst also receiving a ‘Best Director’ nomination, the movie starred the likes of Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon and François Truffaut.
Despite his dislike of Close Encounters, it would be wrong to suggest that Carpenter completely hates Spielberg’s work, with the director praising the monster movie Jaws at the start of the interview.
One director he does appear to hate, however, is the American filmmaker and seven-time Oscar nominee Robert Altman. When speaking about the director’s 1975 ‘Best Picture’ contender Nashville, he states: “He’s flogging around in the swamps. I don’t care for Altman’s work at all. I think he’s not a good filmmaker…I’m in the minority, I know a lot of people respect him and like his films, I don’t care for them, they’re slightly masturbatory”.
