Pop Smart - Loving Steven Spielberg’s late period””

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is an affectionate throwback to the thrill-a-minute cliffhangers of the “early period” Steven Spielberg. It offers more charm and heart than we usually get in our summer movies, but I confess that I now prefer “late period” Spielberg instead.

At 62 years old, Spielberg may not be old enough to have a “late” period, but you can definitely divide his body of work into three distinct phases. The early, “wunderkind” period featured his masterpieces of pop entertainment that defined the movie blockbuster as we now know it: Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, etc. Someone (I forget who) aptly compared him to a perfect amalgam of Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney, and this year’s Screen on the Green pays tribute to early Spielberg by showing Jaws on May 29 and E.T. on June 19.

After Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg conspicuously shifted gears, and seemed bent on making “grown-up,” prestige movies — frequently historical epics with literary credentials, which just happen to be the kind of movies that usually win Oscars. His middle period includes The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Schindler’s List and Amistad, along with early-period flashbacks like the first two Jurassic Park movies. After winning his second Best Director Oscar with Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg finally earned critical acclaim and film industry validation for so-called serious films to match his commercial success with entertainments. What do you do when you have nothing left to prove?