The Internet is not only a global communication system, but a time machine. We can come across things that never existed more than in the memory of a few years after they appeared. There is always something to discover and A few years ago, the mockumentary about the life of Steven Spielberg was leaked on YouTube that arrived many years before ‘Los Fabelmans’.
It had been rumored for a long time the existence of a 1987 tribute to the director entitled ‘Citizen Steve’ which dealt with his life and career until that moment. Around the time I was shooting ‘Empire of the Sun’, the short parodied the legendary Orson Welles film ‘Citizen Kane’, from which Steven Spielberg He is one of her biggest fans.
Amblin’s Empire
The director’s devotion can be seen in ‘Ready player One’, when the word “Rosebud” is heard – not by chance, as the filmmaker owned the only surviving sleigh from the film until he donated it to the Academy Museum. The creator of ‘Jurassic Park’ had acquired it in 1982, so his friends John Candy and Dan Aykroyd must have been aware of his predilection.
Both prepared the short as a gift for Spielberg’s 40th birthday and in its twenty-three minutes they recreate the appearance of ‘Citizen Kane’, only that instead of Charles Foster Kane’s empire, it’s about the ‘Amblin Empire’, as a parody. It is noticeable that its ironic tone is supported by private jokes and it is evident that it was created for consumption among friends, with scenes like Amblin’s supposed “private zoo”, with copulating dogs, with a humor that the director rarely shows in his cinema.
It is also surprising that the artifact is filled with reverence and true love for Spielberg, suggesting that his professional colleagues really are on a sincere friendship, and he is far from a despot, as many of those who appear were probably employed by he. Although the fictional relationship between the figure of Spielberg and Kane is not without a point of satire on the tyrant with a great empire that somehow does fit.
A curiosity of the 80s
Done as a gift by his famous friends, it’s impossible not to be a self-indulgent piece to the point of being uninteresting on its own, since it’s not really aimed at audiences to entertain, but curious in how it presents black and white images. black of his ‘1941’ actors, John Candy and Dan Akroyd, in period costume, playing the roles of journalists from the 1940s.
The segment of march of time with Ackroyd’s voice and altered newspaper headlines is hilarious, and seeing Candy playing the reporter who is assigned the task of uncovering the famous director awakens a nostalgic memory for the great actor. As in the movie, Candy is sent to interview people who know “Steven Allen Spielberg”, the director’s real name who coincides in composition with Charles Foster Kane, and what follows is really a variant of the show ‘This Is Your Life’, with family and childhood friends that tell stories related to the character.
Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckisalso screenwriters of ‘1941’, with a bit of self-deprecating humor, intend to get excited about making a sequel to their widely criticized collaboration with Spielberg. robin williamsbefore his participation in ‘Hook’ improvises, Barbra Streisand sing ‘Happy Birthday’, George Lucas does not have any comic timing, and others like Drew Barrymore, Dennis Weaver, Michael Jackson, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Spielberg’s future ex-wife, Amy Irving, are some of the faces that appear with some images of his unfinished short film about bicycle racing, ‘Slipstream’. A curiosity for very coffee fans of Spielberg.