Jon Hastings has posted a brief rejoinder to my review of War of the Worlds. The gist of Jon’s new post is that no, Spielberg fully intended that “happy ending” to be a straightforward, honest-to-god happy ending, and has said as much about similar scenes in other films he’s made. In that case I’ll take back what I said about Spielberg’s intent to make a happy ending so unearned and tacked-on that it serves as a backhanded critique of happy endings–but that don’t mean that that ain’t how it ends up reading! If Spielberg truly felt that audiences would cheerily buy the father-and-child reunion at the end of WotW, he really needs someone to sit him down and explain some things to him. I’m still not 100% convinced he wasn’t aware of what he was doing–those musical cues are key, methinks–but hey, food for thought.
And also hey, I certainly think this tactic is a flaw in his filmmaking because it’s basically superfluous, but it’s an interesting flaw to me, rather than an infuriating one. And it may well make his movies more, not less, compelling as art, if not as narratives.
I would also like to second Jon’s motion that Spielberg giving the people what he thinks they want is no more or less contrived than Lars Von Trier giving the people what he thinks they need–which is a roundabout way of Lars Von Trier giving them what he wants, and what he thinks they deserve.