Formal Film Study; Steven Speilberg: War Horse and Lincoln

          Steven Speilberg is one of greatest directors in the history of film making. He is one of the most respected directors because of what he has accomplished and also because he has won so many awards for his films in the past. I choose two of his most recent movies: "Lincoln" and "War Horse". these two movies were very similar becasue they both were in based in the time of big wars that were going on. Lincoln was during the Civil War and War Horse was in the time of World War 1. When I was watching these two movies you felt like you were there in that battle scene or in that meeting between Daniel Day Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones. That is why I think Speilberg is one of the best because he can make you feel like you are there. These films were controversial in some way because they were both in the middle of major wars. Lincoln was controversial because how do you give an actor a script and say "here act like Lincoln" it had to be one of the hardest roles anyone has ever had to play. In War Horse there is a scene where the germans are attacking but the camera is showing a close up of the horses face and it was like Speilberg wanted to show the scene from the perspective of the horse. The main discovery that I notcied while watching Spielbergs movies was that he is great with using special efftects. Espicially in movies that I am not writing about in this post but others such as Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Men In Black and many more. Jaws was a scary movie because of what you do not see. Not because of what you do. He builds suspense through his music. I feel like he is great with not making music to intense but just right to where you can find yourself getting goosebumps during the movie.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000229/bio

For my research i found a gret deal of information on Spielberg from his biography on IMDB. It gave me great info on not only the movies that I watched but movies that I havent seen of his and are now on my list.




A lot of movie critics thought that Lincolon should have won best picture and others thought that it shouldn't have even been nominated. My thoughts was that it was a great movie and it is a movie that everybody should see because it is such an important part of our countries history. Daniel Day-Lewis was spectacular in it. He played probably one of the hardest roles that anyone has ever had to play and he nailed it.

All in all, Steven Spielberg made two fantastic films in War Horse and Lincoln. They had similar background and both were stories during two of the most important roles of all time. Both films had actors that were perfectly chosen and Daniel Day-Lewis just won best actor at the oscars. You could see why he is one of the greats in the movie buisness with these two films.