Between Art and Life: An audio essay on Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans
An audio essay on Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans written and read by Ethan Warren, produced and edited by Blake Howard.
The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life…the cinema both gives to life and takes from it.
Jean-Luc Godard
In the opening moments of The Fabelmans, Sammy's parents, Burt and Mitzi, bring him to his first movie: Cecil B DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. Mitzi informs Sammy that by the time the movie is over, he’ll have the biggest, sloppiest smile on his face, but Sammy’s response isn’t so simple. Instead, his first encounter with the art form to which he’ll devote his life is one of awe, but a terrified sort of awe. Art has the capacity to change everything for this young man, and the emotional growth spurt triggered by DeMille’s film is powerful, but it’s painful, too. His father hoped to indoctrinate Sammy into the cult of science via the marvels of motion pictures, while his mother hoped to invite him into an unforgettable dream world. Instead, Sammy landed somewhere in between.
Voice Cast:
Ethan Warren - Narrator/Writer - Links: Twitter, Substack, Pre-order The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha
Elizabeth Cantwell - Herself - Links: Website, BWDR, Twitter
Nikki Dolson - Stephanie Spinner - Links: Twitter, Linktree
Liam G Billingham - Young Spielberg - Links: Twitter, Die Hard on a Blank
Art:
Tom Ralston - Links: Twitter, Website
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A former editor for the online film journal Bright Wall/Dark Room since 2018. As of 2020, I’m working on my first book, The Cinema of Paul Thomas Anderson: American Apocrypha, under contract with Wallflower books. Ethan is a Boston Society of Film Critics member and a graduate of the master’s program in creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Ethan lives on Boston's south shore with his wife, Caitlin, and their children.