Quote:
Originally Posted by vortexx
I knew Tobe and worked with him. I never asked him about Poltergeist, but all the Spielbergian moments people seem to think Tobe couldn't have come up with are in the script. I have a copy of an earlier script which would have likely recieved an R rating and all that stuff is in the script. Tobe was hired to shoot an existing script. Should he have scrapped that stuff so people wouldn't think Spielberg directed it or some of it?
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This is correct, though I should add that Hooper was right beside Spielberg as Spielberg cranked out the final shooting script of the film. Hooper probably had a lot of say in what went into the film and how it was structured.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hedji
After reading your thoughts, you're right; I probably didn't articulate well or choose my words carefully. Is it 60/40? 50/50? Who really knows? But happydood's post above mine suggested it's a beautiful blend of both, and I agree. For what it's worth, I'm a bigger fan of Spielberg than Hooper, both as a filmmaker and personality. I just think it's wise to consider that there is plenty of Tobe Hooper's style in the film, as evidenced by the tone of his other work from the era. Of course, Spielberg is all over it. There are photos of him in Director poses on the set. But I don't think it's necessarily more one than the other. Just my feeling. It's sad that Hooper's career went the way it did.
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You can find photos of him almost looking like a director on the set of
The Goonies and
Gremlins as well. It's just there wasn't a concerted effort by the studio's marketing department to push photos showing Spielberg doing nothing more than be an involved producer (which is all that a photo can really do).
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeanJoyce
The proof is in the finished product and the incontrovertible fact that visually, tonally and thematically Poltergeist resembles every movie Spielberg was making in the 70s/80s and nothing that Hooper did before or after.
Spielberg admitting the truth would not only be a DGA breach-of-contract, he'd be substantiating long-held-reports about Hooper's mistreatment on set and trammeling on his grave in the process.
Just like everybody embracing The Thing from Another World as a Howard Hawks film, it's borderline negligent to deny that Spielberg was the stagecoach driver of Poltergeist...with Hooper riding shotgun.
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I'd argue it was the other way around, if the sheer number of divergences and seemingly spontaneous additions/eliminations from the script suggest a constant subverter of Spielberg's "big picture vision." It's negligent to suggest the "E.T. Contract" theory has any validity when the film was Hooper's initial concept and had shook hand with Spielberg to direct it before Spielberg even conceived of "E.T." with Melissa Matheson.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AKORIS
oh come on.... this has been talked about for decades.... I'm not saying that Spielberg directed the entire film... but just look at it! It's so obvious that his directorial style is all over! Look at Hooper's resume.... do you see much of him in the finished project??
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Yes. The film has a much more objective, restrained approach to images - ones that focus on architecture and the oppressive nature of enclosed spaces - and also a clear sense of artificiality that is much more in line with Hooper's work than Spielberg's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeanJoyce
So Spielberg gets a gun-fire-hire with some name recognition who he could essentially dictate and delegate with no push-back...and it worked. The advertising campaign for Poltergeist magnified Spielberg so much and marginalized Hooper to such a degree that an investigation was launched by the DGA and MGM decided to pay Hooper $15,000 to make him happy. That's why Spielberg remains quiet on the whole thing, it's a can of worms he'd rather not open.
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Hooper birthed the entire idea to make
Poltergeist and went on to co-develop or sign-off on its direction, before he and Spielberg essentially co-concocted the final shooting script (with help from Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy). He was not just "hired"... he was an integral part of the film's conception, and it's a weird phenomenon for people to ignore that even though it's been included in the history by everyone's go-to source of verified facts, Wikipedia. Spielberg was trying to produce more entering the 80s, and so: "When Spielberg approached Hooper to direct [alien invasion film "Night Skies"], Hooper was less keen on the sci-fi elements and suggested the idea of a ghost story. Spielberg and Hooper would then go on to collaborate on the first treatment for the film."
Quote:
Originally Posted by RevengeOfToonces
Fun movie, but way more in line stylistically with Lifeforce or even Funhouse than Poltergeist. I'm honestly surprised there's still any debate about this. Lighting, angles, edits, reaction shots, music cues - it's clearly all Spielberg.
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Nah.
Spielberg doesn't think in terms of architecture and oppressiveness. There's also a stillness and soft-focus haziness (as opposed to the more overt things in Spielberg films, like Marion foregrounded by the candle flame - instead, we can never really tell what backgrounds characters in Hooper's films) in
Poltergeist that bypasses any of Spielberg's constant kinetics. That is all Hooper did up to that point.
[Show spoiler]
[Show spoiler]
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeTogo84
I pretty much believe Spielberg directed the majority of Poltergeist. It just feels like his film with some Tope Hooper thrown in for flavor.
This is a quote from John Leonetti who worked on the film, "It was a very intense, very fun, very technical movie to work on. There’s a lot going on. And candidly… Steven Spielberg directed that movie. There’s no question," he stated. "However, Tobe Hooper – I adore. I love that man so much."
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John Leonetti's entire argument boils down to: 1) The film was heavily storyboarded (but does he know how often the storyboards were completely thrown out? Hooper often stated his lack of interest in using storyboards, despite the necessity of them in a film of this budget); 2) Spielberg would invite them to his house to show dailies (sounds like a producer); 3) "Sometimes Spielberg would leave the set and let Hooper do his own thing just because." So Spielberg directed it, but
he was the one who would leave the set? 4) "Steven developed the film, it was his to direct." That's objectively wrong and indicates a person who is not in control of the knowledge he purports to have. The film was always agreed to be Hooper's as it was his pitch. Once the script was written, Spielberg was always the hanger-on to Hooper's concerted effort (every account of the film's pre-production - yes, including that one anonymous Spielberg supporter - state Hooper was the main person in charge during pre-production. Their relationship on the set is the only thing that has caused ay confusion, and it's a fuzzy area that no one really has any right to come to conclusions about except Hooper and Spielberg themselves. Hooper maintains the film definitely feels like his style, pushed to a different territory by his collaborator Spielberg, as all his films tend to change between their varying inspirations).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackie Scanlon
Spielberg DEFINITELY directed the scene in the pool, which most people assume would be more typical of Hooper. Jobeth Williams has told the story several times of being too scared to go in with all the electric lights in there, so Spielberg got in with her for the entire time they shot it and didn't get out until after she did. There are also LOADS of things in the family scenes that have Spielberg's signature all over them, and the shaving scene is a kissing cousin to the obvious bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
With the number of other cast and crew who have said Spielberg was on set almost every single day (even for second unit stuff), I suspect that Hooper sat in the chair and nominally called the shots verbally, whilst Spielberg stood off to the side and everyone had a quiet word with him when Hooper wasn't looking for some "proper" direction.
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The pool scene reminds me of Texas Chain Saw's dinner scene, and JoBeth Williams slipping back in the pool (not in the storyboards) very much like Marilyn Burns jumping through windows twice. And what Spielberg did doesn't say anything about directing, nor does Williams's remarks ever say anything about Spielberg staying in there the entire time. The pictures we have of the shooting of that scene show Hooper presiding over the set and numerous puppeteers surrounding Williams - in the pool - as they needed to control the corpses, Spielberg nowhere to be found. That said, that scene took days to shoot, so we have no idea really what happened through the course of those days. Sounds like Spielberg did it as little more than a demonstration.
Again, everything being said is little more than speculation. Outside of every outspoken and non-biased actor stating Hooper directed them almost exclusively, here's an on-the-record story of Beatrice Straight putting her foot down at Spielberg's overbearing presence (the same sort of behavior he is said to have had on sets like
Used Cars and
The Goonies) and stating who exactly she was going to listen to:
Here is the other actor's statements:
[Show spoiler]
And a picture:
[Show spoiler]
Finally, about
Invaders from Mars, check out the first act of the film Canon Pictures cut out in this rough cut of the film, as they weren't interested in a "character development director":
. It may clear up some misconceptions that Hooper always got to do exactly what he wanted to do, and that what he wanted to do automatically isn't
Poltergeist.
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