Poltergeist (1982) (25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by ravenus

Nope.

Yep.

[ptsherm]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

Whichever camp you fall into on this argument (personally, I feel strongly that it’s Spielberg’s work virtually in total), this is the weakest, easiest-to-torpedo argument of them all. POLTERGEIST was being filmed pretty much simultaneously with E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL and DGA rules at the time prevented one director from helming two projects at once, which is how Tobe Hooper got roped in in the first place. He was merely a means to Spielberg’s magical ends; no other Hooper film before or after looks or feels much of anything like POLTERGEIST.

I get people are done with this, but:

No, I keep on repeating this, that was not the only reason that Hooper "got roped in." Spielberg didn't have haunted houses or ghosts in his mind at all before he met Hooper. It was Hooper's desire to make a ghost film, and he had been doing research on poltergeist activity since 1978, even meeting the UCLA parapsychologist who would go on to inspire the Lesh character (who was written as a man by Grais, Victor, and Spielberg before a rewrite - with Hooper - changed her into a woman).

Spielberg wanted to produce more entering the 80s and asked Hooper if he wanted to direct the evil aliens film "Night Skies." Hooper pitched him a ghost story and then they essentially wrote the bare-bones story of the film together.

The film feels very little like the warm and snuggly blankets that are his films. The characters always stand at a distance, allowing us to study their fear. A Spielbergian dolly shot is easy to imitate - harder to imitate is a certain tenor and that tenor is much more Hooper than Spielberg.

Originally Posted by MJD64

When I think about it, it's the wonderfully bizarre and often murderously oddball characters that populate a Tobe Hooper film that make them especially distinctive: Both TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE films, LIFEFORCE, EATEN ALIVE, the underrated THE FUNHOUSE and a myriad number of others - they're what makes them truly "Hooperesque", if you will.

POLTERGEIST is a fun ride and I've been a fan since seeing it twice theatrically in the Summer of 1982, but these characters are all far more Spielberg than Hooper; the Freelings make for a vivid and hugely likable family - they're the crucial element in what makes this spook show a popular favorite and classic even today - but in the end, these are wholly Spielbergian suburbanite archetypes, and why I've always believed this film is more Spielberg than Hooper (I remain convinced Hooper would've poked more darkly satirical fun at this ideal family unit). With the possible exception of Zelda Rubinstein's psychic, these characters lack that blackly comic and quirky touch I feel sure Hooper would've given them - even in a PG-rated studio film.

I can agree this was a collaborative effort, but Spielberg was certainly its guiding hand.

A guiding hand that Hooper constantly reinterpreted as director. The ghost coming down the staircase was supposed to be James Cameron-like ectoplasm "playfully" circling the parapsychologists' machines. This was sold as a "science-horror" film. Hooper pared down the interest in the science and tech, he likely pushed the idea of the female ghost (he was a fan of the 1940s film "The Uninvited," which the ghost is a direct homage to), and we get a staircase ghost scene that is probably a lot less conventionally suspenseful than Spielberg would have made it. "Poltergeist," in the end, is kind of a sloppy movie. This is due to someone other than the super slick, straight-arrow Spielberg making it. Hooper was known to improv and rethink things, and this results in somewhat messier things. That Spielberg was there to rein him in is one reason, perhaps, it feels less like a Hooper film (even though it does feel like one).

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by ptsherm

The film feels very little like the warm and snuggly blankets that are his films. The characters always stand at a distance, allowing us to study their fear. A Spielbergian dolly shot is easy to imitate - harder to imitate is a certain tenor and that tenor is much more Hooper than Spielberg.

I don't agree with this. While there are certainly sinister aspects of the movie, I feel that the horror is frustratingly, consistently undercut by Spielberg's cute, family-friendly sensibilities.

As I said earlier, I wish that Hooper enjoyed the level of autonomy that you believe he had, as I feel it could have been a particularly unsettling paranormal flick.

It's why I also disagree with those who consider their collaboration harmonious; I feel that they're polar opposites as artists, and the film exhibits this discordant clash in styles. I like and respect Spielberg a great deal, but he rarely goes for the jugular in ways that prime Hooper was unafraid to.

[Kleeberg]

Whether Spielberg or Hooper directed it, the film remains the same.

Move on with your lives.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

Whether Spielberg or Hooper directed it, the film remains the same.

Move on with your lives.

Maybe you didn't notice the sign on your way in, but this is a movie discussion board.

Kindly heed your own advice.

[ambient_indie]

Originally Posted by Jay H.

Yep.

I love all three movies and all of them have their own masterful takes to the haunted house subhorror genre.

[Jay Mammoth]

My favorite Hooper film besides the original TCM.

[Kleeberg]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

Maybe you didn't notice the sign on your way in, but this is a movie discussion board.

Kindly heed your own advice.

Yes, a movie discussion board. Not a 'let's go back and forth about who directed this movie 40 years ago, even though no one involved in the movie actually cares' board.

If you think Tobe Hooper directed it, the movie doesn't change.

If you think Steven Speilberg directed it, the movie doesn't change.

So again...who cares?

[OneWayFilms]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

Yes, a movie discussion board. Not a 'let's go back and forth about who directed this movie 40 years ago, even though no one involved in the movie actually cares' board.

If you think Tobe Hooper directed it, the movie doesn't change.

If you think Steven Speilberg directed it, the movie doesn't change.

So again...who cares?

It seems you are the only one who doesn't care. By the amount of posts on this subject, it appears that SEVERAL people care, so why don't you simply keep scrolling and skip this thread, since you obviously don't care?

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

So again...who cares?

Obviously a lot of people care, otherwise why would we be discussing it? If you don't care, that's fine. Just bite your tongue and move on instead of providing absolutely nothing to the conversation with your useless comments.

[Kleeberg]

Originally Posted by DukeTogo84

Obviously a lot of people care, otherwise why would we be discussing it? If you don't care, that's fine. Just bite your tongue and move on instead of providing absolutely nothing to the conversation with your useless comments.

The irony of someone calling my comments useless while debating which person directed a film 40 years ago...

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

[Show spoiler]Yes, a movie discussion board. Not a 'let's go back and forth about who directed this movie 40 years ago, even though no one involved in the movie actually cares' board.

If you think Tobe Hooper directed it, the movie doesn't change.

If you think Steven Speilberg directed it, the movie doesn't change.

So again...who cares?

So using your logic, why discuss any aspect of a film if it isn't going to change anything? Why applaud/criticize performances, question directorial choices, or evaluate social impact...the film isn't going to be altered in any way, is it?

As others have noted, people obviously care about the debate in question. Just admit that you don't and move on, or else contribute something meaningful to the thread.

[Kleeberg]

Originally Posted by SeanJoyce

So using your logic, why discuss any aspect of a film if it isn't going to change anything? While applaud/criticize performances, question directorial choices, or evaluate social impact...the film isn't going to be altered in any way, is it?

By all means, continue debating whose name should be on the bottom of the poster next to 'directed by'.

I hope you win the argument!

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

By all means, continue debating whose name should be on the bottom of the poster next to 'directed by'.

Thanks bud, your permission was all that was needed to take this thread to the next level.

Cheers!

[drush9999]

The making of Poltergeist is fascinating, who did what on the movie is also fascinating.
The thread title says Poltergeist, so is in the correct space for such a discussion

[DukeTogo84]

Originally Posted by Kleeberg

The irony of someone calling my comments useless while debating which person directed a film 40 years ago...

Congrats, another comment that added absolutely nothing to the conversation. If these useless posts validate your existence, then maybe reflect on why you're posting and realize how incompetent you sound.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by drush9999

The making of Poltergeist is fascinating, who did what on the movie is also fascinating.
The thread title says Poltergeist, so is in the correct space for such a discussion

I agree. It's rare that the authorship of a film is so complicated, and this one is at almost RASHOMON levels, with people who actually worked on the film claiming opposing things, and sometimes even the same people changing their stories.

This is a truly fascinating subject, and I always enjoy the back and forth. We all have our opinions, and it's quite clear by now that the question will never be settled, but it's enormously entertaining and enlightening to discuss it!

[James Luckard]

I just watched a similar film last night, NEVER SAY GOODBYE. It's credited to Jerry Hopper, but Douglas Sirk prepared the film, cast the leads, then had to leave to shoot WRITTEN ON THE WIND, only to return and get asked to reshoot some scenes on NEVER SAY GOODBYE. I had a great time watching the film and trying to figure out which elements were Sirk's and which were not. From the book I'm reading now on Srik, even he was never clear about how much was his.

The discussions about what elements belong to Spielberg vs Kubrck in AI are also similarly interesting.

These conversations are what make this board so much fun, we all have knowledge and opinions to contribute.

However, those people taking the time to contribute the opinion that everyone else needs to stop contributing theirs seems kind of pointless.

[SeanJoyce]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

[Show spoiler]I just watched a similar film last night, NEVER SAY GOODBYE. It's credited to Jerry Hopper, but Douglas Sirk prepared the film, cast the leads, then had to leave to shoot WRITTEN ON THE WIND, only to return and get asked to reshoot some scenes on NEVER SAY GOODBYE. I had a great time watching the film and trying to figure out which elements were Sirk's and which were not. From the book I'm reading now on Srik, even he was never clear about how much was his.

The discussions about what elements belong to Spielberg vs Kubrck in AI are also similarly interesting.

These conversations are what make this board so much fun, we all have knowledge and opinions to contribute.

However, those people taking the time to contribute the opinion that everyone else needs to stop contributing theirs seems kind of pointless.

Well said. Two other fascinating examples of conflicting authorship are:

Les Enfants Terribles: Renaissance Frenchman Jean Cocteau was an established and esteemed novelist, playwright and director by the time Jean-Pierre Melville burst onto the scene with Le Silence de la Mer, but he was so taken by the Resistance fighter's freshman effort that he campaigned for him to take the reigns for the film adaptation of his baby, the novel of the same name. The two clashed incessantly, with each side winning points for casting choices and musical styles. Cocteau actually yelled "cut" while sitting behind Melville one day, prompting the famously-prickly director to have him removed from the set. To this day critics can't decide whose voice can be heard louder on the finished product, with a tenuous medium of "Melville's restraint reigned in Cocteau's lurid sensibilities" more or less agreed upon.

The Thing from Another World: notorious genre-jumper Howard Hawks never "officially" directed a horror film, but he acted as producer and his fingerprints are all over it (rapid, overlapping dialogue, group camaraderie, tough females.) The credited director is Christian Nyby, Hawks' frequent editor. This is his first and only feature film, and the story goes that Hawks gave him credit so he could receive an official DGA membership (the horror genre was also treated as anathema by directors with Hawks' pedigree, so "safe distancing" has been assumed.) But by now this has canonically been accepted as a Hawks film, and the reports of those on set as well as Nyby's conspicuous absence from further feature films solidifies this.

[KMR]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

POLTERGEIST was being filmed pretty much simultaneously with E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL and DGA rules at the time prevented one director from helming two projects at once, which is how Tobe Hooper got roped in in the first place.

My understanding is that it was Spielberg's contract for E.T., not DGA rules, that prevented him from directing both films at the same time. While "one director per picture" might make sense for a DGA rule, I can't figure out how they could justify a "one picture per director" rule. That seems to be something more of concern to producers/financiers, not the guild.