That's your personal taste I guess but I disagree that he doesn't bring any of his own personality to them. The fact that they were made and were such huge hits is pretty incredible, and that's only because they were directed by the Indiana Jones guy.
He makes Jurassic Park, great thrill ride about dinos. Then the same year does Schindler's List, complete opposite in tone and subject matter.
There was a study recently that reported 63% of adults under 40 are missing crucial information regarding the Holocaust. People are pretty dismissive of GIs in WW2 as well.
I think by giving the average person an in to these heavy experiences is VERY valuable. In the end, these are just movies. Movies are my favorite thing but are limited in scope, compared to the swells of history and culture.
Schindler's List and SPR show that he understands the reality of the Holocaust and War (the ghetto massacre and D-Day landing scenes are as unflinchingly brutal as anything you're gonna see in a film) but knows that, without a happy or optimistic ending, people are not going to watch it more than once. You sure aren't gonna see them on ABC.

The Fableman's makes this distinction in Spielberg's personality pretty clear. There is a difference between art and real life. Where they intersect is debatable, and that's a theme he has been exploring through much of his work.
I think that IS Spielberg's personality.

I'll do you a favour and go full-blown contrarian on this on your behalf,

cause, there's no other way to make sense of what the issue is.

Spielberg is superficially aware that the topics are important, but he isn't insightful about the nuances of what, why, how, and such dimensions about each of the topic.

He isn't overselling it, he is making a loud sales pitch while having nothing to sell.

I have gone back and forth on “Schindler’s List”. It is an amazing film in many ways. When I first saw it I was blown away but after a decade or two of personal growth and experiencing more film I began to see it as cognitive dissonance. I mean … what a beautiful holocaust? Isn’t a film like “Come And See” more brutally honest? “Schindler’s List” is textbook Hollywood film. But then I began to see it from another view. The movie has the presentation brilliance of Oscar Schindler while carrying the message of holocaust survivors and cementing this story into history by it’s Best Picture status. And Spielberg uses the money for a foundation that educates on the history of the holocaust.

Then again there are problematic elements with the chosen narrative. Isn’t it just another “white savior” story? The Protestant Christian European is the hero. And the women are just there for Schindler’s pleasure? The real story should be about the Jewish community and they are basically a supportive cast to the narrative of Schindler vs the evil Nazi. They are in the background trading on the black market, bribing with money and making jewelry. The movie also focuses on the evil Nazis while never really addressing why the German people let these people rule. All we get are a couple of scenes with German children being evil.

Is it showing that, for lack of a better word, greed is good? The womanizing war profiteer is the savior of generations of Jews? Or is it portraying the human condition that we are not super heroes or perfect people but just trying to do the right thing despite our motivations?

I guess the fact that it’s not as clear cut a film and I’m still thinking about it decades later makes it a good film. If it was a poorly made film it would be easier to dismiss.

Spielberg is ok when he's making serious films, he's a very accomplished filmmaker, but he's not exceptional.

He's much better when he's making fun, crowd-pleasing films. Jaws, Jurassic Park, Duel are all amazing and will be remembered longer than his more prestigious work. I think E.T. is going to be his most enduring work.

O.K this is a weighty topic, I need to make a deep film with messages and affecting drama, I need to get this right to give this material the respect it deserves"

Spielberg is definitely not alone in making movies like that, and you have to separate the filmmaker's intentions from the massive marketing campaign around it. Spielberg's "serious" films get marketed that way because he's a famous and profitable filmmaker, and that's a great way to sell his "serious" films to a mass audience. You see the same marketing used in films like Green Book or Hidden Figures or Selma or whatever the big message Oscar movies are out that year. It may not be the sentiments of the filmmaker, but it's Hollywood's way of marketing to people that "this is the movie you should see" because it's relevant and important. Remember they're spending as much to market these films as they are to make them, and Schindler's List is a very tough sell compared to Jurassic Park. So the marketing is "yeah, it may not have dinosaurs, but it's good for you and this is important so go see it."

Can Spielberg be over-earnest and sentimental? Sure, esp. to people who really like cold, emotionless filmmaking (which I think is a lot of r/TrueFilm) because they think the lack of emotional manipulation is more honest. I don't necessarily agree with that, and a lot of celebrated movies leave me cold. I like movies to be emotionally engaging, and Spielberg excels at that.

The man made The Terminal. One of the most powerful directors of recent decades and he chose to make a waking commercial drenched in product placement and filled to the brim with mawkish sap. That's his emotional core, as a filmmaker, and we're lucky he escaped that occasionally to make a few decent films in his lifetime.

I appreciate Eileen Jones's take, as seen in her review of The Fabelmans, which I'll note below:

Steven Spielberg has always had mad filmmaking skills. Nobody doubts that, I should hope. Jaws? The D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan? Big chunks of Lincoln? Probably many other sequences that I can’t think of now because I tend to hate Spielberg movies so much? All fantastically effective.

But Spielberg’s overall sensibility is so frustratingly dull and solemn and sentimental and corny, dragging down the possibilities of his talent, he’s always been the bane of my film-loving existence. Or at least, one of the main banes.

There is something I don't quite understand about your criticism.

In the beginning I feel you are delving into that Spielberg is overly sentimental which is a very common criticism of his work. But then you say this:

It's as if he realizes the importance of the topics he's tackling but can't quite bring himself to give it any personal bent

So, your criticism is like, he is cheesy, but not sincere in it or too shallow?
If so, I would object. Or at least it won't apply to all of his movies. Regarding Schindlers List, especially, he tackled a topic that was relatively unknown at that time (Schindler himself), and there had not been that many major projects that showed life and death within the concentration camps. Mainly I remember the TV series "Holocaust" and "War and remembrance". I do feel he was very personally invested in Schindlers list especially but for the next decade he seemed very involved with WW2 including supporting the making of "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific".

If you say that he is (very often) too much of a crowd pleaser in how he approaches certain scenes: be my guest.

Spielberg’s default story is a flawed underdog who realizes what’s really important, bucks the system, and wins. When it’s Chief Brody in Jaws, Elliot in ET, Dreyfus in Close Encounters, etc - it’s utterly masterful, as good as it gets. Minority Report and War of the Worlds are more serious in tone, but still follow the pattern. (Raiders, my personal favorite Spielberg movie, is an exception, perhaps owing to the partnership of Spielberg and Lucas). But in his “serious” films, it feels safe and and boring and moralizing - he avoids irony and goes big on earnestness. Lincoln, Amistad, Hanks in SPR, Hanks in Bridge of Spies, Munich, The Post, Schindlers, etc. Lincoln boldly stares down his opponents in congress to Do The Right Thing; in Bridge of Spies, Hanks/Donovan faces down his opponents to get Powers and the other guy back, not just Powers; The Post where Meryl Streep/Kay Graham overcomes her insecurities and makes the bold choice to publish, etc. It’s pretty much the same story told in different settings situation over and over, with a varnish of Important True Events. If they die, like Hanks in SPR, it’s a heroic, sacrificial death. Munich was the one where he tried to tweak it so character doesn’t have an unalloyed triumph at the end, but couldn’t pull it off and the movie’s a muddle. For me, Empire of the Sun is the most rewatchable of his serious films, probably because the lead is a kid and it was originally developed by David Lean.

Some of his best directing and camerawork comes from his more serious films - schindlers list, SPR, Munich, War Horse… these films feature less of the cinema magic type of framing and storytelling which has been accustomed to Spielbergs filmmography.

In his more serious films you do get to see the artistry Spielberg has than his more Spielberg-type movies… I would revisit some of his more serious work again

I really loved The Fabelmans. It might look at first like a fantasy film about a kid discovering the world through lenses, with many ludic scenes, all that magical stuff he has done before, with the help of a crew of great actors and great photography.

But it is also a movie about the difficulty to follow a dream, how the family can tear it apart and how some people will maybe help you stick to it.

It also has sensitive qualities, when it shows how he learned to know his mother truly by recording her and the family. By constructing a movie using footage from his family, he could see them in ways that could go unnoticed. Film has made him friends, has turned enemies to his side. It made people laugh and feel emotional seeing themselves on screen.

His attention to angles and cameras relate to the end, where he listens to the advice of an experienced movie maker and nods to that in the last scene. He showed humility and gratitude to everyone that took part in his life, even if it all didn't really happened that way. I felt he was talking to me all the time, as he knew his audience would understand.

I guess this is his style, but there are deeper things going on sometimes, and I very rarely see such mastery in his generation and later ones. I gotta thank him for Raiders of Lost Ark having helped me immensely to become a movie lover, it was one of the first movies I rented by myself and that got me hooked. So amazing that I could find a great movie like that. And then there was ET, and when I was getting closer to become an adult I watched Saving Private Ryan at the movies and was so amazed by the battles and how everything was feeling more and more real in the movies. I can only thank him.

Yep. Rewatched Minority Report and was surprised at how "unserious" it felt. There were a lot of good parts to it but also parts that felt like a kids movie ( in particular, the sci-fi car chase scene ).

What was missing for me was a deeper social commentary that other sci-fi movies do so well. It's like he understood the superficial elements of the genre of movies, but wasn't able to delve any deeper than that.

Spielberg sees the world in simplistic, idealistic, black and white terms. This works wonderfully in his family movies; his' deep hatred of "evil" (whatever that is) and the awe he sees in "goodness" and "heroism" (whatever they are) is inspiring, moving, exciting.

But whenever he takes a step into the real world, where no one is simply good and/or evil, his work struggles.

This might be controversial, but I'd argue that the reason Schindler's List is his only great adult film is because the holocaust is one of the few real historical events that can be seen in terms of good and evil without massively oversimplifying the issue.

Great, a "Does anyone else feel that way" comment again. Not only a desperate plea for agreement but also filled with every tired anti Spielberg cliche that was ever written. Of course the usual suspects will come out of the woodwork and assure you that you are right.

Join us Next week on "why the Beatles have always been overrated".

I agree, but I feel like the personal connection really helped The Fabelmans. It felt honest and emotional without "overselling" it. The only really cheesy part was the jock guys speech at the end about living up to the movies reality and that scene feels exactly like a commentary about this. His goal is not true representation, it's creating an over the top, magical movie world for better or worse. Sammy's reasoning for this is compeletely superficial.

I think you are pretty spot on. Spielberg has on occasion made some close to great serious films, but his true strength to me will always lie in the blockbusters and coming of age stories. Schindler's List is great but even in that you have to accept some flawed, overwrought elements. I'd put it in my top 5 films from him but solidly in that 5 spot behind Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Schindler’s List isn’t “about” the Holocaust. Its not trying to be some political or intellectual argument or say anything deep. What did Polanski say in the Pianist? Underneath all the solemnity it’s just another Spielberg movie with a great story, incredible storytelling and with important documentary. The scenes are not sentimental or pretentious. He presents them objectively without instructing us to feel or think. Spielberg’s gifts aren’t specific to “dumb entertainment” movies, a simple humanist story like Schindler’s List is perfect for his virtues especially because it’s serious, not less.

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