It was nice to see Steven Spielberg provide an opening address to the audience on his love of cinema and the power of storytelling, particularly thanking them for attending the screening. Despite the ironic and depressing fact that the audience for this screening – the first screening of the film in my local Cineworld – was comprised of myself and two other people. Three people. In a cinema. Watching the debut screening of a film directed by Spielberg. Yikes. Come on guys, stop watching your Netflix and see this at a real cinema. It did allow me to use my new light pen to write notes without disrupting any viewers nearby, so I guess that’s one positive. But seriously, support your local cinema.
Anyway, if you’re not clued in on that famous train sequence from the Lumiere brothers, allow me to take you on a quick ride (see what I did there?). The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (in its original French, L’arrivee d’un Train en Gare de la Ciotat) premiered in Paris in 1896 and shows a train arriving at a station through a forced perspective. Rumours abounded at the time that some members of the audience were so terrified by the image of the approaching vehicle coming out of the screen that they ran away. While scholars have since regarded this tale as utter hogwash, to put it politely, it was a tale that nonetheless gained momentum and travelled far and wide. Much like the train itself. See? Train metaphor (or, more accurately, train simile).
The reason I’ve mentioned the above anecdote is because this bit of cinema trivia appears to bear influence on some of The Fableman’s key opening scenes. In Steven Spielberg’s heavily autobiographical work, we watch a young Sammy attending a cinema screening with his parents, staring transfixed at the screen as a train zooms by and then crashes. As his mother enthuses after the screening, ‘movies are dreams that you’ll never forget’. After receiving a model train set for Hanukkah, he recreates the screen and watches the projected images on his hands with utter wonder, echoing the pivotal image of Cinema Paradiso as a young Salvatore stares lovingly at a roll of film. The train forms an essential part of his burgeoning love for cinema, with classical cinema subtly referenced in the process.
The history of cinema is then lightly touched upon throughout the film, particularly eloquently with a subtle nod to The Great Train Robbery in one sequence, while also incorporating Spielberg’s biographical coming-of-age narrative as Sammy’s family life unfolds. To say much more would be a disservice to the power of the film. And while I don’t believe that The Fablemans was quite deserving of the Best Film accolade at the recent Golden Globes, as a love letter to the magic and mythologies of film, particularly during a time when films concerning films (filmception? Perhaps) are in big demand, you won’t find any contemporary work about filmic fascination much better than this.