‘The Fabelmans’: Steven Spielberg Has Been Developing the Coming-of-Age Movie for Nearly 25 Years
Steven Spielberg has brought many stories to life in the 48 years he’s directed movies. Recently, he’s created a new, more personal film than anything he’s ever done. This one was so important to Spielberg that he not only directed it but he also co-wrote the script. The result is a movie that’s already getting Oscar buzz.
The origin of ‘The Fabelmans’
The Fabelmans is a semi-autobiographical movie about Spielberg’s life between the ages of seven and 18. It focuses on Sammy Fabelman as he falls in love with filmmaking and learns some hard truths about his family.
Spielberg first entertained the idea of a movie about his family in 1999. At that time, his sister Anne Spielberg wrote a screenplay about them called I’ll Be Home. But although he was intrigued by the idea, it would have to wait for a few decades.
The delay wasn’t because the family didn’t want him to make the movie. Spielberg reports that both of his parents nagged him to move forward with the project, saying “When are you going to tell that story about our family, Steve?”
When the time came, it was during a season of loss and uncertainty.
Spielberg learned to see his parents ‘as real people’
In March 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the world, Spielberg was in the process of losing his father, Arnold, who was 103. His mother, Leah, died in 2017. According to The Hollywood Reporter, when Arnold died in August, it left Spielberg thinking deeply about questions about his family and his past.
“Which is, when does a young person in a family start to see his parents as human beings?” Spielberg explained. “In my case, because of what happened between the ages of 7 and 18, I started to appreciate my mom and dad not as parents but as real people.”
This would be a very different kind of film for the director. He contacted writer Tony Kushner to discuss the project. Kushner wrote three of Spielberg’s movies: West Side Story, Lincoln, and Munich. But this was the first screenplay the two would write together and the first time Spielberg had written one since 2001’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Kushner was hesitant about the project. But Spielberg felt strongly about it, pushing him to start working on it immediately via Zoom. In August, they had an outline. They spent three to four hours a day on Zoom as they wrote the screenplay. By December, they completed the first draft.
A promising premiere
Despite the continuing pandemic, production began in the summer of 2021 and took 59 days to complete. The resulting movie debuted at the Toronto Film Festival in September of this year.
It was received with enthusiasm, getting two standing ovations from the audience: one as Spielberg introduced it and the other when the movie ended. It also won the People’s Choice Award, a sign that it’s a potential Oscar nominee.
The movie was released in select theaters on November 11 and will open worldwide on November 23. It’s not currently available for streaming, but according to Distractify, it will probably come to Peacock eventually.
It makes sense that viewers will only be able to see it in theaters at first because that’s how Spielberg thinks movies should be viewed. Fans of the director and his work will be able to experience his story in the medium he prefers.
