- [Narrator] Why do audiences adore
Steven Spielberg's movies?
Collectively, Spielberg's
films have grossed
over $10 billion at the box office.
That's billions with a B.
♪ Paper ♪
- [Narrator] Famed
screenwriter and Hollywood guru
William Goldman once said of filmmaking:
- Nobody knows anything.
- [Narrator] Incidentally, we're talking
about Steven Spielberg, a guy
who probably knows something.
Still, the question begs
to be asked, what does
Steven Spielberg know?
- Are you listening?
- Yes, I am.
- [Narrator] Orphans.
- Plastics.
- [Narrator] Not plastics, orphans.
Long have writers used orphans to draw
in readers and viewers.
"Oliver Twist", "Little Orphan Annie".
- Who's next?
- [Narrator] "Harry Potter",
the list goes on and on.
So we wanted to examine.
How does Steven Spielberg
use orphans to tug
at our heartstrings?
- Making a picture for a boy's life next.
It all takes place in
three rooms of a house
and in a schoolyard.
It's all about kids and I'm
very anxious to make that one.
- [Narrator] This is "The Breakdown".
(futuristic electronic music)
Obviously, crafting orphans
as protagonists is effective
because orphans can be viewed
as the ultimate underdog.
No family, no home, often
times facing abusive
and impoverished conditions.
In "Into the Woods"
John Yorke explores some
of the science behind empathy.
"When empathy occurs,
we really do become one,
"physiologically, with the protagonist.
"As the character's heart accelerates,
"ours beats faster too.
"Watching someone being
hit activates exactly
"the same areas of the brain as being hit.
"The physiological
reactions, though fortunately
"not the pain, are identical.
"Stories thus literally place us all
"on the same wavelength."
- Is that the truth?
- Yeah.
- [Narrator] So let's start
with the least apparent,
"Catch Me If You Can".
The story of American forager and conman
Frank Abagnale Junior.
The film centers on
Abagnale as he tries to find
a place in the world through fake
checks and elaborate lies.
Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent
who wants nothing more
than to catch Frank, chases him.
(chimes ding)
Frank lives a perfect middle-class life,
complete with happy
parents in a suburban home
in New Rochelle.
Things quickly fall apart
however, when his father
is denied a business loan
due to issues with the IRS.
They're forced to downsize
to a small apartment
and soon thereafter his parents divorce
due to his mother's affair.
At the moment, Frank is
forced to chose between
living with his mother and father.
He instead chooses to run
away from his broken home.
Through the course of the
film, Frank occasionally
updates his father on his
life, talking about his work
and how much money he's making.
Frank orphans himself,
choosing instead to survive
on his own.
- Is this yours?
- [Narrator] Taking cues
from some tricks his father
taught him, he's able to survive.
Developing very special skills
in pursuit of a normal life,
a place to belong.
He becomes a master
check forger and conman,
convincing people at various
turns that he's a Pan Am
pilot, a doctor and a lawyer.
Through these various
cons and fake checks,
he's able to carve out
an existence for himself.
We marvel and cheer as
Frank, a teenager through the
course of the film, is
able to outsmart large
business institutions
with wit and intelligence.
Frank in his orphan
phase, uses these skills
in an unrelenting search
for the family structure
he's been robbed of.
He comes close when he
meets Brenda, another person
who has no family.
Frank eventually finds the
family he's been searching
for in Hanratty, the
government agent who's been
chasing him for the entire movie.
Hanratty, an outcast in
his own right, becomes
a mentoring and grounding
figure in Abagnale's life,
providing the center that
Frank has been yearning for.
Frank was a special
orphan in his own right,
his ultimate goal was to
find a place to call home
and people to call his own family.
We cheer for him because the
odds are impossibly stacked
high against him and he's able
to use this resourcefulness,
creativity and charm to defeat these odds.
One of Spielberg's most
universally celebrated and beloved
works, our orphan comes
from a different planet.
A film that has defined
childhoods, made lasting
impressions and burned indelible images
into a million minds.
"E.T." Opens with intense
and suspenseful scenes
as an alien ship lands on
Earth and its inhabitants
come out to explore the new
world they've landed on.
One of these aliens, driven
by curiosity wanders off
from the group.
Things quickly grow tense
when trucks full of faceless
men invade the forest
and the separated alien
watches the ship take off without him,
leaving him orphaned on planet Earth.
On the other side of town,
Elliott and his mother,
brother and sister are
attempting to find normalcy
in life after their father leaves.
They argue and bicker and
Elliott's mother attempts
to hide her sadness the best
she can from her children.
- Elliott!
Sit down.
- [Narrator] Things begin to
change when Elliott discovers
that he and E.T. share
a symbiotic connection.
- [Teacher] Get started
with the section.
(Elliott burps)
- [Kids] Ew.
- [Narrator] Like Frank
in "Catch Me If You Can",
E.T. is an orphan who's
main goal is to get back
to its family.
To get home he too, like Frank,
possesses special powers,
which he will use in his journey.
E.T.'s powers are a lot more supernatural
in that he can levitate
things, heal people and plants,
is super good at creating
devices to communicate
with distant planets and
he can make bikes fly.
Spielberg's able to use "E.T."
as an incredible underdog,
a being on a strange
planet with no apparent way
to get home.
- Oh God!
- [Narrator] We are drawn
to and support "E.T."
because of his innocent,
child-like nature.
He's mischievous and he
loves candy and we further
connect to him because he's been orphaned
on the doorstep of Earth, to
him a very strange planet.
And to us, also a strange planet.
It makes the emotional
payoff of him being reunited
with his family at the
end all the greater.
He's overcome impossible
obstacles, including
the US government and
death to get to that point
as it's overwhelming.
Furthermore, we also get the satisfaction
of this orphan uniting
Elliott and his family,
bringing them closer together
after having suffered
a family trauma.
"Minority Report" uses
the special orphan idea
in a much different way than most
of Spielberg's other work.
The story follows Tom
Cruise's John Anderton,
the chief of a crime
unit that deals in crimes
that haven't actually been committed yet.
Through the visions of three
Precogs, who are mutated
humans that are able to see the future
and various pieces of advanced technology,
the unit is able to put a stop
to murders before they occur.
(woman screams)
(glass breaks)
(watch beeping)
Things get really
complicated when the Precogs
predict that John himself
is set to commit a murder,
launching a cat and mouse
chase between Anderton
and Colin Farrell's Danny
Witwer, the government
agent who is auditing the
program before it goes wide.
Anderton has no family
unit when the film begins,
his son was kidnapped and murdered,
which has splintered the family.
Anderton and his wife
are no longer speaking
and Anderton is a drug-addicted workaholic
attempting to find pinnace
in the work he's doing.
The special orphan in
this case is not Anderton,
but Agatha, one of the
Precogs who helps to predict
the pre-crimes, because all
the Precogs were genetically
engineered, they don't have any parents
in the traditional sense.
The story and in particular,
the case between Anderton
and Witwer is set off by
the predictions of Agatha
and the other two Precogs.
Anderton kidnaps Agatha
and she's able to help him
evade his pursuers,
predicting things right
before they happen.
It's Agatha that guides
Anderton to his endgame
to find the man he's
supposed to kill and why
he's killing him.
Agatha also, most importantly,
is able to convince
Anderton to step back and
reassess his potential future,
when he finds the man who
appears to have killed his son.
She convinces him now that
he is aware of his future.
He's able to change.
Agatha, while an orphan
with special powers,
is also depicted as an
angelic savior figure.
Much like E.T., she seemingly
comes from the heavens
to aide in the protagonist's quest.
It's her intervention in
the story that sets off
the events that will
eventually lead Anderton
to reunite with his wife
and attempt to start
a new life with another child.
In "A.I. Artificial
Intelligence", Spielberg unveils
another dystopian look at the future.
The world, having been
ravaged by climate change,
like that would ever happen,
has limited resources
for the remaining population.
Because of this, having
children has become a luxury
due to population control.
Cybertronics, an A.I. company
recognizes that not all
people will be able to
have children and decides
to fill a consumer void
by creating robot children
who are capable of expressing
and giving emotion.
That creation is David,
a child mecca capable
of simulating thoughts and emotions.
The first family to test
out David's capabilities
is one of Cybertronics own employees,
Henry and his wife Monica.
Their son Martin, has been
diagnose with an incurable
disease and placed in suspended
animation until a cure
can be found.
Initially, Monica's skeptical
and creeped out by David
and his behavior, but
eventually warms up to him.
She soon grows to love him
enough that she activates
his imprinting protocol,
an irreversible command
that will cause David to
love Monica unconditionally,
like any human child would.
Eventually, a cure for
Martin's condition is found
and he's brought home.
A sibling rivalry develops
and when an accident involving
David and Martin makes
it appear as though David
tried to drown his brother,
Henry feels he has no choice
but to have David destroyed.
Monica, unable to bear the
thought, abandons David
in the forest to live
as an unregistered mec,
with only a robotic stuffed animal, Teddy,
to help him navigate the obstacles.
David's powers at initial
glance, don't appear
as obvious as someone like
E.T. or even Frank Abagnale,
but it's David's humanity,
his ability to display
emotion and thought that
drives him to survive
in an unforgiving world.
This is most prominently
on display when David's
captured by the flesh fair,
a circus where anti-robots
watch as the meccas are
destroyed in spectacular
and violent ways.
(crowd cheering)
(cannon explodes)
David's spared when he
displays emotions so real
that the bloodthirsty
crowd demands he be freed.
David's journey continues with Gigolo Joe
as he searches for the blue fairy, knowing
that she turned Pinocchio into a real boy
in that story Monica read
to him earlier in the film.
- Please make me real.
- [Narrator] Eventually
after thousands of years
spent under the ocean
asking a statue of the blue
fairy to turn him into a
real boy, David and Teddy
are pulled from the ice
by a race of super robots
who give him one final
day with his human mother.
- I found you.
I found you.
- [Narrator] "Empire of
the Sun" looks at the life
of Jamie, a young boy
living with his parents
on a British settlement
in Shanghai, on the eve
of World War II.
While actually living
in a foreign country,
Jamie's completely insulated
from the real world
chaos occurring around him in China.
He's fascinated with the
idea of war as a game,
throwing small model
planes around and sitting
in the shells of Chinese
fighter rigs, imagining
himself taking down enemies.
This tranquil existence is
destroyed when the Japanese
invade China and through
a series of events,
Jamie finds himself
separated from his parents
and in a Japanese internment,
along with many other
people from the British and American
settlements in Shanghai.
Conditions are difficult and food
can often times be scarce.
Jamie, now known as Jim
around the camp, develops
his own set of special skills to survive.
He crafts a successful
trading network, allowing him
to get whatever he needs to
live while simultaneously
providing things for other
people around the camp.
He not only trades with other prisoners,
but also Sergeant Nagata,
the camp's commander.
One night after a bombing
strike on the Japanese
by allied forces, Nagata
demands that the prisoner
infirmary be burnt down in retaliation.
Jim, in perfect Japanese,
begs for forgiveness
in front of the sergeant, saving
the infirmary from destruction.
It's during this time in
the camp when Jim is away
from his parents and an
orphan that he develops
the skills required to survive.
Once a pampered, sheltered
British aristocrat,
he does spectacular things
in the name of survival.
Because of these skills, Jim
is reunited with his parents
at the conclusion of the war.
In "Ready Player One"
we get Spielberg's take
on the orphan as a superhero,
in the character of Wade Watts.
Wade himself admits early on in the film
that his father named him like
superheroes, Bruce Banner,
Peter Parker, Clark Kent, et cetera.
Wade's parents died long
ago and he's been living
in a highly concentrated area
of people in Columbus, Ohio
with his aunt Alice.
His own escape is playing in the OASIS,
a virtual reality game
that allows you to be
and do anything you want.
The stakes get raised
when one of the creators
of the OASIS, James Halliday,
reveals that there's
an Easter egg hidden in the game
and the first to find
the three keys and then
the egg itself will be
granted complete ownership
of the OASIS.
Wade and his crew of
in-game friends face off
against IOI, a corporation bent on finding
the Easter egg to bring the OASIS
under it's own corporate control.
IOI uses slavery and it's
own employees in addition
to an unlimited amount of
resources in it's quest
to find the egg.
What IOI doesn't take into
account is Wade's incredible
knowledge and persistence
in finding the egg.
He visits the archives
to gather information
and as a result, has an
encyclopedic knowledge
of Halliday's life, which is vital.
He's able to find the
clues hidden in the mundane
interactions, which give
him the answers to questions
necessary to find the Easter egg itself.
His knowledge is so vast
that he knows even more
than the gatekeeper at the archives.
- Possible, oh joy.
- [Narrator] It's Wade's integrity
and knowledge of not only
Halliday, but also pop
culture that gets him
to the final gate before IOI.
His special powers are not only
being great at video games,
but also the knowledge
and leadership skills
he displays throughout.
- "The Shining", it's Halliday's
11th favorite horror film
and it's based on the
best-selling book by Stephen King.
- [Narrator] He's able to
rally his friends and a large
population of the OASIS
to fight back against IOI.
By the end, Wade not only
has complete ownership
of the OASIS, he has a real-life family
and girlfriend, y'all!
Made up of people he met in the game.
For the first time in a very long time,
he isn't a loner, an outcast.
He's surrounded by people
who care about him.
- Drink Tab, play Robotron,
listen to Duran Duran.
- [Narrator] Finally, let's
examine Spielberg's take
on the most recognizable orphan
in popular culture, "Peter Pan".
In "Hook" we meet Peter
Banning, a man consumed
by the responsibilities of adulthood.
He's driven by an undying
need to succeed in his job
as a lawyer to the point
where his relationship
with his son Jack is
suffering as a result.
Things begin to change
however, when Peter travels
to London and his children are kidnapped
by the fearsome Captain Hook.
Over the course of the film
and with great difficulty,
Peter is forced to
relearn all of the things
that once made him the most revered name
in all of Neverland.
- Is it you?
- With the aide of the
lost boys and Tinkerbell
and some very Playdough
looking imaginary food,
he learns to fly, to fight and to crow.
(Peter crows)
It's in this film that
Spielberg truly and most
specifically celebrates the
idea of the special orphan.
Peter's arch is centered
around the idea that what
he has become in life,
a work consumed adult,
is the greatest obstacle
to uniting his family.
Perhaps it's after Peter
left London and was adopted
by American parents and a
move to the US that corrupted
his mind, leaving the
memories of his once great
former self to be buried
in the sands of time.
But he sums it up perfectly
himself in a speech
for a ceremony for Grandma Wendy.
- I guess we do have something
in common, we're orphans.
- [Narrator] That's the
first step in becoming
the hero he once was.
Hook himself plays a pivotal
role in Peter's development
because he desires, above
all else, a worthy opponent.
Since Peter's left, Hook
can't find anyone who matches
Peter's skills and wit.
Without Hook's brash play
of kidnapping the children,
Pan's journey is one that never begins.
Peter in "Hook", like
E.T. and Abagnale, faces
impossibly high odds to
achieve what he needs.
His adult mind so greatly resists the idea
of imagination and flying and sword fights
that the movie is about
the journey with the battle
between him and Hook being
almost anti-climactically short.
Instead, Spielberg shows us
the rebirth of the greatest,
most heroic orphan.
He not only rescues
his children from Hook,
but in that process is able
to fully unite his family
and find the family
he's been missing out on
because of his work obsession.
It's becoming an orphan
that allows him to embrace
all of the things his kids value, fun,
playing games and imagination.
It most clearly defines the
importance of the special
orphan to Spielberg's storytelling.
- Thank you for believing.
- [Narrator] So what's the takeaway?
If you're a filmmaker who wants to connect
with the audience's
heartstrings in a truly
empathetic and deep way, follow the lead
of the master storyteller,
Spielberg, and make your story
about a loner, an outcast or an orphan.
Maybe William Goldman
was wrong, maybe somebody
does know something.
- And that was lovely, cut!
Beautiful, beautiful!
- [Narrator] All right
y'all, don't abandon us
on your doorstep.
Tune in next time.
Thanks for watching,
this is "The Breakdown".
