Seventh_Persona’s review published on Letterboxd:
I think many of us have shared the experience of a Spielberg movie shaping our love of film growing up, as that's exactly my experience. Whether it was E.T. or Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park or A.I. anyone born from the 80s onward who's passionate about film has probably fallen in love with one his many classic films. By the 2010s, however, it seemed as though the king of New Hollywood cinema lost his fire, as many of his films from the past decade have been nothing but disappointing. I personally, fell out of favour with Spielberg's films as I have with much of Hollywood's output in the past few decades since the 80s exactly because everyone feels like they're trying to be the next Spielberg. While I still have a nostalgia for his pictures, outside of Jaws, I don't really feel passionate about any of his other films like I used to.
We start The Fablemans with Speilberg's self-insert character, Sam, going to his first motion picture, which happens to be Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show On Earth. Many people forget just how big DeMille was as a giant of cinema for his time, outside of a few references in Sunset Boulevard and perhaps catching The Ten Commandments when it comes on cable around every Christmas. Spielberg has often been given the title of being the cinematic successor to DeMille in just how he helped kickstart our modern perception of Hollywood blockbusters. He's a household name, much like how DeMille was in the 50s. He's won numerous Oscars, just like DeMille. He's also got a very up-and-down filmography, just like DeMille. And so the comparison between his career and DeMille's is playfully referenced in the opening moments of the film.
Similarly, John Ford is another figure of the Hollywood Golden Age that many people compare Spielberg too. Obviously, Spielberg has taken many pieces of inspiration from Ford in creating the Indiana Jones franchise especially, but aside from DeMille, Ford was the other largest filmmaker in Hollywood from the silent era to the 60s. Ford was a very American filmmaker, you can't mistake the setting of his films for anything but the vast valleys of the American west. Spielberg's films are also often distinctly American in their presentation, characters and narratives. There's no mistaking the soldiers in Saving Private Ryan as anything but American. You can see Spielberg recognizing just how much both DeMille and Ford have influenced his career, but you also see him somewhat comparing himself to the likes of Hollywood's greatest showmen.
The draw of Spielberg's films has always been the spectacle of them, that's just the type of filmmaker he is. Even in Schindler's List, the presentation of just how inhuman the Jewish experience was in WWII captures just how large of a scale the atrocity was. That's not a bad thing, especially in the case of Schindler's List which is one of his best films, however, it also explains why so many of his films are driven by sentimentality. If you're going to go big, you have to also go big on your emotions, and the problem with that in my mind is that after you see multiple times throughout multiple films of his, the emotional resonance with the story begins to wane, and you can become a bit cynical about the sentimental style of the spectacle.
That carries through in The Fablemans, which definitely feels more sincere than many of his other films due to its personal nature of it. Considering how autobiographical the film is, I kind of wish he'd have taken the Day for Night approach in which he'd actually use his real name rather than a stand-in character. However, I also understand wanting to put up just a bit of a fourth wall so that casual audiences won't be jarred into wondering whether or not they're watching a performative documentary. As you can tell by my rating, I'm personally not moved by this film, but I've seen so many people's reactions to this film and how meaningful it is to them and their own passion for cinema, and that's the type of movie magic that Spielberg excels at. That's why he goes for the spectacle, and why his films last across generations.