I. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) II. 1941** (1979) III. Used Cars (1980) IV. Romancing the Stone (1984) V. Back to the Future (1985) VI. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) VII. Back to the Future Part II (1989) VIII. Back to the Future Part III (1990) IX. Death Becomes Her (1992) X. Forrest Gump (1994) XI. Contact (1997) XII. What Lies Beneath (2000) XIII. Cast Away (2000) XIV. The Polar Express (2004) XV. Beowulf (2007) XVI. A Christmas Carol (2009) XVII. Mars Needs Moms* (2011) XVIII. Flight (2012) XIX. The Walk (2015) XX. Allied (2016) XXI. Welcome to Marwen (2018)
Well, unlike in our last filmmaker's retrospective, Robert Zemeckis is still very much an active director: he's got a movie coming out later this year, in fact, and I'm sure as hell excited about it, because the man's been on an upswing lately. Of course, most people would be on an upswing after A Christmas Carol and Mars Needs Moms, but, hey—let's not take Flight and The Walk away from the man, okay?
The point is, there is no final word on Zemeckis as of yet: he's still making pictures, and hopefully will continue to do so for many years to come. We can therefore only sum up what he's done so far—and it's a career that any director (or writer, or producer) would envy. Even his one-time mentor and all-time friend, Steven Spielberg, must have had to take a step back every five or six years and say, "Well, Bob, you did it better." Okay, he probably didn't—Spielberg is Spielberg, after all, and keeps his own counsel. But Forrest Gump does syrupy sentimentality better than any Spielberg film ever has (and even manages to spike it with a bit of real American venom in the process). Contact is Close Encounters, perhaps not writ larger—but certainly writ one hell of a lot more legibly. And if the Back to the Future films aren't about to stand up to Indy... well, it's still one fantastic adventure, and the world would be far poorer without it.
Ah, but why must this be the lens through which we view Zemeckis—always a pupil, never the master? It's a long shadow for a man to live in. And it hasn't been the right way to look at Zemeckis since at least 1994. Heck, maybe 1984.
Instead, let's reflect upon Zemeckis' career as Zemeckis' career. It began with Spielberg, sure. And it also began with a lot of crap: it took Zemeckis a long time to learn that full-tilt insanity was no way to make movies that people liked, and that's how his Shrillness Trilogy—for Zemeckis' career is extraordinarily amenable to being subdivided into trilogies, and not just the obvious, official one—must be seen as something of a stain upon his early filmography. Yes, Used Cars has its charms, and Spielberg's 1941 (which Zemeckis helped script) is worthwhile in a very, very attenuated sense, but I Wanna Hold Your Hand would be a pretty lousy debut for anybody, and especially a director who'd bounce back with some of the greatest movies of all time.
After that, there was Romancing the Stone, which finally gave him his own traction in the industry, and the valuable experience of working on someone else's screenplay—an exercise which apparently finally taught him that "characterization" and "tone" were important parts of a motion picture.
He brought that experience back to his friend and old writing partner, Bob Gale, and they finished Back to the Future. And we needn't belabor BttF any more than we already have, though we clearly can't get away with failing to note what he did in between BttF and Part II, which was one of the most technologically-audacious films ever made, that amazing hybrid of live-action and animation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Following those twin triumphs, he transitioned into more prestigious fare (with a stopover in super-goofy body horror, in the half-forgotten gem Death Becomes Her). Thus began what I like to call Zemeckis' Philosophical Pessimist Trilogy—Forrest Gump, Contact, and Cast Away—which all dealt meaningfully with the apparent lack of meaning in our existence. Yet, as befitting Zemeckis' resolute commitment to telling stories for a mass audience, they do so in an unflaggingly populist manner. (Well, maybe not Contact. But, damn it, I love it anyway.)
Well, we can disregard What Lies Beneath as make-work, I suppose—even if it's nowhere even close to a "bad" movie. And that leaves us with the Mo-Cap Trilogy... and what to say about that, that I haven't said already? The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol (not to mention Zemeckis' production of Simon Wells' studio-leveling Mars Needs Moms) represent more-or-less the nadir of his career. Certainly, it is the nadir of his mature career. (Should I mention that I'm the only one who calls his first three flicks a "Shrillness Trilogy"? Perhaps it'll catch on. Those movies have some pretty serious issues.)
Anyway, Zemeckis had a dream—and, honestly, if nothing else, you have to admire the passion with which Zemeckis took up arms to try to make motion capture animation the future of filmmaking, even if you stridently disagree with him. And yet, whether the technology wasn't there, or the technique, or perhaps even the talent, I'm afraid we must write off those twelve years he spent on his mad quest as a failure. Leave it to James Cameron, Bob; he has the formula.
Anyway, Zemeckis had a dream—and, honestly, if nothing else, you have to admire the passion with which Zemeckis took up arms to try to make motion capture animation the future of filmmaking, even if you stridently disagree with him. And yet, whether the technology wasn't there, or the technique, or perhaps even the talent, I'm afraid we must write off those twelve years he spent on his mad quest as a failure. Leave it to James Cameron, Bob; he has the formula.
But now we're back to the future, so to speak, and here we find our new Zemeckian classics, Flight and The Walk. What will Allied bring to the table? Can we put those three movies together into some new trilogy? Well, that would be pretty arbitrary, but we'll see. (Update: we did, and it brought very little to this particular table, sad to say; it was up to 2018's Welcome to Marwen to complete that trilogy, instead.)
So let us simply close on a brief defense of Zemeckis, as if he needs it—but perhaps he does, because I can't think of a single filmmaker as absolutely and routinely successful as Robert Zemeckis who is not given his due as an artist and as an auteur (whatever that word really means). His is a singular style; his is a singular vision. Indeed, it's a vision that I'd like to see more of in Hollywood—he has the demeanor of a natural entertainer, but he's never been afraid to go places where lesser filmmakers have feared to tread. So: three cheers for one of the greats, and here's a ranked list, since people seem to enjoy that kind of thing. (Updated 11/30/2016, to bring Allied into the fold, and 1/12/2019, for Welcome to Marwen)
19a. MARS NEEDS MOMS (3/10)*
19. I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND (3/10)
18. A CHRISTMAS CAROL (4/10)
17a. 1941 (5.01/10)**
17. THE POLAR EXPRESS (5.01/10)
16. USED CARS (6/10)
15. BEOWULF (6/10)
14. ALLIED (6/10)
13. ROMANCING THE STONE (7/10)
12. WHAT LIES BENEATH (7/10)
11. DEATH BECOMES HER (7/10)
10. THE WALK (8/10)
9. FLIGHT (8/10)
8. BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (8/10)
7. WELCOME TO MARWEN (9/10)
6. CONTACT (9/10)
5. WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (9/10)
4. BACK TO THE FUTURE (10/10)
3. BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (10/10)
2. FORREST GUMP (10/10)
1. CAST AWAY (10/10)***
Films marked with one asterisk (*) indicate films that Zemeckis only produced, but did not write or direct. Films marked with two asterisks (**) indicate films that Zemeckis helped write, but did not direct.
Films marked with three asterisks (***) indicate Cast Away, and man, do I fucking love Cast Away.
