I’ve never been a great fan of Speilberg. His emotional manipulation and saccharine sentimentalism more often than not leaves me angry rather than involved: in fact, I’ll fight against any kind of empathy rather than giving myself up to his whimsy. But given his obvious mastery of the form, it can be a real struggle.

Here’s a video essay that explores one of Speilberg’s characteristic cinematic techniques showing how that mastery has been built throughout his work and how it continues to be very carefully constructed. Particularly interesting is the way Speilberg turned the technique onto itself in the widely panned film ‘AI’.

via metafilter