Summer Classics Film Series
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1h 55m / PG / Sci-Fi, Family
TRAILER:
VENUE: Historic Duncan Auditorium
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The story goes that director Steven Spielberg was inspired to make E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial by memories that surfaced during the long and lonely Raiders of the Lost Ark shoot in Tunisia. Spielberg recalled an imaginary alien friend that he had made up while coping with his parents’ divorce, a friend he called a “brother [he] never had and a father that [he] didn’t feel [he] had anymore.” So, through that lens, E.T. is a story about an otherworldly creature who connects with an innocent child (who has also lost his father) and shows him the magic of a world beyond his imagination.
Great, valid. One issue with that reading: E.T. doesn’t rescue Elliott. Elliot has to rescue E.T. Elliott has to protect him, hide him, teach him how to survive on the forbidding alien planet called Earth. And as a final act to secure his safety, Elliott has to say goodbye to him forever. Little Stevie Spielberg, feeling isolated and misunderstood, isn’t Elliott; he’s the extra-terrestrial. He pops briefly into Elliott’s world (the most sinister suburbs on film outside of David Lynch, by the way), is saved by Elliott’s empathy, and finally gets picked up by his (weirdly irresponsible) parents. Spielberg’s movies present and address kids in a way that almost no other director’s films do. He knows their terror, and he turns it into adventure, exactly like kids do themselves.
FILM TALK: Guests are invited to stick around after the screening for a post-show Film Talk and audience Q&A with Hector Sotomayor, professor of Film, Art, & Media at the Ringling College of Art & Design. Film Talks are included with movie admission.
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VIEW the full Summer Classics series, showing June 1 – August 31 at
https://tampatheatre.org/movie-categories/summer-classics/.
The Summer Classics Movie Series is presented by Bank of America, series sponsor since 2015. Promotional support for the series is provided by WEDU PBS and Axios Tampa Bay.
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