coming-of-age genre is one of the major genres in Spielberg’s film career. This time he goes more personal.
While watching Steven Spielberg’s recent one The Fabelmans–
We see many times Speilberg working in the coming-of-age genre and each time we saw an adolescent boy who goes from a certain specific experience. Later that experiences transformed him wholly. This time he has been more personal with the character of young Sammy Fabelman. the protagonist of The Fabelmans. A boy with his camera has movie-making dreams from childhood.
The first time I watched The Fabelmans was in November of last year, I have no idea what it is about. I haven’t read a single word about the synopsis of the film. When I saw the first frame of the film, A young boy with his camera that gives me an idea about the film and it is going to be his craze and passion for a camera and things to shoot with it. Later, The Jewish family and the actor who plays the role of the young boy feel like a split image of Spielberg’s childhood image giving me hint that this is Spielberg’s autobiographical film.
The Fabelmans is a coming-of-age story about a young man’s discovery of a shattering family secret and exploring the power of movies to help us see the truth about each other and ourselves.
Sketching from many Spielberg memories The Fabelmans follows young filmmaking prodigy Samuel Fabelman. As he navigates a pivotal family moves across to the country, a gap grows between his mother and father which is enhanced by a family friend who tags along westward with the Fabelmans. The theme of The Fabelmans is a broken family by an outside force and the protagonist trying to refigure the situations as previously they’ve been. Here the family friend is the outside force and protagonist Sammy trying to reconnect the old bond between his mother and father. Sammy’s camera is the center of discovery of all things, capturing both the good and bad.
The same theme pattern was repeated in Speilberg’s previous works like Munich (2005), Lincoln (2012), and West Side Story (2021). Broken nations and broken families by outside forces. Both attempt to come together but outside forces pull them apart.