Personally I have always found an appreciation for the slow pacing and artful compositions of Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky and Spielberg’s work, though impressive to me as a child, seems far less tempered and sophisticated through adult eyes the above mentioned directors. I have found enjoyment in some of M. Night Shyamalan’s films (“Unbreakable” and “Signs”), despite finding his style painfully derivative, largely because he deliberately takes time with the camera to tell his story. This unfortunately seems to be a dying art and, as someone who appreciates atmosphere in film, I find the rise in kinetic editing of concern. I enjoyed “Batman Begins” but I found its rhythm emotionally unpleasant. The effect that Spielberg notes as exciting in the passages above, however creative and technically impressive, merely seems assaulting and ugly to me. And I cannot help but wonder at the psychological effects rapid editing may have on children (regardless of how often they are exposed to alternate realities their own minds are still developing a sense of reality and as such are extremely malleable). I do not intend to be hostile but, as an aspiring filmmaker, I just wanted to chime in for what it is worth.

I’m inclined to agree with the connections between the styles of Bond and Indiana Jones; however I always found the Bond action set pieces (of any era) to be overly stiff. The choreography seems to interrupt the speed and energy of the action, resulting in sometimes clumsy transitions. It can also lead to overly polished staging: see Martin Campbell’s films for an example of this.

Incidentally, the sequence you analyze in Munich is a stand-out, absolutely, but the trick of showing things indirectly, through mirrors for example, is one of the things for which Spielberg sometimes chooses style over logic. Case in point? The shot in War of the Worlds of a camera recording the aliens coming out and walking around. A camera, working despite the fact that everything that uses electronics (even cars!) was just disabled.

I am going from memory here, but my recollection was that Batman Begins was fairly “classically” shot for most of its exposition but dissolved into incoherency in its action scenes, which I thought were very shakily shot and badly done.

I also wonder if it was fair even in the 80s to accuse Spielberg of hyperkinetic cutting (though I don’t doubt sloppy critics have sometimes done so). Except for a few sequences (the minecar sequence in Temple of Doom comes to mind) I don’t think Spielberg has ever cut particularly quickly. Spielberg has gradually “sped up,” as Hollywood has, but my impression (again, a hunch unsupported by extensive shot counting) is that Spielberg has always cut a bit slower than his contemporaries at any given time. If you go right back to Jaws you’ll find he’d let whole scenes play out in only one or two shots.

I should add that all stylistic approaches can be done well or badly. As stated in my post, I love the clarity of Spielberg’s style, but I think Greengrass’ Bourne films really showed the handheld / shaky / close / quick approach done quite artfully. It’s still no really my cup of tea, but I think they were more intelligently mounted than, say, a Michael Bay film. Perhaps one saving grace is that Greengrass will pull the camera back for key moments, like cars spinning around in the tunnel car chase in Bourne Supremacy, or that amazing shot following Bourne through a window in Ultimatum. Those shots are still fleeting, but they stand out from what’s around them and provide a little variation and emphasis.

A lot of this can be traced back to Peter Hunt’s amazing work (first as editor and then director) on the 60s Bond films. Have a look at the bobsled sequence in On Her Majesties’ Secret Service to see the origins of the Bourne style.

I stand by Nolan’s approach in Batman Begins, since he does a fair job of establishing the “spatial geography” of many scenes. I will say, however, that Nolan is not immune to the modern shooting style: tight framing and rapid cutting.

Re-watching the Indiana Jones trilogy recently I was struck by how many shots required multiple rack focuses, something that you don’t see anymore.

I wrote this post before seeing Iron Man, which only reinforces my point. The amount of tight close-ups on the body armor did one thing successfully: hide the seams between the CGI armor and Stan Winston’s practical suit.