Spielberg The director has drawn from his parents’ separation in several previous films. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Catch Me If You Can, and even Lincoln all feature sons stuck between dysfunctional parents.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (One of my two or three favorite Spielberg movies) even features a musical mother and an electrically minded father who cannot communicate. In that film, humans are ultimately able to talk with visiting aliens through music played with computers.
The father in Close Encounters chooses to leave Earth with the extraterrestrials, an ending Spielberg later reassessed, after becoming a father himself. As a mature man, he no longer believes a loving father would leave his children–regardless the consequences.
Oscar Directors: Spielberg–Auteur, Vision, Missing Father Figure
The father in Close Encounters chooses to leave Earth with the extraterrestrials, an ending Spielberg later reassessed, after becoming a father himself. As a mature man, he no longer believes a loving father would leave his children–regardless the consequences.