Steven Spielberg Is Still Searching for Truth

To paraphrase The X-Files: Steven Spielberg wants to believe. He also wants us to believe, fully and consistently, in him—in his ability to suspend skepticism, to use the tools of cinema to make an airtight case for the impossible, to render unreasonable any and all doubts. “I’ll believe in you all my life, every day,” vows Elliott at the end of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, still the most gravity-defying of Spielberg’s leaps of faith, and probably the one that most succinctly visualizes his wish-upon-a-star sensibility. The signature image of Henry Thomas and his pals achieving liftoff in silhouette against the fullest moon in movie history endures past pastiche and parody for a reason: It taps into the conjoined yearning for escape and sanctuary that audiences have been chasing since Judy Garland sang about going somewhere over the rainbow in The Wizard of Oz.