Bicycles, Airplanes and Peter Pans: Flying Scenes in Steven Spielberg's Films

Emilio Audissino

doi:10.5195/cinej.2014.111

Abstract

In Steven Spielberg's cinema the flight is a recurring theme. Flying scenes can be sorted into two classes: those involving a realistic flight – by aircraft – and those involving a magical flight – by supernatural powers. The realistic flight is influenced by the war stories of Spielberg's father – a radio man in U.S. Air-force during WWII – and it is featured in such films as Empire of the Sun (1987), Always (1989), and 1941 (1979). The magical flight is influenced by James M. Barries' character Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy, 1911), which is quoted directly in E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1982) and, above all, in Hook (1991), which is a sequel to Barrie's story. These two types of flying scenes are analysed as to their meanings, compared to the models that influenced them, and surveyed as to their evolution across Spielberg's films. A central case study is the episode The Mission from Amazing Stories (1985), in which the realistic and the magical flights overlap.

Highlights

This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press
An airplane flight is the regular starting point of the adventurous journeys in the Indiana Jones series – either willingly, as in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Dr Jones reaches his destinations of choice, Nepal and Egypt, by airlines; of unwillingly, as in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the Indian adventure begins serendipitously after
CINEJ Cinema Journal: Emilio Audissino a retaliation sky-jacking by the Chinese mobster Lao Che.[4]

Summary

Realistic Flight

The origin of Steven’s fascination for airplanes and flight technology can be traced back to Arnold Spielberg, his father, and his tales and memories of service in the US Air Force in WWII. In his other famous World War II drama, Schindler's List, quite fittingly the airplanes are absent, as they were: no airplane flew over Europe to bomb and cut the railways to the concentration camps so as to stop the death trains

Magical Flight

Evolution of the Flying Theme