"I am a convicted felon and a former CPA. As the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie, I helped my cousin Eddie Antar and other members of his family mastermind one of the largest securities frauds uncovered during the 1980's. I committed my crimes in cold-blood for fun and profit, and simply because I could. If it weren't for the heroic efforts of the FBI, SEC, Postal Inspector's Office, US Attorney's Office, and class action plaintiff's lawyers who investigated, prosecuted, and sued me, I would still be the criminal CFO of Crazy Eddie today."
Not a very good analogy, as ex-cons already underwent punishment and hopefully some reflection. Also, if I follow your logic, then that will ruin Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can for me.
Completely offtopic, and I don't mean anything negative about you when I say this, but I'm always interested in the response when people attribute a director to the success of a movie based on a book.
Did you know that the movie was based on Frank Abagnale's book (also entitled "Catch Me If You Can", or did you just prefer Spielberg's version?
Especially in this case, where the movie is so close to the book, it's questionable. Just like in Sin City, the adaptation is so true to its source material, if you liked one, you're pretty well assured of liking the other.
Hey no problem, a fellow cinephile here. And yes I knew it was on a book but did not read it. I liked the movie for a whole set of reasons (For instance, Christopher Walken's performance) but reading the book would definitely have affected how I value the director's work. I had a similar discussion with my uncle, who is a writer and director, about another movie: The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo (The original version, not the American adaptation). My uncle read the books; I didn't. I really liked the movie, and found the plot rather satisfying to some degree, but my uncle hated it, and said the director simplified things to an alarming extent, losing all the interesting details that made the books successful.
So I think reading the books is a good habit if one wants to judge the director's intention, but sometimes I just don't have time.
Update: I reread your question, and I think you want to know if directors are taking too much credit which ought to go to the book writer? I think in this case we might disagree about the director's function, which I think goes far beyond the intricacies of the story.
As for the clarification, I was more concerned with people attributing the derivative work with the credit of the movie moreso than the director on the whole. I probably only phrased it how I did since you used Spielberg's name directly.
The thing I find irritating (on a grander scale, not pertaining to you, specifically) is when cases like this arise where the movie rides the success of the book.
I get that it's probably specific to people who have read the book vs. people who haven't, but I'm usually interested enough to ask, as sometimes there are cases when directors take the movie to a level the source material didn't, just as there are times when a director is unable to take good source material and turn it into a good movie.
I think there is a very fine line between a criminal and a cop per say in mentality. Good cops will know what to look for in criminal behavior and good criminals will know how to look out for cops; not all cops - but I would say its a fine line between the best of both worlds.
Could be the reason double agents are so valuable.
The good ones are already doing consulting work for the cops, FBI, military, intelligence, etc. There are countless books and movies and news reports about this, from organized crime informants, document forgers, computer/network hackers, international espionage, heist masterminds... the list goes on and on.
The majority of crooks - the 'ex-cons' you're talking about - are just shitty petty criminals or violent idiots, and get caught and punished. Why would anyone hire a shitty crook to do counter-intel against a job they failed at previously?
