Steven Spielberg described as"censorship" the woke trend of reviewing books, films or works of art with a current focus. The filmmaker, who digitally changed the guns of E.T.'s cops to walkie talkies in a commemorative version of the movie, noted that. regrets this decision and calls for the safeguarding of "our cultural legacy" that reflects how the world used to be at the time each work was created.
Steven Spielberg on editing work after the fact: "It's our history. It's our cultural heritage... I do not believe in censorship in that way" #TIME100 pic.twitter.com/1dOEm8HPLk
— TIME (@TIME) April 25, 2023
Asked by Time magazine editor Edward Felsenthal during an interview about his opinion on rewriting Roald Dahl 's books to make them less offensive, the veteran filmmaker was blunt: "No one should try to take chocolate away from Willy Wonka! Never. For me, he is untouchable. And they shouldn't take away the chocolate or vanilla or any other flavor from anything that's been written. It is our history, it is our cultural heritage. I don't believe in censorship in this sense".
The works, "a sign of what the world was like" when they were created
In this regard, Spielberg acknowledged that the digital modifications he made to the 20th anniversary edition of ET were "a mistake. I should never have done it. E.T. is a product of its time. No film should be reviewed through the lenses we are now, either voluntarily, or by being forced to look through them."
The filmmaker insisted that "all of our films are sort of a sign of where we were when we made them, what the world was like and what the world was getting when we put those stories out."
