Originally developed by Stanley Kubrick before Steven Spielberg took over as director following Kubrick’s passing, AI: Artificial Intelligence is the story of David (Haley Joel Osment), the first mecha (a futuristic term for a mechanized human being) designed with the ability to love. A couple whose son is in a coma “adopts” David to help them recover from their loss, but when things do not go as planned, David is forced to leave the mother (Frances O’Connor) he’s been “imprinted” to love and make his way in the world. Traveling with Teddy, a hi-tech stuffed bear, David unexpectedly befriends Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), a robot designed to pleasure women, who agrees to help David in his quest to become human.
Using a treatment and thousands of drawings commissioned by Kubrick, Spielberg wrote his own screenplay (his first since 1979’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind) and, in doing so, made a film infused with Kubrick’s DNA but which is distinctly his own.
To highlight our release of Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, the newest science fiction film from one of cinema’s great pioneers of the genre, the Jacob Burns Film Center will present screenings of a Spielberg-directed sci-fi film every weekend from May 9 through June 21 as a part of our series Steven Spielberg’s Sci-Fi.
