As recalled in the deeply felt and finely etched memoir-movie “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg grew up in a family where one parent was an artist and the other an engineer. A more ideal background can scarcely be imagined for a film director, who must navigate overlapping creative and technical challenges on every project. His parents even provided young Steven with narrative sustenance: an appropriately cinematic family mystery that took him many years to understand and that has given much texture to his work. Like the best memoirs, “The Fabelmans,” which Mr. Spielberg co-wrote with his longtime collaborator Tony Kushner , drills down into experience with admirable specificity and frankness. Through Sammy’s eyes, we understand, as children do, that when something has always been the same way, it barely attracts attention.

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