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Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is an
American film director. He is the most financially successful
motion picture director of all time. He has directed and/or
produced a number of major box office hits, giving him great
influence in Hollywood. As of 2004, he has been listed in
Premiere and other magazines as the most "powerful" and
"influential" figure in the motion picture industry, and at the
end of the 20th century LIFE named him the most influential
person of his generation. [1].
He
has won four Academy Awards (including an Irving G. Thalberg
Memorial Award). He has been nominated for six Academy Awards
for Best Director, winning two of them (Schindler's List and
Saving Private Ryan), and seven of the films he directed were up
for the Best Picture Oscar (Schindler's List won).
While his films have been derided as the archetype of modern
Hollywood blockbuster film-making (commercialism over artistic
purposes) by some of his critics he ranks among the most
successful filmmakers in history, in terms of both critical
acclaim and popular success. First coming to attention directing
adventure films, in later years he started to tackle emotionally
powerful issues, such as the Holocaust, slavery, war, and
terrorism.
****
Childhood and early
career
Steven Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later raised
in Camden, New Jersey, Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix,
Arizona, Los Gatos, California and Saratoga, California. His
last name comes from the name of the Austrian city where his
Hungarian Jewish ancestors lived in 17th century: Spielberg. He
is a contemporary of filmmakers George Lucas, Francis Ford
Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Brian De Palma.
Spielberg grew up making movies. He was making amateur 8 mm
"adventure" movies with his friends as a teenager, and he made
his first short film for theatrical release, Amblin', in 1968,
at the age of twenty one. (Spielberg's own production company,
Amblin Entertainment, was named after this short film.) After
graduating from Saratoga High School in 1965, Spielberg attended
California State University: Long Beach, majoring in English,
because Long Beach did not have a film school at that time. He
dropped out in 1968. In 2002, thirty-five years after starting
college, Spielberg finished his degree via independent projects
at CSULB.
Spielberg, an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished
Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA),
developed the requirements for the Boy Scout Cinematography
merit badge. He eventually resigned from the national board of
BSA because of his disapproval regarding the BSA's
anti-homosexuality stance.
Attended Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona and graduated
from Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California in 1965. On
attending Saratoga High School, he said that it was the "worst
experience" of his life and "hell on Earth". [2]
Spielberg started a fanciful story of how he broke into
Hollywood by sneakily squatting in an unoccupied office on the
Universal Studios lot. In fact, he had an unpaid summer job on
the lot.
Speilberg applied for admission to the University of Southern
California's School of Cinema-Television three separate times,
and the prominent school later awarded Spielberg an honorary
degree in 1994. Two years later, Spielberg became a Trustee of
the University and has since tirelessly devoted himself to
supporting USC.
He
first enrolled at California State University in Long Beach in
1965, quit in 1969 to take a television director contract at
Universal Studios, and much later, as a returning student, was
awarded a B.A. in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an
option in Film/Video Production in 2002. While attending college
at Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg was a member of
Theta Chi Fraternity.
His
first professional job came when he was hired to do one of the
segments for the pilot episode of Night Gallery. The segment,
Eyes, starred Joan Crawford, and she and Spielberg were
reportedly close friends until her death. The episode is unusual
in his body of work, in that the camerawork is more highly
stylized than his later, more "mature" films. After this, and an
episode of Marcus Welby M.D., Spielberg got his first
feature-length assignment: an episode of Name of the Game called
"L.A. 2017". This episode played to his interests in futuristic
science fiction, and Universal first began to take note of his
talents. He did another segment on Night Gallery (some people
claim that he also directed a short five-minute segment called
"A Matter of Semantics" when the credited director had to back
out for unknown reasons, but this has never been confirmed and
is hotly debated), and did some work for shows such as Owen
Marshall, Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist before landing
the first series episode of Columbo (previous "episodes" were
actually TV-Movies).
Based on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to
do three TV movies. The first was a Richard Matheson adaptation
called Duel, first broadcast in 1971. It was immediately
recognized as a taut, well-made thriller, and cemented
Spielberg's emerging reputation. (Note that all video/DVD
releases of the film have been the extended cut which was
released theatrically in America in 1983, not the original,
shorter cut.) Realizing what they had, Universal would not
release Spielberg to CBS, and insisted he fulfill the contract.
In 1972, he directed a TV movie called Something Evil, which was
made and released to capitalize on the popularity of The
Exorcist, then a major best-selling book which had not yet been
released as a movie. Spielberg is said to be quite disappointed
with the film, which he never regarded as more than a knock-off.
He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV movie length pilot
of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau. Though the
series was not picked up, the movie was shown on TV in 1973, and
is occasionally re-run, usually highlighting Spielberg's
participation.
1970s
Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film was The Sugarland
Express, based on the true story of a married couple who lead
the Texas police on a highway chase as they embark on a journey
to regain custody of their baby. Welcomed with warm reviews, the
film nevertheless failed to catch on at the box office, but his
producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown were prepared to offer
Spielberg a more ambitious directing assignment.
Spielberg's next film was Jaws, a horror film based on the Peter
Benchley novel starring Roy Scheider about a killer shark that
attacks people off the coast of a New England isle community.
Jaws won three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and
sound), and grossed over USD$100 million at the box office,
setting the domestic record for box office gross. It was also
nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of
three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss. To this day,
Spielberg maintains that Jaws was the hardest film he ever had
to make. He would decline offers to direct its sequel by using
his new influence to pursue more personal projects.
Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2 and Superman, Spielberg and
actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a pet project
Spielberg had had in mind since his youth: a film about UFOs,
which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The film
remains a cult sci-fi classic and has been highly influential
ever since. This is one of the rare movies that Spielberg both
wrote and directed. A hit at the box office, the film also
gained Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the
Academy and was nominated for six other Academy Awards, taking
home Oscar in two (Cinematography -- Vilmos Zsigmond, and a
Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing -- Frank E.
Warner)
The
success Spielberg was beginning to enjoy, as well as his
eventual tendency to make films with wide mainstream and
commercial appeal, also subjected him to disdain in critical
circles by film reviewers. For example, Spielberg's next film
was 1941, a big-budgeted World War II comedy farce set in L.A.
days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, with the two top stars
from Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, along
with other all-stars. An exercise in excess, the film provided
just the ammunition cynical critics would require to take down
the young director. Over-budget, over-long (in its extended
version), the film flopped with both audiences and critics
alike, although in the end it did make a small profit at the box
office, and eventually found its audience in television
showings. Expanded versions of 1941 have been shown on network
television and later on Laserdisc and DVD and it has earned a
cult status partly because of Spielberg's eventual fame and
partly because of its camp status. Desperately in need of quick
redemption, Spielberg would next team with Star Wars creator
George Lucas on a new action adventure film.
1980s
What some would consider Spielberg's greatest film work was
still to come, beginning in the 1980s. In 1981, Spielberg teamed
up for the first time with his long-time friend George Lucas to
make Raiders of the Lost Ark, his homage to the cliffhanger
serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with Harrison Ford (whom
Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films) as the dashing
hero Indiana Jones. The biggest film at the box office in 1981,
and recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best
Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the
second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture), Raiders
is still hailed as a landmark in action cinema.
One
year later, Spielberg returned to his alien visitors motif with
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the story of a boy and the alien
whom he befriends (and is trying to get back "home" to outer
space). E.T. went on to become the top-grossing film of all time
for many years. It was also nominated for many Academy Awards
including Best Picture and Best Director. It is considered by
Spielberg to be his own personal favorite film from his works.
E.T. originated as a sci-fi suspense thriller called Night
Skies. Night Skies also gave birth to Poltergeist, a film that
Spielberg co-wrote , co-produced (and some people who worked on
the film claim directed) and was released only a week before
E.T.. Spielberg also negotiated an unusually lucrative video
game licensing deal with Atari for an E.T. video game. This was
a famously expensive failure which contributed to the video game
crash of 1983. Following the screening of E.T. at the White
House, President Ronald Reagan leaned over, clapped Spielberg on
the shoulder, and quietly commented, "You know, there aren’t six
people in this room who know how true this really is." [3]
His
friend George Lucas immediately pulled Spielberg back in as part
of their friendly agreement to make more Indiana Jones movies
with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Plagued with
uncertainty for the material, the saving grace for Spielberg
during the making of this film would be the meeting of his
future wife Kate Capshaw, who was cast as Indiana's new love
interest. The film was a hit though the reviews were less
positive than they were for its predecessor. It was criticized
for lacking the energy of the original, as well as for its
grossly inaccurate and ignorant depiction of Indian culture. The
extreme violence and gore would also inspire the Motion Picture
Association of America to create the PG-13 rating the following
year, in fact it was Spielberg that suggested this rating.
In
1983, Spielberg fulfilled what had then been a life-long dream
by producing a big-screen adaptation of The Twilight Zone. The
movie consists of five different segments -- two segments of
original material directed by John Landis and three remakes of
classic Twilight Zone episodes, each from a different director;
Spielberg himself directed the segment "Kick the Can," about an
old man (played by Benjamin "Scatman" Crothers) who has the
ability to grant youth to the residents of an old folk's home.
Controversy struck Spielberg when a helicopter accident on
Landis's set resulted in the deaths of two child actors and
veteran actor Vic Morrow. Despite the tragic results of the
Twilight Zone movie, Spielberg would again pay homage to the
show two years later by launching Amazing Stories, a similar TV
series which Spielberg would produce and occasionally direct.
In
1985, Spielberg made The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice
Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Many critics were unsure
of whether or not Spielberg could handle such serious material,
as his output to that point had been viewed as "lighter"
entertainment. Indeed, this proved to be Spielberg's trial by
fire in presenting the story of a generation of oppressed
African-American women (Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey)
during depression-era America. Danny Glover played the abusive
patriarch. The film was another box office smash and hailed by
critics as Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre.
Roger Ebert entered it into his Great Films archive. It received
11 Academy Award nominations including two for Whoopi Goldberg
and Oprah Winfrey. However in one of the most controversial
instances in the History of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences, Spielberg himself went without a Best Director
nomination despite the multitude of nominations the picture
received.
1987 was a time when the Chinese economy was beginning to boom,
and as the Chinese gates began to open to the world, Spielberg
took advantage by shooting the first American movie in Shanghai
since the 1930s. The result was an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's
autobiographical novel, Empire of the Sun, which told the story
of a young boy named Jim (Christian Bale) who is separated from
his parents during the sacking of Shanghai in 1941, and is
forced to survive through the rest of the war. Spielberg wanted
to convey a heartfelt message of innocence being shattered as a
result of war, as audiences saw the transformation of Jim from
sheltered Shanghai to a struggling and resourceful war refugee.
The film garnered numerous praise from critics, was nominated
for several Oscars, but did not attract the kind of box office
power that Spielberg's films usually get.
After two forays into dramatic films, Spielberg returned to
familiar territory by re-uniting "one last time" for another
Indiana Jones film titled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
With the inclusion of star Sean Connery, Spielberg vicariously
fulfilled a lifelong dream to make a James Bond movie. Lucas
himself heralded his Indiana Jones creation as an alternative to
Bond back when they first discussed films to work on together.
The father-son issues in the picture are congruent with much of
Spielberg's work, making this Indy film the most personal of the
three. Receipient of glowing reviews and big box office
receipts, Spielberg, Lucas and Ford left the franchise on a high
mark. The development of a fourth Indiana Jones film has been
promised, and it is now in pre-production.
1989 would mark the first year in which Spielberg would direct
two movies. Following on the heels of his last Indiana Jones
movie, he would re-unite with actor Richard Dreyfuss with
Always. Inspired by the film A Guy Named Joe, Always is the
story of Pete, a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires.
When killed on his last mission, he becomes something of a
guardian angel for a young man named Ted. But when Ted falls in
love with the girlfriend Pete left behind, Pete must learn to
let go of her and do what's best to influence these characters
as they themselves approach another potential tragedy. Always
marked Spielberg's first foray into the romantic genre. A box
office flop and victim of mixed reviews, Always stands out (or
more precisely doesn't) as arguably Spielberg's most overlooked
and forgotten film.
1990s
After the failure of Always, Spielberg headed back to safer
waters. In many ways, a Peter Pan story directed by Steven
Spielberg seemed like a forgone conclusion. He had tried
numerous times to film a live action version of Peter Pan
without success. When writer James V. Hart pitched an alternate
idea about Peter Pan returning to Neverland as an adult,
Spielberg switched gears. Hook focused on a middle-aged Pan
(played by Robin Williams), who returns to Neverland to face the
title character (Captain Hook, played by Dustin Hoffman).
However, by the time the film began shooting, innumerable
rewrites and creative changes made by the numerous major
Hollywood players attached to the project resulted in a film
regarded by most critics as hit-or-miss at best. The film was
made for $70 million (at that time a huge amount) and made $119
million domestically, but it was not as successful as some had
hoped. Though Peter Pan had grown up, some were wondering if
Spielberg himself ever would.
In
1993, Spielberg decided to once again tackle the adventure
genre, as he directed the movie version of Michael Crichton's
novel Jurassic Park, about killer dinosaurs rampaging through a
tropical island resort. The adaptation muted somewhat the
novel's message about the consequences of mankind tampering with
nature, instead focusing on the adventure aspects of the story.
With the aid of revolutionary special effects provided by friend
George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, the film would
eventually become one of the top ten highest grossing films of
all time (domestically), alongside his earlier E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg has stated in interviews at the
time that the Japanese Godzilla movies provided inspiration for
Jurassic Park.
It
was in that same year that Jurassic Park was released that
Spielberg finally received the critical acclaim he had long
sought for making Schindler's List (based on the true story of
Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his own life to save 1,100
people from the wrath of the Holocaust). The screenplay, adapted
from Thomas Keneally's novel, was originally in the hands of
fellow director Martin Scorsese, but Spielberg negotiated with
Scorsese to trade scripts (at the time, Spielberg held the
script for a remake of Cape Fear). Schindler's List earned
Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won
Best Picture). While the film was a huge success at the box
office, Spielberg claimed not to have partaken in the profits,
and instead used the money to set up the Shoah Foundation. Some
critics maintain that Schindler's List is the most accurate
portrayal of the Holocaust, and in 1999 the American Film
Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest Films ever Made (#9).
Though Spielberg admits it is definitely his most important
film, he still holds it second to E.T. as his masterwork. Some
critics, on the other hand, don't all share Spielberg's
sentiment and it is regarded by many as his finest and most
mature film.
1993 was Spielberg's biggest year with the success of Jurassic
Park and Schindler's List. Taking a four-year hiatus from
directing to spend more time with his family and build his new
studio DreamWorks, Spielberg found himself back in the
director's chair in 1997. This time, he was helming the sequel
to 1993's gigantic Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton's
The Lost World. The film received mixed reviews, but did manage
to generate nearly $230 million in domestic box office, giving
it the third-highest total for 1997 behind Titanic and Men in
Black. In hindsight Spielberg expressed his view that this
sequel was a movie he wanted to see, but didn't necessarily want
to make himself. Fatigued by the production, he would relinquish
the opportunity to direct any more Jurassic Park films.
Spielberg followed his 1993 formula of releasing a dinosaur
movie followed by a historical drama by doing it again in 1997.
If Lost World was his bid to conquer the box office, Amistad
(like Schindler's List) was his bid to win over the critics come
awards season. Spielberg released Amistad under the banner of
his new studio DreamWorks (formed with former Disney animation
exec Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul David Geffen). Based on
a true story about enslaved Africans who rebelled against their
captors, the film received lavish praise from the critics, but
was noted for its violent massacre scenes. It did not do well at
the box office however, and has been overlooked since its
release. It would mark Spielberg's second essay on the treatment
of Blacks in American History (the first being The Color Purple
in 1985).
Another of Spielberg's critically acclaimed films, the World War
II drama Saving Private Ryan, was released in 1998. The film
follows a platoon of soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks),
from the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy to the heart of
French resistance, in order to retrieve a missing private (Matt
Damon), whose brothers were lost to the war. Spielberg
considered it one of his finest works, yet in a highly
publicized "showdown", it lost the Best Picture Oscar at the
1999 Academy Awards to Shakespeare in Love. However, Spielberg
would win his second Academy Award for his direction in the war
epic. The film, renowned for its graphic violence, has proven
highly influential on succeeding war movies like Black Hawk Down
and Enemy at the Gates and it has set a standard for realistic
depiction of combat. The film was also the first major hit for
Spielberg's studio DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with
its eventual sister studio, Paramount Pictures.
The
completion of this film would mark a marathon of filmmaking for
Spielberg who shot The Lost World, Amistad, and Saving Private
Ryan back-to-back-to-back. By decade's end, Spielberg still
remained arguably the most influential and powerful filmmaker in
Hollywood.
Later on, Spielberg and Hanks, overwhelmed with the success of
the film's subject, decided to team together to produce a TV
mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's historical novel, Band of
Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows the trials and
accomplishments of the 101st Airborne Division, or Easy Company,
also starting from the landing in Normandy, to the Battle of the
Bulge, to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Germany
itself. The series was hailed as the greatest TV event of all
time, winning a slew of awards both at the Golden Globes and the
Emmys.
2000s
Spielberg's recent films starting from the end of the millennium
are considered markedly different from that of his previous
films although many note similar themes being played out in
them. Many critics have stated that Spielberg's recent films are
an experimental phase. Whether this is intentional on
Spielberg's part is unknown. Opinions on his recent films are
also markedly different. Some critics say that Spielberg has
lost his touch and whimsy while others claim he is entering a
new stage of his cinematic life. Critical opinions on his recent
films have earned more polarizing views than his previous films,
something that could be viewed as the director taking risks that
many have said he did not take in his earlier years.
In
2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley
Kubrick's final project, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, a
project planned by the two directors for many years but which
Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. The futuristic
story the humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured
groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical
storyline in keeping with Kubrick's original vision. It starred
William Hurt, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, and child actor Haley
Joel Osment as the android boy David. The film polarized both
critics and audiences, some stating that the film was overly
long and a pretentious impression of Kubrick, others believing
it to be a masterpiece. The legendary director Billy Wilder
called A.I. "the most underrated film of the past few years".
The film failed to recoup its budget at the US box office,
though it earned profits overseas.
Following A.I., Spielberg came upon the sci-fi short story
written by Philip K. Dick about the future of crime-fighting
using precognitive vision. In 2002, Spielberg and actor Tom
Cruise collaborated for the first time in the futuristic
neo-noir Minority Report, which features Cruise as a D.C. police
captain who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not even
met. The film was a futuristic homage to film noir, with its
intelligent premise, thrilling chase scenes, and whodunnit
structure. In typical Spielberg fashion the film earned over
$300 million dollars worldwide while earning significant
critical acclaim. Roger Ebert, who named it the best film of
2002, praised the film for its breathtaking vision of the future
as well as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action.
[4] It is regarded as one of Spielberg's best films by critics.
Shortly after the release of Minority Report, Spielberg and Co.
immediately went to work on Catch Me If You Can, a story of the
daring adventures of a youthful con artist. The film stars
Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, with Saving Private Ryan
star Tom Hanks as the FBI agent out to catch him. The movie
marked a turn of genre for Spielberg, who was at this point seen
to be branching out to different kinds of film genres aside from
the usual sci-fi fare he was known for. It is arguably his most
offbeat film to date. It earned significant critical acclaim and
box office success. It also earned Christopher Walken a
nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is particularly
known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence.
The
completion of this film once again marked another conclusion to
a marathon run of film-making as it closed the hectic
back-to-back-to-back filmings of A.I., Minority Report and Catch
Me If You Can; a trio regarded as Spielberg's "running-man"
trilogy since it shares the common theme of a character fleeing
authority.
Spielberg collaborated once again with Tom Hanks along with
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in The Terminal, a
warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who
is stranded in an airport after his home country suffers a civil
war during his flight, strongly paralleling the situation of
Merhan Karimi Nasseri. It received mixed reviews and performed
relatively badly at the box office.
A
modernized adaptation of War of the Worlds, featuring Tom Cruise
and Dakota Fanning, was released in the U.S. on June 29, 2005.
As with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM)
provided the special effects. In his films E.T. and Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg portrayed alien visitors
as potentially friendly for human beings willing to connect with
them. War of the Worlds marked a departure from those optimistic
themes; more violent alien invaders wreak havoc upon Earth. The
film was a major box office success and critical opinions were
generally positive, although some critics pointed out logical
inconsistencies in the plot of the film and commented on its
relative lack of a satisfying conclusion. Also hounding the
film's release was the growing controversy sparked by Cruise and
his Scientology religious beliefs, which arose during War's
marketing campaign. Spielberg was inspired to do the film after
his childhood love of the book "The War of the Worlds" written
by H. G. Wells. The movie features Spielberg's trademark of a
distant father reconnecting with his children.
On
the same day as the release of War of the Worlds, Spielberg
began shooting Munich, a film about the events following the
1972 Munich Massacre. Munich stands as Spielberg's second film
essaying Jewish relations in the world (the first being
Schindler's List). The film is based on Vengeance: The True
Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, a book by Canadian
journalist George Jonas. Although promoted as non-fiction, the
book's veracity has been largely questioned by journalists. It
was previously adapted into the 1986 made-for-TV movie Sword of
Gideon. [5] [6] The film received strong critical praise, but
underperformed at the US and world box-office. The film bogged
by controversy has raised the ire of several Israeli and
Palestinian commentators and remains, perhaps, the film that has
provoked more extreme polarizing reactions than any other in his
oeuvre. The screenplay for Munich was co-written by Eric Roth
and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. The movie is
said to be an examination of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes
at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Black September organization,
followed by the event's aftermath in which Israel's intelligence
agency hunted down and killed the perpetrators. The protagonist,
Avner, is believed to be the invention of Jonas' source, Yuval
Aviv.[7] Munich received five Academy Awards nominations,
including Best Picture, Film Editing, Original Music Score (by
John Williams), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director for
Spielberg. This is Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination.
According to Jonas and Aviv, the Israeli team suffered
misgivings about their assignment, two were killed, and the
others were abandoned or treated badly by Mossad. None of these
claims has been verified by other sources.
Upcoming projects
Also in the works are an Abraham Lincoln bio-pic starring Liam
Neeson as the 16th President of the United States, and Indiana
Jones 4. Currently the former is under the title Abraham Lincoln
Project and scheduled for release in 2007.
Spielberg also served as the executive producer of Memoirs of a
Geisha, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Arthur
Golden, a film he was previously attached to as director. He is
also an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV
miniseries Into the West, as well as co-executive producing the
new Transformers live action film with Brian Goldmer, an
employee of Hasbro. The film will be directed by Michael Bay and
written by Robert Orci and released in 2007. A 4th Jurassic Park
film is in development for him to produce as well as a CGI
kids-movie called Monster House, which will be co-executive
produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis, marking their
first collaboration together since 1990's Back to the Future
Part III.
It
was announced in April 2006 that Spielberg will be producing and
appearing in a new reality show competition called On the Lot,
in which filmmakers compete for a development deal at
Dreamworks.
Spielberg recently sold DreamWorks (excluding its animation
division) to Viacom, the parent company of Paramount Pictures.
On
June 14, 2006 it was confirmed Spielberg had already begun
working on a space travel movie titled Interstellar.
Themes
Spielberg's films often deal with several recurring themes. Most
of his films deal with ordinary characters searching for or
coming in contact with extraordinary beings or finding
themselves in extraordinary circumstances, this is especially
evident in Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, Hook, Jurassic Park,
Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds,
Munich (film).
One
consistent theme in his family-friendly work is a childlike,
even naïve, sense of wonder and faith, as attested by works such
as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, Hook and A.I..
The
other theme is that of loss of innocence and coming-of-age. In
Empire of the Sun, Jim, a well-groomed and spoilt English youth,
loses his innocence as he suffers through World War II Japan.
Similarly in Catch Me If You Can Frank naively and foolishly
believes that he can reclaim his shattered family if he
accumulates enough money to support them.
The
most persistent theme throughout his film is tension between
parent-child relationships. Parents (often fathers) are
reluctant, absent or ignorant. Peter Banning in Hook starts off
in the beginning of the film as a reluctant married-to-his-work
parent who through the course of his film regains the respect of
his children. The notable absence of Elliott's father in E.T.,
is the most famous example of this theme. Even Oskar Schindler,
from Schindler's List, is reluctant to have a child with his
wife. Munich depicts Avner as man away from his wife and newborn
daughter. There are of course exceptions; Brody in Jaws is a
committed family man, while John Anderton in Minority Report is
a shattered man after the disappearance of his son. This theme
is arguably the most autobiographical aspect of Spielberg's
films, since Spielberg himself was affected by his parents'
divorce as a child.
Another aspect of Spielberg's films and possibly the one most
frequently criticized is that most of his films are generally
optimistic in nature. Critics often accuse his films for being
overly sentimental. There are exceptions, his debut feature The
Sugarland Express has a downbeat ending where Ila Fae loses
custody of her daughter and most recently A.I. where David never
receives acceptance from his real mother.
His
21st century output from A.I. to Munich are considerably bleaker
in tone with respect to his earlier films. In A.I, David is
shunned and rejected by his family and indeed most of the world
at large and ultimately never earns the love of his real mother.
The crime-caper, Catch Me If You Can, with a certain irony when
Frank, who continuously rebels against authority figures
throughout the film, becomes part of the very system he fought
against; while War of the Worlds was the first time Spielberg
attempted to show evil aliens. Munich, his latest and most
controversial film, is also his most ambiguous, as in the end
it's uncertain whether the cycle of violence would ever truly
end.
Filmography
Main article: List of Steven Spielberg films
Interstellar (2009)
Indiana Jones 4 (2008)
Munich (2005)
War
of the Worlds (2005)
The
Terminal (2004)
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Minority Report (2002)
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Saving Private Ryan (1998) (Academy Award, Best Director)
The
Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Amistad (1997)
Schindler's List (1993) (Academy Award, Best Director, Best
Picture)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Hook (1991)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Always (1989)
Empire of the Sun (1987)
The
Color Purple (1985)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
1941 (1979)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Jaws (1975)
The
Sugarland Express (1974)
Television Work
(lengths include commercials)
Amazing Stories (1985)
ep
1-1 "Ghost Train" (30 min) [aired Oct 6 85]
ep
1-7 "The Mission" (60 min) [aired Nov 3 85] (part of Amazing
Stories: Book One)
Savage (1973) TV-movie (90 min) [aired Mar 31 73]
Something Evil (1972) TV-movie (90 min) [aired Jan 21 72]
Duel (1971) TV-movie (90 min) (extended cut was released
theatrically and on home video/DVD) [aired Nov 13 71]
Owen Marshall: Counselor At Law (1971) ep. 1-3 "Eulogy for a
Wide Receiver" (60 min) [aired Sep 30 71]
Columbo (1971) ep. 1-1 "Murder By the Book" (90 min) [aired Sep
15 71]
The
Psychiatrist (1971)
ep.
1-2 "The Private World of Martin Dalton" (60 min) [aired Feb 10
71]
ep.
1-6 "Par for the Course" (60 min) [aired Mar 10 71]
(this was released on a VHS named The Visionary after the other
episode included)
Name of the Game (1971) ep 3-16 "L.A. 2017" (90 min) [aired Jan
15 71]
Marcus Welby M.D. (1970) ep 1-27 "Daredevil Gesture" (60 min)
[aired Mar 17 70]
Night Gallery (1969, 1971)
pilot movie segment B "Eyes" [aired Nov 8 69] (30min)
ep4
segA "Make 'em Laugh" [aired Jan 6 71] (30min)
possibly ep14 segB "Matter of Semantics" (5min)
Preceded by:
Clint Eastwood
for
Unforgiven Academy Award for Best Director
1993
for
Schindler's List Succeeded by:
Robert Zemeckis
for
Forrest Gump
Preceded by:
James Cameron
for
Titanic Academy Award for Best Director
1998
for
Saving Private Ryan Succeeded by:
Sam
Mendes
for
American Beauty
Side projects
Spielberg has produced a considerable number of films, including
early hits for Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis He also produced
several hit cartoons (and a few flops), including Tiny Toon
Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain and Freakazoid!. In
1987 he was awarded The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for
his work as a creative producer up to that point.
He
was also, for a short time, the executive producer of the
long-running medical drama ER.
In
1989, he brought the concept of The Dig to LucasArts. He
contributed with the project from that time to 1995 when the
game was released. He also collaborated with software publishers
Knowledge Adventure on the multimedia game Steven Spielberg's
Director's Chair, which was released in 1996. Spielberg appears,
as himself, in the game to direct the player.
He
is one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Pictures (DreamWorks
SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen providing the
other letters in the company name), which has released all of
his movies since Amistad in 1997.
Following the critical and box office success of Schindler's
List in 1993, Spielberg founded and continues to finance the
Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization with the goal of
providing an archive for the filmed testimony of as many
survivors of the Holocaust as possible, so that their stories
will not be lost in the future.
Also in 1993, Spielberg acted as executive producer for the
highly anticipated television series, seaQuest DSV; a science
fiction series set "in the near future" starring Roy Scheider
(who Speilberg had directed in Jaws) and Jonathan Brandis akin
to Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired on Sundays at
8:00PM on NBC. While the first season was moderately successful,
the second season saw the departure of many beloved characters
from the first year and was geared towards more heavy science
fiction/fantasy type stories. Speilberg's name no longer
appeared in the third season and the show was cancelled after
thirteen third season episodes.
When one of his projects fell through, George Lucas let him
direct a few animatics for several sequences in Star Wars
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
Spielberg and Dreamworks SKG are currently working with Survivor
creator Mark Burnett on the upcoming television show On The Lot,
a Project Greenlight-esque reality show documenting a contest to
find the best talented, undiscovered filmmakers in America. The
winner gets an office "on the lot", another way of saying they
get a $1 Million production contract.
Personal life
Spielberg has been married to actress Kate Capshaw, whom he met
when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom since
October 12, 1991. He supports the U.S. Democratic Party.
He
has eight children — four biological:
Max
Spielberg (by actress Amy Irving, whom he married on November
27, 1985)
Sasha, Sawyer and Destry (by Capshaw); three adopted (Theo,
Camalie, and Mikaela); and one stepdaughter (Jessica Capshaw).
Wife, Kate Capshaw, converted to Judaism.
Amy
Irving received a US $100 million settlement from Spielberg in
their 1989 divorce when a judge controversially vacated what had
appeared to be an iron clad prenuptial agreement.
For
his work on the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
since 1994, he was awarded with the Great Cross of Merit with
Star, the German version of the Great Officer's Cross, in
September 1998 for "a very noticeable contribution to the issue
of the Holocaust".
In
1999, Spielberg received an honorary degree from Brown
University.
On
Feb 7th, 2000, Spielberg's doctor discovered an irregularity on
his kidney during a routine physical. It was later found to be
Renal cell carcinoma, a form of kidney cancer. The kidney was
later removed at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. At
53, Spielberg recovered quickly and required no follow up
treatment.
In
2001, he was given the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of
the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. However, he
cannot use the title 'Sir' due to not being a Commonwealth
citizen.
Criticism
Spielberg has several critics, including American artist and
actor Crispin Glover. In a 2005 essay titled What Is It? Glover
says that Spielberg has "wafted his putrid stench upon our
culture, a culture he helped homogenize and propagandize." Among
Glover’s accusations are that Spielberg purchased the Rosebud
sled used in Orson Welles’ 1941 film Citizen Kane for $50,000
but refused to hire Welles to write a screenplay in the later
years of his life, that he received money from the United States
government to promote his personal religious and cultural
beliefs, that his films do not take risks, that he exploited
tragedy for personal gain in the films Schindler’s List
(although Spielberg was not paid for Schindler's List) and
Saving Private Ryan, and that he, as a co-owner of DreamWorks,
considered building a studio on the few remaining wetlands in
Southern California.
In
an interview in 2003 on the CBS television show 60 Minutes,
actor Robert Duvall criticized Spielberg for meeting with Cuban
president Fidel Castro in 2002. He said, "When he met with him,
he should have had the decency to look out into the graveyard
and seen all the people he killed." He then added, "...i'll
probably never get a job at DreamWorks now, but I don't care!"
Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls portrays the early
Spielberg in a mostly unflattering light as a sycophantic and
reverential figure to the old Hollywood studio system, lacking
the artistic inclinations or intellectual backgrounds of his
contemporaries and unable to relate to the youth culture of the
1960s and 1970s. One colleague recalled that during the volatile
1968 Democratic National Convention, Spielberg was far more
interested in mastering a tricky visual effects shot.
Spielberg's films are often accused of leaning towards
sentimentalism at the expense of the theme of the film. An
instance often cited by science fiction fans is the ending of
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence which they believed was too
'happy'. This being a collaboration with Stanley Kubrick whose
films such as Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange are often
tinged with pessimism drew a heated debate as to whether or not
Kubrick would have liked it or not. Kubrick's long-time
assistant Jan Harlan and the film's original story writer Ian
Watson have said that the ending is exactly what Kubrick
intended. Critics such as anti-mainstream film theorist Ray
Carney also complain that Spielberg's films lack depth and do
not take risks.
French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard famously and publicly
slammed Spielberg at the premier of his film In Praise of Love.
Godard, who has continuously complained about the commercial
nature of modern cinema held Spielberg responsible for the lack
of artistic merit in mainstream cinema. Through his film, Godard
accused Spielberg of making a profit of tragedy while
Schindler's wife lived in poverty in Argentina.
In
Spielberg's defense, critic Roger Ebert once stated that 'If
only people could look past his popularity they would see how
talented he really is.' Some of Spielberg's most famous fans
include film legends Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog and the late
French filmmaker François Truffaut.
Spielberg's unabashed support for Israel has also raised
criticism. In 2002, a rumor circulated that Spielberg was
planning a film about Palestinian suffering during the
Israeli/Palestinian feud. The director's spokesman, Marvin Levy,
called the report "an obvious, vicious hoax."
During production of Spielberg's controversial film Munich,
which deals with the Israeli retaliation to the massacre of the
Israeli Olympic athletes during the 1972 Munich Games, the
filmmaker retained Arad Communications, a crisis communications
firm in Tel Aviv, in order to deflect claims of bias.
Trivia
While the films that Steven Spielberg directed have won numerous
awards, no actor or actress has won an Academy Award for a
performance given in one of his films; although several have
been nominated.
Spielberg had a cameo role as the Cook County assessor in the
last minutes of the 1980 film The Blues Brothers.
He
appeared in the two-part music video for Cyndi Lauper's song,
The Goonies 'R' Good Enough, from the Spielberg-produced film,
The Goonies (1985)
In
the Warner Bros. animated series Tiny Toon Adventures,
Animaniacs and Freakazoid! (all of which were executive-produced
by Spielberg), Spielberg was a semi-recurring character. In some
episodes, Spielberg voiced himself, and in others, veteran
voice-over artist Frank Welker did Spielberg's voice. In the
Japanese dub of Animaniacs, Spielberg was voiced by Hiroyuki
Shibamoto.
In
2005, Empire magazine created a list of the 20 (with the next 20
on an extra page) greatest film directors of all time. Spielberg
was number one on the list.
The
A&E Network is expected to announce that it will produce a
two-hour drama about the relationship between filmmakers George
Lucas and Steven Spielberg. According to Daily Variety, the
biopic, tentatively titled Celluloid Titans, is being executive
produced by Jody Brockway.
Spielberg is expected to make a cameo appearance in a
second-season episode of Extras, the BBC comedy series written
and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.[8]
In
the 2005 edition of Forbes' "400 Richest People in America", his
net worth is estimated at $2.7 billion, a $100 million
improvement over 2004 (due mostly to his share of the DreamWorks
Animation public stock offering). He, and good friend George
Lucas (net worth: $3.5 billion) are the only filmmakers on the
list.
Every Spielberg-directed film since and including The Sugarland
Express, except for The Color Purple and his segment of The
Twilight Zone the Movie, has been scored by John Williams. See
also List of noted film producer and composer collaborations.
Janusz Kaminski has shot every Spielberg film since Schindler's
List (see List of noted film director and cinematographer
collaborations). Michael Kahn has edited every single film
directed by Spielberg from Close Encounters to Munich (except
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Spielberg has worked with George
Lucas' digital special effects house Industrial Light and Magic
(ILM) on all his films except The Terminal, which used effects
by Digital Domain.
Likes M&Ms. Hates Skittles.
Spielberg is one of the most avid collectors of meteorites in
the world.
Following a screening of E.T. at the White House, President
Ronald Reagan allegedly leaned over, clapped Spielberg on the
shoulder, and quietly commented, "You know, there aren’t six
people in this room who know how true this really is."[9]
On
July 16, 2006, Spielberg was awarded the Gold Hugo, Lifetime
Achievement Award at the Chicago International Film Festival's
Summer Gala.
Trademarks
Uses powerful flashlights in dark scenes (e.g. Jurassic Park,
The Lost World, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial)
Frequently uses music by John Williams
Often shows shooting stars
Often portrays fathers as reluctant, absent, or irresponsible
(e.g. E.T. the Extra- Terrestrial)
Onscreen performers staring, usually at something off camera
Often uses images of the sun (e.g The Color Purple, Empire of
the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, and the final scene of Jurassic
Park)
His
films often show children in some sort of danger or as a main
protagonist
Consistent references to World War II
Frequent references to movies, films, music or theme parks
Frequently uses a piano as an element in key scenes (e.g.
Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report)
Important images, or characters, are often seen through the
rear-view mirror of a car (e.g. Duel) , E.T., Jurassic Park,
Schindler's List, AI)
Frequently casts Tom Hanks, Richard Dreyfuss and Tom Cruise
Protagonists in his films often come from families with divorced
parents, most notably E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (protagonist
Elliot's mother is divorced) and Catch Me If You Can (Frank
Abagnale's mother and father split early on in the movie). This
perhaps reflects Spielberg's own experience as a youth with his
parents breaking up.
A
common theme in many of his films: ordinary people who discover
something extraordinary—people, places, artifacts, creatures,
etc.
Characters having difficulty believing something such as a
killer shark in Jaws or the presence of aliens in Close
Encounters and E.T.
His
more recent films all feature a similar ending at sundown and a
pregnant or recently pregnant woman, (e.g. Minority Report,
Munich, War of the Worlds)
****
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URL of Original Article:
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Date Article Copied:
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