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Steven Spielberg
Occupation(s)Film director and producer
SpouseKate Capshaw

Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director. He has won four Academy Awards (including an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award). 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. 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 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).

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 occassionally 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.

File:Jaws DVD.jpg
Theatrical poster for Jaws.

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.

Poster for Schindler's List, considered to be Spielberg's most influential film.

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 was critically panned, 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.

File:TIME Magazine Dec. 12, 2005.jpg
Spielberg on the cover of the December 12, 2005 issue of TIME.

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 an 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

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 Academy Award for Best Director
1993
for Schindler's List 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Director
1998
for Saving Private Ryan 		Succeeded by

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 seven children — four biological:

  • Max Spielberg (by actress Amy Irving, whom he married on November 27, 1985)
  • Sasha, Sawyer and Destry (by Capshaw); two adopted (Theo 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

File:Steven Tiny Toons.jpg
Spielberg in Tiny Toon Adventures with Babs and Buster Bunny.

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)

Bibliographies

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