Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director and producer. Spielberg is a three-time Academy Award winner and is one of the most financially successful filmmakers, with an estimated net worth of $3 billion. As of 2006, Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. TIME named him in the '100 Greatest People of the Century'. At the end of the 20th century LIFE named him the most influential person of his generation.[3]In a career that spans almost four decades, Spielberg's films have touched many themes and genres. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, three of his films, Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park became the highest grossing films for their time. During his early years as a director, his sci-fi and adventure films were often seen as the archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster film-making. In recent years, he has tackled emotionally powerful issues such as the Holocaust, slavery, war, and terrorism.
Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Arnold and Leahanni Spielberg, née Posner, and has three younger sisters. His last name comes from the name of the Austrian city Spielberg where his Hungarian Jewish ancestors lived in 17th century. Spielberg's family often moved because of his father's occupation; as a computer engineer; he lived in Camden, New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey, Haddon Heights, New Jersey,[4] Phoenix, Arizona and Saratoga, California. The first film Spielberg saw was Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.[5]
Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure" movies with his friends, the first of which he shot at a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. He charged admission to his home movies (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn. At 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war movie he titled Escape to Nowhere.[5] At Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona in 1963, the then 16-year-old Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent movie, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight (which would later inspire Close Encounters). The movie, with a budget of USD$400, was shown in his local movie theater and generated a profit of $100. A writer for the local Phoenix press wrote that he could expect great things to come.[6]
After his parents divorced, he moved to California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona. He graduated from Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California in 1965, which he called the "worst experience" of his life and "hell on Earth".[7] Spielberg was given the nickname "Spielbug"[5] During this time Spielberg became an Eagle Scout and recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), as he developed the requirements for the Boy Scout Cinematography merit badge.[8] In later life, he resigned from the national board of BSA after he had been admitted, because of his disapproval regarding the BSA's anti-homosexuality stance.[9]
After moving to California, he applied to attend film school at UCLA and University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television three separate times but was unsuccessful due to his C grade average. After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded Spielberg an honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee of the University. He attended California State University, Long Beach to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War.[5] His actual career began when he returned to Universal studios as an unpaid, three-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department.[10] While attending college at Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg also became member of Theta Chi Fraternity. In 2002, thirty-five years after starting college, Spielberg finished his degree via independent projects at CSULB, and was awarded a B.A. in Film Production and Electronic Arts with an option in Film/Video Production.[11]
As an intern and guest of Universal Studios, Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, the 24 minute long movie Amblin' in 1968. After Sidney Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universal's TV arm saw the film, Spielberg became the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal). He dropped out of Long Beach State in 1969 to take the television director contract at Universal Studios and began his career as a professional director.
His first professional TV 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 futuristic science fiction episode impressed Universal Studios and they signed him on a short contract. He did another segment on Night Gallery 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 about a monstrous tanker truck who tries to run a small car off the road. Another TV film 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. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV movie length pilot of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau. Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film was The Sugarland Express, about a married couple who are chased by police as the couple tries to regain custody of their baby. Spielberg's cinematography for the police chase was praised by reviewers, and The Hollywood Reporter stated that "a major new director is on the horizon".[12] However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.
Studio producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws, a horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel. The film about a killer shark 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 and leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania".[13] Jaws made him a household name, as well as one of America's youngest multi-millionaires, and allowed Spielberg a great deal of autonomy for his future projects.[14] It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.
Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a film about UFOs, which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). One of the rare movies that Spielberg both wrote and directed, Close Encounters... was a hit at the box office, and it gave Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy and nominations for six other Academy Awards. It won Oscars in two categories (Cinematography—Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing—Frank E. Warner). This second blockbuster helped to secure Spielberg's rise.
Spielberg's success with mainstream and commercially appealing films also subjected him to disdain from film reviewers. His film 1941, a big-budgeted World War II farce, flopped with both audiences and critics alike. Next, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film. The film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones trilogy, was 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 archaeologist and adventurer 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 considered a landmark example of the action genre.
One year later, Spielberg returned to his science fiction genre, with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the story of a boy and the alien whom he befriends, who is trying to get back home to outer space. E.T. went on to become the top-grossing film of all time until it was beaten by another of his films, Jurassic Park, in 1993. E.T. was also nominated for many Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. At the same time, Spielberg was involved in the production of Poltergeist. Spielberg and George Lucas made another Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. The reviews were less positive than they were for its predecessor, though the film was a blockbuster hit. It was criticized for lacking the energy of the original, as well as for its grossly inaccurate and ignorant depiction of East Indian culture. In 1983 and 1984, Spielberg produced two high-grossing movies: a big-screen adaptation of The Twilight Zone and The Goonies, for which Spielberg co-wrote the screenplay.
1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, which is about 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 box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best movie of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive and it received 11 Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination. In 1987, as China began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American movie in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, Empire of the Sun. The film garnered numerous praise from critics, was nominated for several Oscars, but did not garner substantial box office revenues. Reviewer Andrew Sarris called it the best film of the year and later included it among the best films of the decade.[15]
After two forays into dramatic films, Spielberg did another Indiana Jones film titled Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with actor Sean Connery. The film had positive reviews and big box office receipts, and it left the franchise on a high mark. Next, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for Always, about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was a box office flop and had mixed reviews.
In 1991, Spielberg made Hook, about a middle-aged Peter Pan (played by Robin Williams), who returns to Neverland. With innumerable rewrites and creative changes and hit-or-miss reviews, the film made $119 million domestically (with costs of $70 million). In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the Japanese Godzilla movie-inspired [16] version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about killer dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's 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. Jurassic Park was the first film to use the digital DTS technology, a project in which Spielberg had made a substantial investment.
Spielberg's film Schindler's List was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 people from the Holocaust. [17]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 stated that he used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of the Holocaust survivors. 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 American Films ever Made (#9).
In 1993, Spielberg took a four-year hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio DreamWorks,[18] In 1997, Spielberg helmed the sequel to 1993's Jurassic Park, The Lost World, which generated nearly $230 million in domestic box office despite its mixed reviews. Amistad (like Schindler's List) was based on a true story about an African slave rebellion. Despite lavish praise from the critics, it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad under his new studio DreamWorks Pictures [19], which released all of his movies since Amistad.
In 1998, Spielberg released the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, about a squad of US soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) who try to find a missing soldier in France. Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence may have influenced later war movies such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the first major hit for Spielberg's studio DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures. Later, Spielberg and Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows the 101st Airborne Division's Easy Company. The series won a number of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.
In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic movie about a humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline. Spielberg and actor Tom Cruise collaborated for the first time for the futuristic neo-noir Minority Report, based upon the sci-fi short story written by Philip K. Dick about a D.C. police captain who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received highly positive reviews with the review tallying website rottentomatoes.com reporting that 199 out of the 217 reviews they tallied were positive.
While criticized for its omission of some of the themes of Dick's original story,[citation needed] the film was praised as a futuristic homage to film noir, with its intelligent premise and "whodunit" structure. The film earned over 300 million dollars worldwide. Roger Ebert, who named it the best film of 2002, praised its breathtaking vision of the future as well as for the way Spielberg blended CGI with live-action.[21]
Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It earned Christopher Walken a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. Spielberg collaborated 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. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, Empire magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time. In 2005, Spielberg did a modernized adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on Dr. H.G. Wells book of the same name, featuring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. As with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) provided the visual effects. Unlike E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which depicted friendly alien visitors, War of the Worlds had violent alien invaders.
Spielberg's film Munich, about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli atheletes at the Olympic Games, was 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, a book whose veracity has been largely questioned by journalists.[22] The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the US and world box-office, and it remains one of Spielbergs most controversial films to date.[23] 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. It was Spielberg's sixth Best Director nomination and fifth Best Picture nomination.
Since the mid-1980s Spielberg has increased his role as a film producer. He has produced several cartoons, including Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Toonsylvania and Freakazoid!. 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. Spielberg was branded for a Lego Moviemaker kit, the proceeds of which went to the Starbright Foundation.
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 Spielberg had directed in Jaws) and Jonathan Brandis akin to Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired on Sundays at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. While the first season was moderately successful, the second season did less well. Spielberg's name no longer appeared in the third season and the show was cancelled mid way through the third season.
Spielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on The Haunting, Shrek, Evolution, and recently Disturbia. In 2005, He served as a 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. In 2006 Spielberg co-executive produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis a CGI children's movie called Monster House, marking their first collaboration together since 1990s Back to the Future Part III. He also teamed with Clint Eastwood for the first time in their careers, co-producing Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima with Robert Lorenz and Eastwood himself. He earned his twelfth Academy Award nomination for the latter film as it was nominated for Best Picture.
Other major television series Spielberg produced were Band of Brothers and Taken. He was an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV miniseries Into the West which won 2 Emmy awards, including one for Geoff Zanelli's score.
Spielberg is working on Indiana Jones IV which is to begin filming in 2007 and is scheduled for release on May 22nd, 2008.[24] Spielberg has also begun plans for an Abraham Lincoln bio-pic. Lincoln, which stars Liam Neeson as the 16th President of the United States, is also scheduled for release in 2008.[25] In June 2006 it was confirmed Spielberg had already begun working on a space travel movie titled Interstellar.[26] It will be based on real scientific theories of black holes, worm holes, time travel, and gravity. It will be his first human space-travel film, as Close Encounters of the Third Kind involved alien space travel.
Spielberg is also serving as co-executive producer for the new Transformers live action film with Brian Goldner, an employee of Hasbro. The film will be directed by Michael Bay and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and will be released on July 4, 2007. A Jurassic Park IV Jurassic Park film is also in development. He is also producing films to be upcoming, including a remake of When Worlds Collide (2008). DreamWorks announced on March 8, 2007 that Spielberg will realize a Tintin[27] film after 25 years of having the rights to.[28]
Currently Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett are co-producing a TV reality show about filmmaking. The show is similar to American Idol in that 16 unknown filmmakers will be brought on and will have to compete to make movies. The last filmmaker standing will receive a US $1,000,000 development deal with DreamWorks, as well as an office "On the Lot".[29] He is also currently working on three games for EA,[30] and is also producing two untitled Fox TV series, one focusing on fashion, another on time-travellers from World War II.[31]
Another upcoming project is a miniseries which he will produce with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, titled "The Pacific". The miniseries will cost $150 million and will be a 10-part war miniseries in conjunction with the Australian Seven Network. The project is centered on the battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer Bruce McKenna, who penned several installments of the first miniseries (Band of Brothers), is the head writer. Filming is expected to begin in August and will continue for a year, with locations mostly in Australia, to include Far North Queensland, Melbourne and the Northern Territory. Producers have chosen to base the series at Melbourne's Central City Studios.[32]
Spielberg was given the green light to direct a Tintin movie based on Belgian comic series The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé. This $100 million film will be set to be released in 2009. Spielberg was always a big fan of The Adventures of Tintin and was delighted to finally be able to direct a film based on the famous character after the rights to adapt the comic book series lingered in and out of development stages. The film is to be part of a trilogy, the second film in which will be directed by Peter Jackson.
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 Duel, 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, The Terminal, War of the Worlds and Munich. In an AFI interview in August 2000 Spielberg commented on his interest in the possibility of extra terrestrial life and how it has influenced some of his films. To that tradition of fascination with space, Spielberg has placed on several occasions, shooting stars in the background of his films such as in Jaws. Spielberg described himself as feeling like an alien during childhood,[5] and his interest came from his father, a science fiction fan, and his opinion that aliens would not travel light years for conquest, but instead curiosity and sharing of knowledge.[33]
A strong 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.. According to Warren Buckland[34] these themes are portrayed through the use of low height camera tracking shots, which have become one of Spielberg's directing trademarks. In the cases when his films include children, (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, etc.) this type of shot is more apparent, but it is also used in films like Munich, Saving Private Ryan, The Terminal, Minority Report and Amistad. If one views each of his films, one will see this shot utilised by the director, notably the water scenes in Jaws are filmed from the low angle perspective of someone swimming. Another child orientated theme in Spielberg's films 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. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is revealed that Indy has always had a very strained relationship with his father, who is also an archaeologist, as his father always seemed more interested in his work, specifically in his studies of the Holy Grail, than in his own son, although his father does not seem to realize or understand the negative effect that his aloof nature had on Indy (he even believes he was a good father in the sense that he taught his son "self reliance", which is not how Indy saw it). 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 and by the absence of his father. Furthermore to this theme, 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). Little known also is Tim in Jurassic Park (early in the movie the child mentions his parents' divorce). The family often shown divided is often resolved in the ending as well. Following this theme of reluctant fathers and father figures, Tim looks to Dr. Alan Grant as a father figure. Initially, Dr. Grant is reluctant to return those patenral feelings to Tim (earlier in the film Dr. Grant has a discussion with Ellie about his negative feelings in regards to children). However, by the end of the film, he has changed, and the kids even fall asleep with their heads leaning on his shoulders.
One aspect of Spielberg's films and possibly is that most of his films are generally optimistic in nature. Critics often accuse his films for being overtly sentimental, though Spielberg feels it's fine as long as it is disguised, and the influence comes from directors Frank Capra and John Ford.[35] 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. Recently however his 21st century output from A.I. to Munich are slightly different 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 aliens who were evil rather than friendly to humanity. 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.
In terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known trademark for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several movies; Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Always. Spielberg has also cast Harrison Ford for several of his movies from small roles, as the headteacher in a cut scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as well as in leading role in the Indiana Jones trilogy. Recently Spielberg has used the actor Tom Hanks on several occasions and has cast him in Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can and The Terminal. Spielberg also has collaborated with Tom Cruise twice on Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Spielberg also prefers working with production members with whom he has developed an existing working relationship. An example of this is his production relationship with Kathleen Kennedy who has served as producer on all his major films from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to the present day Munich. Other working relationships include Janusz Kaminski who has shot every Spielberg film since Schindler's List (see List of noted film director and cinematographer collaborations) and the film editor Michael Kahn who has edited every single film directed by Spielberg from Close Encounters to Munich (except E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Most of the DVDs of Spielberg's films have documentaries by Laurent Bouzereau.
The most famous example of Spielberg working with the same professionals is of course his long time collaboration with John Williams and the use of his musical scores in all of his films since The Sugarland Express (except The Color Purple). One of Spielberg's most prominent trademarks is perhaps his use of music by John Williams to add to the visual impact of his scenes and to try and create a lasting picture and sound of the film, in the memories of the film audience. These visual scenes often uses images of the sun (e.g Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, the final scene of Jurassic Park and the end credits of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (where they ride into the sunset)), of which the last two feature a Williams score at that end scene. Spielberg is a contemporary of filmmakers George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Brian De Palma, collectively known as the "Movie Brats". Aside from his principle role as a director, Spielberg has acted as a producer for a considerable number of films, including early hits for Joe Dante and Robert Zemeckis.
Spielberg also makes use of fellow directors as actors in some of his movies, such as Richard Attenborough in Jurassic Park, Edward Burns in Saving Private Ryan, Tim Blake Nelson in Minority Report, Tim Robbins in War of the Worlds, and Matthieu Kassovitz in Munich. Spielberg also used Francois Truffaut as the scientist Lacombe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Spielberg has several critics, notably American artist and actor Crispin Glover. In a 2005 essay titled What Is It? Glover asked "Is it possible that the Columbine shootings would have not occurred if Steven Spielberg had never wafted his putrid stench upon our culture, a culture he helped homogenize and propagandize?" He also added "Would the culture benefit from Steven Spielberg's murder, or would it be lessened by making him a martyr?" Among Glover’s accusations are that Spielberg purchased a sled used in Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane for $50,000 but refused to fund Welles' would-be final film, that he received money from the United States government to promote his personal religious and cultural beliefs and that he exploited tragedy for personal gain in Schindler's List.[44] Many have dismissed Glover's criticism of Spielberg, attributing it to a past dispute between the two. Glover, who played the character George McFly in the 1985 Spielberg-produced smash hit Back to the Future, refused to sign on for the 1989 sequel Back to the Future Part II. In the sequel, the producers spliced unused footage of Glover from the original film with another actor, Jeffrey Weissman, who had prosthetics placed on his face to make him look like Glover. Glover did not give permission for his likeness. This prompted him to file a lawsuit, in which Spielberg settled.[45]
Spielberg, as a co-owner of DreamWorks, was involved in a heated debate in which the studio proposed building on the remaining wetlands in Southern California, though development was later dropped.[46]
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[citation needed]. One colleague recalled that during the volatile 1968 Democratic National Convention, Spielberg was far more interested in mastering a tricky visual effects shot. Biskind also illustrates Steven Spielberg's unusual experience writing Jaws. According to Universal Press associate Robert Ebert, Spielberg once stated to him in his defense that "Every single word in his book about me is either erroneous, or a lie."[47]
Spielberg's films are often accused of leaning towards sentimentalism at the expense of the theme of the film.[48][49][50][51] 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. However, 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.[52]
French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard famously and publicly criticised Spielberg at the premiere of his film In Praise of Love. Godard, who has continuously complained about the commercial nature of modern cinema, holds Spielberg partly 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.[53]
In Spielberg's defense, critic Roger Ebert argues that Spielberg is very talented and has also said, "Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors?"[54] Some of Spielberg's most famous fans include film legends Ingmar Bergman,[55] Werner Herzog[citation needed], and Terry Gilliam[citation needed] (although he has criticised some of his more recent work). The late French filmmaker François Truffaut admired his work and took a role in Spielberg's film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
An episode in the sixth season of South Park satirizes Spielberg and Lucas for their revisions of previous films, such as E.T. and the Star Wars series. In the Commentary for this episode, Parker and Stone, the makers of South Park, indicate that the films are being revised to make them more politically correct and to make money, disregarding the original work of art.
Mia Farrow has criticised Spielberg for his role in the 2008 Olympics
"We are doing that now in many countries around the world, and I hope that China will someday be one of them," he said.
China has major oil interests in Sudan and has been accused of blocking moves to end the violence in Darfur.
Spielberg`s letter follows criticism from actress Mia Farrow, who attacked his involvement in the 2008 Olympics in a Wall Street Journal article in March.
"Does Mr Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games?" she wrote, likening the director to the Nazi-backed filmmaker who chronicled the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
