Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, video game designer and studio executive. In a career spanning four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.
Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films, Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.
Early life
Spielberg was born in
Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Jewish family. His mother, Leah Adler, was a restaurateur and concert pianist, and his father, Arnold Spielberg, was an electrical engineer involved in the development of computers. He spent his childhood in
Haddon Heights, New Jersey and
Scottsdale, Arizona. Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm "adventure" films with his friends, the first of which he shot at the Pinnacle Peak Patio restaurant in Scottsdale. He charged admission (25 cents) to his home films (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn.
In 1958, he became a Boy Scout, and fulfilled a requirement for the photography merit badge by making a nine-minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. Spielberg recalled years later to a magazine interviewer, "My dad's still-camera was broken, so I asked the scoutmaster if I could tell a story with my father's movie camera. He said yes, and I got an idea to do a Western. I made it and got my merit badge. That was how it all started." At age 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war film he titled Escape to Nowhere which was based on a battle in east Africa. In 1963, at age 16, Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent film, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight (which would later inspire Close Encounters). The film, which had a budget of US$500, was shown in his local cinema and generated a profit of $1. He also made several WWII films inspired by his father's war stories.
After his parents divorced, he moved to Saratoga, California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona. Although he attended Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona for three years, Spielberg ended up graduating from Saratoga High School in 1965. It was during this time Spielberg attained the rank of Eagle Scout.
Spielberg attended synagogue as a young boy in Haddon Heights, NJ, an area which did not allow Jews before World War II. He attended Hebrew school from 1953 to 1957, in classes taught by Rabbi Albert L. Lewis, who would later be memorialized as the main character in Mitch Albom's, Have a Little Faith.
As a child, Spielberg has faced difficulty assimilating. “It isn’t something I enjoy admitting,” he once said, “but when I was 7, 8, 9 years old, God forgive me, I was embarrassed because we were Orthodox Jews. I was embarrassed by the outward perception of my parents’ Jewish practices. I was never really ashamed to be Jewish, but I was uneasy at times. My grandfather always wore a long black coat, black hat and long white beard. I was embarrassed to invite my friends over to the house, because he might be in a corner davening [praying], and I wouldn’t know how to explain this to my WASP friends.” Spielberg also said he suffered from acts of anti-Semitic prejudice in his early life: he later said, "In high school, I got smacked and kicked around. Two bloody noses. It was horrible."
After moving to California, he applied to attend the film school at University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three separate times, but was unsuccessful. He was a student subsequently of California State University, Long Beach. While attending Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg became member of Theta Chi Fraternity. His actual career began when he returned to Universal Studios as an unpaid, seven-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department. After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded him an honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee of the university. 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. However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.
Studio producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws, a thriller-horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel about an enormous killer shark. Spielberg has often referred to the gruelling shoot as his professional crucible. Despite the film's ultimate, enormous success, it was nearly shut down due to delays and budget over-runs.
But Spielberg persevered and finished the film. It was an enormous hit, winning three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound) and grossing $470,653,000 worldwide at the box office. It also set the domestic record for box office gross, leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania." 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. It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.
Mainstream breakthrough (1975–93)
Rejecting offers to direct
Jaws 2,
King Kong and
Superman, 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 films both written and directed by Spielberg,
Close Encounters was a critical and box office hit, giving Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy as well as earning six other
Academy Awards nominations. 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. His next film,
1941, a big-budgeted World War II farce, wasn't nearly as successful and though it grossed over $92.4 million dollars worldwide (and did make a small profit for co-producing studios Columbia and Universal) it was seen as a disappointment, mainly with the critics. It has since become a
cult classic thanks to television showings and home video releases.
Spielberg then revisited his Close Encounters project and, with financial backing from Columbia Pictures, released Close Encounters: The Special Edition in 1980. For this, Spielberg fixed some of the flaws he thought impeded the original 1977 version of the film and also, at the behest of Columbia, and as a condition of Spielberg revising the film, shot additional footage showing the audience the interior of the mothership seen at the end of the film (a decision Spielberg would later regret as he felt the interior of the mothership should have remained a mystery). Nevertheless, the re-release was a moderate success, while the 2001 DVD release of the film restored the original ending.
Next, Spielberg teamed with Star Wars creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first of the Indiana Jones films. The archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones was played by Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his Star Wars films as Han Solo). The film was considered a homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It became the biggest film at the box office in 1981, and the 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-adventure genre.
and Nancy Reagan after a showing of E.T. at the White House]]
A year later, Spielberg returned to the science fiction genre with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was the story of a young boy and the alien he befriends, who was accidentally left behind by his people and is trying to get back home. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial went on to become the top-grossing film of all time. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.
Between 1982 and 1985, Spielberg produced three high-grossing films: Poltergeist (for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation of (for which he directed the segment "Kick The Can"), and The Goonies (Spielberg, executive producer, also wrote the story on which the screenplay was based).
His next directorial feature was the Raiders sequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Teaming up once again with Lucas and Ford, the film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. This film and the Spielberg-produced Gremlins led to the creation of the PG-13 rating due to the high level of violence in films targeted at younger audiences. In spite of this, Temple of Doom is rated PG by the MPAA, even though it is the darkest and, possibly, most violent Indy film. Nonetheless, the film was still a huge blockbuster hit in 1984. It was on this project that Spielberg also met his future wife, actress Kate Capshaw.
In 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, about a generation of empowered African-American women during depression-era America. Starring Whoopi Goldberg and future talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best film of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, much to the surprise of many, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination. The Color Purple is the second of two Spielberg films not to be scored by John Williams, the first being Duel.
In 1987, as China began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American film in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, starring John Malkovich and a young Christian Bale. The film garnered much praise from critics and was nominated for several Oscars, but did not yield 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.
After two forays into more serious dramatic films, Spielberg then directed the third Indiana Jones film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Once again teaming up with Lucas and Ford, Spielberg also cast actor Sean Connery in a supporting role as Indy's father. The film earned generally positive reviews and was another box office success, becoming the highest grossing film worldwide that year; its total box office receipts even topped those of Tim Burton's much-anticipated film Batman, which had been the bigger hit domestically. Also in 1989, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic comedy-drama Always, about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, Always was only a moderate success and had mixed reviews.
In 1991, Spielberg directed Hook, about a middle-aged Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, who returns to Neverland. Despite innumerable rewrites and creative changes coupled with generally negative reviews, the film proved popular with audiences, making over $300 million worldwide (from a $70 million budget).
In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the film version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about a theme park with genetically engineered dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's Industrial Light & Magic company, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914.7 million. This would be the third time that one of Spielberg's films became the highest grossing film ever.
Spielberg's next film, Schindler's List, was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust. Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). With the film a huge success at the box office, Spielberg used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of Holocaust survivors. In 1997, the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#9) which moved up to (#8) when the list was remade in 2007.
Since 1994
In 1994, Spielberg took a hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio,
DreamWorks, with partners
Jeffrey Katzenberg and
David Geffen. In 1997, he helmed the sequel to 1993's
Jurassic Park with
, which generated over $618 million worldwide despite mixed reviews, and was the second biggest hit of 1997 behind
James Cameron's
Titanic (which topped the original
Jurassic Park to become the new recordholder for box office receipts).
His next film, Amistad, was based on a true story (like Schindler's List), specifically about an African slave rebellion. Despite decent reviews from critics, it did not do well at the box office. Spielberg released Amistad under DreamWorks Pictures, which issued all of his films from Amistad until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in May 2008 (see below).
In 1998, Spielberg re-visited Close Encounters yet again, this time for a more definitive 137-minute "Collector's Edition" that puts more emphasis on the original 1977 release, while adding some elements of the previous 1980 "Special Edition," but deleting the latter version's "Mothership Finale," which Spielberg regretted shooting in the first place, feeling it should have remained ambiguous in the minds of viewers.
His next theatrical release in that same year was the World War II film Saving Private Ryan, about a group of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) sent to bring home a paratrooper whose three older brothers were killed in the last twenty four hours of action in France. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over $481 million worldwide and was the biggest film of the year at the North American box office (worldwide it made second place after Michael Bay's Armageddon). Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war films such as Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates. The film was also the first major hit for DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures (as such, it was Spielberg's first release from the latter that was not part of the Indiana Jones series). Later, Spielberg and Tom Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. 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 film about a humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline, adapted by Spielberg himself. Though the film's reception in the US was relatively muted, it performed better overseas for a worldwide total box office gross of $236 million.
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 Washington D.C. police captain in the year 2054 who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 92% approval rating, reporting that 200 out of the 218 reviews they tallied were positive. The film earned over $358 million 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.
Spielberg's 2002 film Catch Me If You Can is about the daring adventures of a youthful con artist (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). It earned Christopher Walken an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. It was a hit both commercially and critically.
Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in 2004's 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.
Also in 2005, Spielberg directed a modern adaptation of War of the Worlds (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H. G. Wells book of the same name (Spielberg had been a huge fan of the book and the original 1953 film). It starred Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, and, as with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light & 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 featured violent invaders. The film was another huge box office smash, grossing over $591 million worldwide.
Spielberg's film Munich, about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games, was his second film essaying Jewish relations in the world (the first being Schindler's List). The film is based on , a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas. It was previously adapted into the 1986 made-for-TV film Sword of Gideon. The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the U.S. and world box-office; it remains one of Spielberg's most controversial films to date. 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.
Spielberg directed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which wrapped filming in October 2007 and was released on May 22, 2008. This was his first film not to be released by DreamWorks since 1997. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, and has performed very well in theaters. As of May 10, 2010, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has grossed $317 million domestically, and over $786 million worldwide.
Production credits
(1999)]]
Since the mid-1980s Spielberg has increased his role as a film producer. He headed up the production team for several cartoons, including the Warner Brothers hits
Tiny Toon Adventures,
Animaniacs,
Pinky and the Brain,
Toonsylvania, and
Freakazoid!, for which he collaborated with
Jean MacCurdy and
Tom Ruegger. Due to his work on these series, in the official titles, most of them say, "Steven Spielberg presents" as well as making numerous cameos on the shows. Spielberg also produced the
Don Bluth animated features,
An American Tail and
The Land Before Time, which were released by
Universal Studios. He also served as one of the executive producers of
Who Framed Roger Rabbit and its three related shorts (
Tummy Trouble,
Roller Coaster Rabbit,
Trail Mix-Up), which were all released by
Disney, under both the
Walt Disney Pictures and the
Touchstone Pictures banners. He was furthermore, 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 to the project from that time until 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. The Spielberg name provided branding 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 that aired on Sundays at 8:00 pm. 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 it.
Spielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on The Haunting, The Prince of Egypt, Shrek, and Evolution. In 2005, he served as a producer of Memoirs of a Geisha, an adaptation of the 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 film called Monster House, marking their eight collaboration together since 1990's 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. Spielberg served as executive producer for Disturbia and the Transformers live action film with Brian Goldner, an employee of Hasbro. The film was directed by Michael Bay and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and Spielberg continues to collaborate on the sequels, and .
Other major television series Spielberg produced were Band of Brothers, Taken and The Pacific. He was an executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV miniseries Into the West which won two Emmy awards, including one for Geoff Zanelli's score. For his 2010 miniseries The Pacific he teamed up once again with co-producer Tom Hanks, with Gary Goetzman also co-producing'. The miniseries is believed to have cost $250 million and is a 10-part war miniseries centered on the battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer Bruce McKenna, who penned several installments of (Band of Brothers), was the head writer. The Pacific was filmed at locations mostly in Australia, including Far North Queensland, Melbourne, and the Northern Territory and at Melbourne's Central City Studios.
In 2007, Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett co-produced On the Lot a short-lived TV reality show about filmmaking.
Acting credits
Steven Spielberg had cameo roles in
The Blues Brothers,
Gremlins,
Vanilla Sky, and
Austin Powers in Goldmember, as well as small uncredited cameos in a handful of other films, such as a life-station worker in
Jaws. He also made numerous cameo roles in the Warner Brothers cartoons he produced, such as Animaniacs, and even made reference to some of his films. Spielberg voiced himself on one episode of
Tiny Toon Adventures titled
Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian.
Involvement in video games
Apart from being an ardent gamer Spielberg has had a long history of involvement in video games. In 2005 the director signed with
Electronic Arts to collaborate on three games including an action game and an award winning puzzle game for the
Wii called
Boom Blox (and its 2009 sequel:
Boom Blox Bash Party). Previously, he was involved in creating the scenario for the adventure game
The Dig. In 1996, Spielberg worked on and shot original footage for a movie-making simulation game called "Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair". He is the creator of the
Medal of Honor series by
Electronic Arts. He is credited in the special thanks section of the 1998 video game
.
Upcoming projects
Spielberg is planning a
motion capture film trilogy based on
The Adventures of Tintin written by Belgian artist
Hergé, with
Peter Jackson. He will direct the first film
, which will not be theatrically released until December 23, 2011 due to the necessary computer animation, while Jackson will direct the second which Spielberg will produce. In September 2008, Steven Spielberg bought film rights for
John Wyndham's novel "
Chocky" and is interested in directing it.
Spielberg's film War Horse will be released just five days after The Adventures of Tintin, on December 28, 2011. Spielberg and DreamWorks Studios were reported in December 2009 to have bought the rights to the book War Horse, about the long friendship between a British boy and his horse Joey before and during World War I — a novel that was adapted into a hit play now running in London and expected in New York in 2011. It will be released and distributed by Disney, with whom DreamWorks has made a 30-picture deal. The novel was written by Michael Morpurgo and published in 1982. Filming of War Horse started in the UK in August 2010.
Spielberg will also be producing a Fox TV series titled Terra Nova. Terra Nova will be originally set in the year 2149 when all life on the planet Earth is threatened with extinction resulting in scientists opening a door that allows people to travel back 150 million years to prehistoric times.
In May 2009, Steven Spielberg bought the rights to the life story of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Spielberg will be involved not only as producer but also as a director. However, the purchase was made from the King estate, led by son Dexter, while the two other surviving children, the Reverend Bernice and Martin III, immediately threatened to sue, not having given their approvals to the project.
Director Michael Bay announced that produced by Spielberg is set to be released on July 1, 2011.
He will produce the upcoming J. J. Abrams science fiction thriller film Super 8 for Paramount Pictures.
Spielberg is to produce a new science fiction series titled Falling Skies in collaboration with the TNT television network. Falling Skies is based on the aftermath of an alien invasion. Falling Skies will premiere on TNT in June, 2011. He will direct and produce the 12-hour miniseries Nine Lives for Syfy and will also create the science fiction film Robopocalypse.
Spielberg is reportedly trying to obtain the screen rights to make a film based on Microsoft's Halo series.
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. 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. Spielberg described himself as feeling like an alien during childhood, 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.
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. Artificial Intelligence. According to Warren Buckland, 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 utilized by the director, notably the water scenes in Jaws are filmed from the low-angle perspective of someone swimming. Another child oriented 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 spoiled English youth, loses his innocence as he suffers through World War II China. 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 films is tension in 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 a professor of medieval literature, 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 a 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 film). Little known also is Tim in Jurassic Park (early in the film, another secondary character mentions Tim and Lex's 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 paternal feelings to Tim. However, by the end of the film, he has changed, and the kids even fall asleep with their heads on his shoulders.
Most of his films are generally optimistic in nature. Critics frequently accuse his films of being overly sentimental, though Spielberg feels it is fine as long as it is disguised. The influence comes from directors Frank Capra and John Ford.
Contemporaries
In terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known penchant for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several films:
Jaws,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and
Always. Aside from his role as Indiana Jones, Spielberg also cast
Harrison Ford as a headteacher in
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (though the scene was ultimately cut). Although Spielberg directed him only once (in Raiders of the Lost Ark, for which he voiced many of the animals), veteran voice actor
Frank Welker has lent his voice in a number of productions Spielberg has executively produced from
Gremlins to its sequel
, as well as
The Land Before Time (and lending his voice to its sequels which Spielberg had no involvement in),
Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and television shows such as
Tiny Toons,
Animaniacs, and SeaQuest DSV. Recently Spielberg has used 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 has also cast Shia LaBeouf in four films:
Transformers,
Eagle Eye,
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and
. Spielberg 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 recent
Munich. Other working relationships include
Allen Daviau, a childhood friend and cinematographer who shot the early Spielberg film
Amblin and most of his films up to
Empire of the Sun;
Janusz Kamiński who has shot every Spielberg film since
Schindler's List (see
List of film director and cinematographer collaborations); and the film editor
Michael Kahn who has edited every 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.
A famous example of Spielberg working with the same professionals is 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 and ). One of Spielberg's trademarks is 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 principal 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.
Personal life
Marriages and children
From 1985 to 1989 Spielberg was married to actress
Amy Irving. In their 1989 divorce settlement, she received $100 million from Spielberg after a judge controversially vacated a
prenuptial agreement written on a napkin. Their divorce was recorded as the third most costly celebrity divorce in history. Following the divorce, Spielberg and Irving shared custody of their son, Max Samuel.
Spielberg subsequently developed a relationship with actress Kate Capshaw, whom he met when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They married on October 12, 1991. Capshaw is a convert to Judaism. They currently move among their four homes in Pacific Palisades, California; New York City; Quelle Farm, Georgica Pond in East Hampton, NY; and Naples, Florida.
There are seven children in the Spielberg-Capshaw family:
Jessica Capshaw (born August 9, 1976) – daughter from Kate Capshaw's previous marriage to Robert Capshaw
Max Samuel Spielberg (born June 13, 1985) – son from Spielberg's previous marriage to actress Amy Irving
Theo Spielberg (born 1988) – son adopted by Capshaw before her marriage to Spielberg, who later also adopted him
Sasha Rebecca Spielberg (born May 14, 1990, Los Angeles)
Sawyer Avery Spielberg (born March 10, 1992, Los Angeles)
Mikaela George (born February 28, 1996) – adopted with Kate Capshaw
Destry Allyn Spielberg (born December 1, 1996)
Mikaela and Destry attend Willow Charter School in Studio City. http://www.thewillows.org/
Wealth
Forbes magazine places Spielberg's personal net worth at $3.0 billion.
Recognition
In 2002, Spielberg was one of eight flagbearers who carried the Olympic Flag into
Rice-Eccles Stadium at the Opening Ceremonies of the
2002 Winter Olympic Games in
Salt Lake City. In 2006,
Premiere listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the
motion picture industry.
Time listed him as one of the . At the end of the 20th century,
Life named him the most influential person of his generation.
Starbright
In 1991 Steven Spielberg co-founded Starbright with Randy Aduana– a foundation dedicated to improving sick children's lives through technology-based programs focusing on entertainment and education. In 2002 Starbright merged with the Starlight Foundation forming what is now today –
Starlight Children's Foundation.
Politics
Spielberg usually supports
U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He has donated over $800,000 for the Democratic party and its nominees. He has been a close friend of former President
Bill Clinton and worked with the President for the USA Millennium celebrations. He directed an 18-minute film for the project, scored by
John Williams and entitled
The American Journey. It was shown at America's Millennium Gala on December 31, 1999, in the
National Mall at the
Reflecting Pool at the base of the
Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Spielberg resigned as a member of the national advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America in 2001 because of his disapproval of the organization's anti-homosexuality stance.
Spielberg joined Jeffrey Katzenberg and Haim Saban in endorsing the re-election of Hollywood friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican Governor of California, on August 7, 2006.
In 2007 the Arab League voted to boycott Spielberg's movies after he donated $1 million for relief efforts in Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War.
On February 20, 2007, Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama. However, on June 14, 2007, Spielberg endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) for President. While Geffen and Katzenberg supported Obama, Spielberg was always a supporter of Hillary Clinton. However Spielberg directed a video for Obama at the DNC in August 2008 and attended Obama's inauguration.
In February 2008, Spielberg pulled out of his role as advisor to the 2008 Summer Olympics in response to the Chinese government's inaction over the War in Darfur. Spielberg said in a statement that "I find that my conscience will not allow me to continue business as usual." It also said that "Sudan's government bears the bulk of the responsibility for these on-going crimes, but the international community, and particularly China, should be doing more.." The International Olympic Committee respected Spielberg's decision, but IOC president Jacques Rogge admitted in an interview that "[Spielberg] certainly would have brought a lot to the opening ceremony in terms of creativity." Spielberg's statement drew criticism from Chinese officials and state-run media calling his criticism "unfair."
In September 2008, Spielberg and his wife offered their support to same-sex marriage, by issuing a statement following their donation of $100,000 to the "No on Proposition 8" campaign fund, a figure equal to the amount of money Brad Pitt donated to the same campaign less than a week prior.
Hobbies
Spielberg is an avid film buff and when not shooting a picture, he will indulge in "movie orgies," watching many over a single weekend. He sees almost every major summer blockbuster in theaters if not preoccupied and enjoys most of them; "If I get pleasure from anything, I can't think of it as dumb or myself as shallow [...] I'll probably go late to that movie and go, 'What the dickens was everybody complaining about, that wasn't so bad!'".
Since playing Pong while filming Jaws in 1974, Spielberg has been an avid video gamer. He owns a Wii, a PlayStation 3, a PSP, and Xbox 360, and enjoys playing first-person shooters such as the Medal of Honor series and . He has also criticized the use of cut scenes in games, calling them intrusive, and feels making story flow naturally into the gameplay is a challenge for future game developers.
Stalking
In 2001, Spielberg was
stalked by
conspiracy theorist and former social worker Diana Napolis. She accused him, along with actress
Jennifer Love Hewitt, of controlling her thoughts through "cybertronic" technology and being part of a
satanic conspiracy against her. Napolis was
committed for life in a mental institution before pleading guilty to stalking and released on probation with a condition that she have no contact with either Spielberg or Hewitt.
Spielberg was a target of the 2002 white supremacist terror plot.
Jonathan Norman was arrested after making two attempts to enter Spielberg's Pacific Palisades home in June and July 1997. Norman was jailed for 25 years in California. Spielberg, told the court: "Had Jonathan Norman actually confronted me, I genuinely, in my heart of hearts, believe that I would have been raped or maimed or killed."
Achievements
William Cohen, 1999.]]
Spielberg has won three Academy Awards. He has been nominated for six Academy Awards for the category of
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). In 1987 he was awarded the
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for his work as a creative producer.
Drawing from his own experiences in Scouting, Spielberg helped the Boy Scouts of America develop a merit badge in cinematography. The badge was launched at the 1989 National Scout Jamboree, which Spielberg attended, and where he personally counseled many boys in their work on requirements.
That same year, 1989, saw the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The opening scene shows a teenage Indiana Jones in scout uniform bearing the rank of a Life Scout. Spielberg stated he made Indiana Jones a Boy Scout in honor of his experience in Scouting. For his career accomplishments and service to others, Spielberg was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.
Steven Spielberg received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995.
In 1998 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit with Ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Award was presented to him by President Roman Herzog in recognition of his film Schindler's List and his Shoa-Foundation.
In 1999, Spielberg received an honorary degree from Brown University. Spielberg was also awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen at the Pentagon on August 11, 1999; Cohen presented the award in recognition of Spielberg's film Saving Private Ryan.
In 2001, he was honored as an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II.
In 2004 he was admitted as knight of the Légion d'honneur by president Jacques Chirac. On July 15, 2006, Spielberg was also awarded the at the Summer Gala of the Chicago International Film Festival, and also was awarded a Kennedy Center honour on December 3. The tribute to Spielberg featured a short, filmed biography narrated by Tom Hanks and included thank-yous from World War II veterans for Saving Private Ryan, as well as a performance of the finale to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, conducted by John Williams (Spielberg's frequent composer).
In November 2007, he was chosen for a Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at the sixth annual Visual Effects Society Awards in February 2009. He was set to be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the January 2008 Golden Globes; however, the new, watered-down format of the ceremony resulting from conflicts in the 2007–08 writers strike, the HFPA postponed his honor to the 2009 ceremony. In 2008, Spielberg was awarded the Légion d'honneur.
In June 2008, Spielberg received Arizona State University's Hugh Downs Award for Communication Excellence.
Spielberg received an honorary degree at Boston University's 136th Annual Commencement on May 17, 2009. In October 2009 Steven Spielberg received the Philadelphia Liberty Medal; presenting him with the medal was former US president and Liberty Medal recipient Bill Clinton. Special guests included Whoopi Goldberg, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.
Praise and criticism
Film
, in the Gala Dinner held on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at the
Beverly Hilton Hotel in
Beverly Hills,
California, honoring Steven Spielberg.]]
In 2005, Steven Spielberg was rated the greatest film director of all time by
Empire Magazine.
After watching the unconventional, off-center camera techniques of Jaws, Alfred Hitchcock praised "young Spielberg," saying "He's the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." Or, to paraphrase, he was the first mainstream director to think outside the visual dynamics of the theater.
Some of Spielberg's most famous fans include film legends Robert Aldrich, Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, Sidney Lumet, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Francois Truffaut and Zhang Yimou.
Subsequently, Spielberg's movies have also influenced many directors that followed, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Neill Blomkamp, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, Peter Jackson, Kal Ng, Robert Rodriguez, John Sayles, Ridley Scott, John Singleton, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.
British film critic Tom Shone has said of Spielberg, "If you have to point to any one director of the last twenty-five years in whose work the medium of film was most fully itself – where we found out what it does best when left to its own devices, it has to be that guy."
However, Spielberg is not without criticism. His films are often accused of leaning towards sentimentalism at the expense of other aspects of the film.
Critics of mainstream film such as Ray Carney and American artist and actor Crispin Glover (who starred in the Spielberg-produced Back to the Future) claim that Spielberg's films lack depth and do not take risks.
French New Wave filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard stated that he holds Spielberg partly responsible for the lack of artistic merit in mainstream cinema and accused Spielberg of using his film Schindler's List to make a profit of tragedy while Schindler's wife lived in poverty in Argentina. In defense of Spielberg, critic Roger Ebert 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?"
British filmmaker Terry Gilliam, however, echoed Godard's sentiments while comparing Spielberg unfavorably to Stanley Kubrick, saying:
}}
Imre Kertész, Hungarian Jewish author, Nazi concentration camp survivor, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, criticized Spielberg's depiction of the Holocaust in Schindler's List as kitsch, saying:
}}
Stephen Rowley wrote an in-depth piece discussing Spielberg's strengths as a film maker, concluding that his treatment by certain critics has been unfair.
In August 2007, Ai Weiwei, artistic designer for the Beijing Olympic Stadium Bird's Nest accused those choreographing the Olympic opening ceremony, including Spielberg, of failing to live up to their responsibility as artists. Ai said, "It's disgusting. I don't like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment."
Filmography
Awards and nominations
'''Academy Awards:
1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated)
1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1983: Best Picture (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1986: Best Picture (The Color Purple, nominated)
1987: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (won)
1994: Best Director (Schindler's List, won)
1994: Best Picture (Schindler's List, won)
1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)
1999: Best Picture (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)
2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)
2006: Best Picture (Munich, nominated)
2007: Best Picture (Letters from Iwo Jima, nominated)
'''BAFTA Awards:
1976: Best Direction (Jaws, nominated)
1979: Best Direction (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1979: Best Screenplay (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1983: Best Direction (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1983: Best Film (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1986: Academy Fellowship (won)
1994: Best Film (Schindler's List, won)
1994: David Lean Award for Direction (Schindler's List, won)
1999: Best Film (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)
1999: David Lean Award for Direction (Saving Private Ryan, nominated)
'''Cannes Film Festival
1974: Best Screenplay (The Sugarland Express, won)
1974: Golden Palm (The Sugarland Express, nominated)
'''Critics Choice Awards:
1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)
2003: Best Director (Catch Me If You Can and Minority Report, won)
2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)
'''Directors Guild of America:
1976: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Jaws, nominated)
1978: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1982: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated'')
1983: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1986: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (The Color Purple, won); this was the first time a director won this award without receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Director.
1988: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Empire of the Sun, nominated)
1994: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Schindler's List, won)
1998: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Amistad, nominated)
1999: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Saving Private Ryan, won); this win makes Spielberg the only individual to win this award three times.
2000: The D.W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement
2006: Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Munich, nominated)
'''Golden Globes:
1976: Best Director (Jaws, nominated)
1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1978: Best Screenplay (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated)
1983: Best Picture – Drama (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)
1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1986: Best Director (The Color Purple, nominated)
1994: Best Picture – Drama (Schindler's List, won)
1994: Best Director (Schindler's List, won)
1998: Best Director (Amistad, nominated)
1999: Best Picture – Drama (Saving Private Ryan, won)
1999: Best Director (Saving Private Ryan, won)
2002: Best Director (AI: Artificial Intelligence, nominated)
2006: Best Director (Munich, nominated)
2008: Cecil B. DeMille Award (won)
'''Hasty Pudding Theatricals:
1983: Man of the Year (won)
'''
Hollywood Walk of Fame:
2003: Star on the Walk of Fame (won)
'''NBR Award:
1987: Best Director (Empire of the Sun, won)
2001: Billy Wilder Award (won)
'''Primetime Emmys:
1986: Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series (Amazing Stories for episode "The Mission", nominated)
1991: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (Tiny Toon Adventures for episode "The Looney Beginning", nominated)
1995: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (Tiny Toon Adventures: Night Ghoulery, nominated)
1996: Outstanding Animated Program – One Hour or Less (A Pinky & the Brain Christmas Special, won)
2002: Outstanding Non-Fiction Special – Informational (We Stand Alone Together, nominated)
2002: Outstanding Miniseries (Band of Brothers, won)
2003: Outstanding Miniseries (Taken, won)
2006: Outstanding Miniseries (Into the West, nominated)
'''Producers Guild of America:
1994: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Schindler's List, won)
1998: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Amistad, nominated)
1998: Vision Award (Amistad, won)
1999: Motion Picture Producer of the Year (Saving Private Ryan, won)
1999: Milestone Award (won)
2000: PGA Hall of Fame – Motion Pictures (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)
2002: Television Producer of the Year – Longform (Band of Brothers, won)
2006: Television Producer of the Year – Longform (Into the West, nominated)
'''Saturn Awards:
1978: Best Director (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, won); tied with George Lucas for Star Wars
1978: Best Writing (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, won); tied with George Lucas for Star Wars
1982: Best Director (Raiders of the Lost Ark, won)
1983: Best Science Fiction Film (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, won)
1983: Best Director (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, nominated)
1985: Best Director (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, nominated)
1994: Best Science Fiction Film (Jurassic Park, won)
1994: Best Director (Jurassic Park, won)
1994: President's Award (won)
1998: Best Director (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, nominated)
1999: Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film (Saving Private Ryan, won)
2002: Best Science Fiction Film (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)
2002: Best Director (AI: Artificial Intelligence, nominated)
2002: Best writing (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)
2003: Best Science Fiction Film (Minority Report, won)
2003: Best Director (Minority Report, won)
2006: Best Director (War of the Worlds, nominated)
2009: Best Director (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, nominated)
'''Venice Film Festival:
1993: Career Golden Lion (won)
2001: Future Film Festival Digital Award (AI: Artificial Intelligence, won)
'''Writers Guild of America:
1975: Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen (The Sugarland Express, nominated)
1978: Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, nominated)
, during distributing Kennedy Center Honors.]]
Other
2009
Liberty Medal
2006 Kennedy Center Honors
2001 Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (Honorary)
2003 Knight Grand Cross Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
1998 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
References
External links
Steven Spielberg Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
Official website of Dreamworks
Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (founded by Spielberg)
Time 100: Steven Spielberg
Spielberg at 60 – Empire
Fansite and forum "Playmountain," the successor of "Spielbergfilms"
Spielberg's financial success in a single image
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