Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg
Born	Steven Allan Spielberg
Height	5' 7½" (1.71 m)
Spouse(s)	Amy Irving (27 November 1985–2 February 1989) (divorced) 1 child Kate Capshaw (12 October 1991–present) 6 children

Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (born December 18, 1946) is a highly famous, enormously influential, three-time Academy Award winning American film director and producer who is one of the most prominent figures from the world of cinema and whose very name has become synonymous with the word 'film director' around the globe. Steven Spielberg is the most financially successful filmmaker of all time. His fortune is estimated over $3 billion on the list of 'World's Richest People'. 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.

Spielberg is seen as putting together such a popular body of work that to date has never been done by any other director or producer. In a career that spans almost four decades, Spielberg has touched many diversified themes proving that a director's eye is not confined to some particular material. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, three of his films: Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park became the highest grossing films for their time and had huge impact on popular culture around the world. Later in the 90s, after the release of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List, Spielberg took a four year break from filmmaking to spend more time with his family and more importantly, creating a media colossus overnight by founding DreamWorks Studio along with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Spielberg got his first chance to show his talent on a mainstream level by working as a director of television serials for Universal. Based on his talent, Universal gave Spielberg the opportunity to direct a TV movie: Duel. The success of Duel had given Spielberg the opportunity to direct his first theatrical feature film. Though the film flopped commercially, the producers acknowledged Spielberg's talent and gave him another chance, this time a film adaptation of Peter Benchley's novel about a killer shark that attacks people off the coast of a New England isle community. The film was the first of its kind, and during its production, Spielberg faced great pressures and scrutiny not only from the studio and industry insiders, but from his own technical crew and staff. Spielberg would be often criticized in this period of time of 'not knowing what he's doing' and that this will be his last chance ever to work in Hollywood. However, contrary to those false claims, Jaws proved to be a milestone in both the cinema and Spielberg's career, launching him as a successful Hollywood director. It redefined the term Summer Blockbuster and broke box-office records worldwide.

Over his years as director and producer, Spielberg has explored a large variety of subjects in his films. During his early years, 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.

Early life

Steven Allan Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Arnold and Leah Spielberg, née Posner. (Leah later remarried, and took on the name Leah Adler.) He has three younger sisters. His last name comes from the name of the Austrian city where his Hungarian Jewish ancestors lived in 17th century: Spielberg. Spielberg spent much of his childhood in several places as his family often moved because of his father's job, as a computer engineer. Spielberg lived in Camden, New Jersey, Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona and Saratoga, California. The first film Spielberg ever saw was Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth.

Spielberg grew up making movies from an early age. In an interview with the American Film Institute Spielberg recalls his earliest movie making memory - his enjoyment of crashing his toy trains into each other. To avoid making his father angry about repairing the trains he chose to film the crash at the points where the trains met. Throughout his early teens, he made other amateur 8 mm "adventure" movies with his friends, the first of which he shot at the Pinnacle Peak Patio 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 the popcorn. At the age of 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war movie he titled Escape to Nowhere.

Whilst attending Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona in 1963, at the young age of 16, Spielberg wrote and directed his first large scale independent movie. His 140-minute production was a 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. Firelight was Spielberg's first real commercial success and the local Phoenix press wrote that he could expect great things to come.

After his parents divorced he moved to California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona. Subsequently he 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". Spielberg was given the nickname "Spielbug" 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. 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).

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 (though USC awarded Spielberg an honorary degree in 1994 and in 1996 he became a trustee of the University). Reasons for his failure to gain entry were based on his "C" grade average. He then attended California State University, Long Beach at the behest of his parents who wanted him to gain a degree and personally to avoid the possibility of the draft for Vietnam. Spielberg once joked that his movie career began the day that he decided to jump off a tour bus at Universal Studios in Hollywood and wandered around the disused film lots. There have been many alternate versions of that story. However his actual career began, when he returned to Universal studios as an unpaid, three-day-a-week intern and guest of the editing department.

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. Fraternity brothers often tell stories of Spielberg running around with a movie camera making short films.

Once as an intern and guest of Universal Studios, Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, creating Amblin', in 1968, at the age of twenty-one. This movie, only 24 minutes long, led to his becoming the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal) after Sid Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universals' TV arm saw the film. In later life Spielberg's own production company, Amblin Entertainment, was named after that film. He then 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 .

Early career (1968–1975)

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 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 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).

Duel

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, the protagonist played by Dennis Weaver is pursued by a monstrous tanker truck piloted by a faceless driver who tries to run his small Valiant off the road. It was immediately recognized as a taut, well-made thriller, and cemented Spielberg's emerging reputation. In later interviews, Spielberg said that tale of being stalked by a monster would inspire his work with Jaws.

Realizing what they had, 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. Spielberg is said to be quite disappointed with the film, which he never regarded as more than a knock-off. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV movie length pilot of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau. Though the series was not picked up, the movie was shown on TV in 1973, and is occasionally re-run, usually highlighting Spielberg's participation.

The Sugarland Express

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Jaws helped launch Spielberg's career as a successful hollywood director

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. In the process they become part of a notable police chase. Spielberg's use of cinematography to track the police chase earned the film warm reviews. The Hollywood Reporter stated that "a major new director is on the horizon". The film however failed to do well at the box office and received a limited release. A few years after, Spielberg later remarked "if I had to do it all over again I would make it in a completely different fashion." Nevertheless his studio producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown were prepared to offer Spielberg a more ambitious directing assignment with Jaws.

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 and leading to what the press described as "Jawsmania". It has been said that Steven Spielberg often referred to the mechanical shark as "the fat man in the ocean - because it eats everything." Jaws is widely seen as the film that launched Spielbergs career to the international level, making him a household name, as well as one of America's youngest multi-millionaires. Because of its box office record, the film would allow Spielberg a great degree of autonomy over some of his future projects. 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.

The King Of Blockbuster (1975–1993)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a pet project Spielberg 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 Oscars in two (Cinematography—Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing—Frank E. Warner). According to his biographer, Joseph Mcbride, the film was an important point in Spielberg's career, as it became his second blockbuster, securing his rise as one of the most important directors in contemporary cinema.

1941

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 farce set in L.A. days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Spielberg cast two top stars from Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi and John Candy from Second City Television along with other all-stars (e.g. Ned Beatty, Warren Oates and Robert Stack). An exercise in excess, the film provided just the ammunition cynical critics would require to take down the young director. The film flopped with both audiences and critics alike and Spielberg looks back at the film disdainfully, describing that he "needed to go to a Betty Ford clinic for self-indulgent directors". 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. It has earned a cult status partly because of Spielberg's eventual fame and partly because of its camp reputation.

During that same time period, in 1980 Spielberg had a cameo role as the Cook County assessor in the last minutes of the film The Blues Brothers, again spending time with Aykroyd, Belushi and Candy.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

In need of redemption for 1941's takings at the box office, Spielberg would next team with Star Wars creator and dear friend George Lucas on a new 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 hailed as a landmark example of the action cinema genre.

E.T.

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Steven Spielberg with President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan after a showing of E.T.

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 the first of Spielbergs films to both be directed without the use of storyboards in the production and to be the first with a clear global mass marketing and commercial strategy. It was also nominated for many Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. It is considered by Spielberg himself, to be his most personal film. He describes E.T. as "a very personal story, about the divorce of my parents, how I felt when my parents broke up." The origins of the film are disputed, some say that E.T. originated as a sci-fi suspense thriller called Night Skies, though some also believe it originated from Satyajit Ray's The Alien script (see Alleged plagiarism). On June 27, 1982, Spielberg was invited to show E.T. at the White House by Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

At the same time as E.T. Spielberg was involved in the production of Poltergeist, a film that he co-wrote, co-produced (and some people claim, directed). The film was released only a week before E.T.. Spielberg also at this time, 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.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

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. The film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. However, 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 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 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.

Twilight Zone and The Goonies

In 1983 and 1984, Spielberg produced two high grossing movies. The first was 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. The second was when Spielberg came up with the story and co-wrote the screenplay for The Goonies. The film was directed by Richard Donner and Spielberg's role was as executive producer, along with close colleagues Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy. The film was released in June 1985 and was one of the top ten highest grossing movies of the year, though its reaction among critics was split. Spielberg also appeared in the two-part music video for Cyndi Lauper's Goonies soundtrack song, "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough".

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Spielberg in The Goonies 'R' Good Enough Music Video by Cyndi Lauper.

The Color Purple

In December 1985, Spielberg released The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. 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 proclaimed it the best movie of the year and later 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 (none of them awarded).

Empire of the Sun

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 got at the box office. Andrew Sarris praised the film calling it the best film of the year and later included it among the best films of the entire decade.

Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the third installment of the Indiana Jones trilogy

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. Recipient of glowing reviews and big box office receipts, Spielberg, Lucas and Ford left the franchise on a high mark.

Always

1989 marked 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. The film was otherwise notable as being the last film which starred Audrey Hepburn.

Hook

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 and made $119 million domestically, but it was not as successful as some had hoped.

Jurassic Park

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 that the Howard Hawks adventure movie Hatari! and the Japanese Godzilla movies provided inspiration for the Jurassic Park Films. Jurassic Park was the first film to use the dts technology, a project which Spielberg had invested heavily in.

Schindler's List

In the same year that Jurassic Park was released, Spielberg finally received the critical acclaim he had sought after from a mature motion picture. 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 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, which he continues to finance. The foundation is 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.

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, regard it as his finest and most mature film.

1993 onwards

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

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, The Lost World. The film received mixed reviews, but did manage to generate nearly $230 million in domestic box office. In hindsight Spielberg expressed his view that this sequel was a movie he wanted to see, but didn't necessarily want to make himself. He would relinquish the opportunity to direct any more Jurassic Park films.

Amistad

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Spielberg help co-found Dreamworks in 1997

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. 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).

Spielberg released Amistad under his new studio DreamWorks Pictures (formed with former Disney animation exec Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul David Geffen, providing the other letters in the company name). Dreamworks has released all of his movies since Amistad in 1997.

Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers

Another of Spielberg's critically acclaimed films, the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, was released in 1998. The film follows a squad of US 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.

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 book, Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows the trials and accomplishments of the 101st Airborne Division, Easy Company, also starting from the landing in Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. The series won a slew of awards both at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

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 movie told the story of a 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.

Minority Report

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Spielberg, Cruise, and Samantha Morton on the set of Minority Report.

Following A.I., Spielberg and actor Tom Cruise collaborated for the first time in 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 ignorance of the themes of humanity in author Dick's original story, the film was praised as a futuristic homage to film noir, with its intelligent premise, thrilling chase scenes, and whodunit structure. In typical Spielberg fashion the film earned over 300 million dollars worldwide. 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.

Catch Me if You Can

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 for which he was known. This film 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 filming 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.

The Terminal

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 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.

War of the Worlds

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, was released in the U.S. on June 29, 2005. As with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) provided the visual 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. A couple of weeks after the film's DVD release, DreamWorks (excluding its animation division) was sold to Viacom, the parent company of Paramount.

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Spielberg on the cover of the December 12, 2005 issue of TIME.

Munich

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.

The film received strong critical praise, but underperformed at the US and world box-office. The film has raised criticism from several Israeli and Palestinian commentators and remains one of Spielbergs 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.

Work as a Producer

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Roy Scheider and Steven Spielberg on the set of NBC's seaQuest DSV (1993)

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 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.

Upcoming projects

Spielberg's biggest priority currently is the long awaited Indiana Jones IV which is to begin filming in 2007 and is scheduled for release on May 22nd, 2008. 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. In June 2006 it was confirmed Spielberg had already begun working on a space travel movie titled Interstellar. 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 4th 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 film after 25 years of having the rights to.

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". He is also currently working on three games for EA, and is also producing two untitled Fox TV series, one focusing on fashion, another on time-travellers from World War II. 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. 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 to include Far North Queensland, Melbourne and the Northern Territory. Producers have chosen to base the series at Melbourne's Central City Studios.Browne, MRachel (2007-4-8). "Australia set to score $150m deal for war epic". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2007-4-8. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)</ref>

Style

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 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, 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.. 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 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.

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. 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.

Contemporaries

File:GeorgeLucas.jpg

George Lucas is a friend and contemporary of Spielberg

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 who 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.

Other

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. The most famous was probably Francois Truffaut's performance as the scientist Lacombe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Personal Life

From 1985 to 1989 Spielberg was married to actress Amy Irving. She received a US $100 million settlement from Spielberg in their 1989 divorce when a judge controversially vacated a prenuptial agreement which was written on a napkin. Both Spielberg and Irving shared custody of their son Max.

After his divorce from Irving, Spielberg 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 converted to Judaism so she could wed the Jewish-American director. They currently move between their four homes in Pacific Palisades, California; New York City; East Hampton, NY and Naples, Florida. He has seven children.

There are eight children in the Spielberg-Capshaw family:

• Jessica Capshaw (1976) (daughter from Kate Capshaw's previous marriage to Robert Capshaw)
• Max Samuel Spielberg (June 13, 1985) (son from Steven Spielberg's previous marriage to actress Amy Irving)
• Theo (b 1988 - African-American; adopted by Capshaw before her marriage to Spielberg; adopted by Spielberg)
• Sasha (May 14 1990 )
• Sawyer (March 10, 1992),
• Mikaela George (b Feb 28, 1996; adopted with Spielberg)
• Destry Allyn (Dec 1, 1996)
• Janet Sanders (Nov 28, 1990; goddaughter to Spielberg)

Spielberg has several pets including a dog. His previous dog, known as Elmer starred in several of his films, in various guises including Jaws, Close Encounters and 1941.

Ailments

On 23 September 1997 he was involved in road accident and treated for an injured shoulder.

On February 7, 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.

Politics

• Spielberg generally supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He was close friends 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. .
• However, although Spielberg generally supports Democratic leaders such as Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry, he 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.

• On February 20,2007, Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama, who has formed an exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential run .

Norman Rockwell Paintings

In 1989, Spielberg won a Norman Rockwell painting titled Russian Schoolroom at a legitimate auction, not knowing it had been stolen. A member of Spielberg's staff noticed the painting on the FBI's Art Theft website in 2007. Spielberg is currently cooperating with authorities to determine the painting's disposition .

Awards

Spielberg is a winner of 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.

As a teenager, Spielberg was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, and was committed long enough to earn the highest honor of Eagle Scout. In 1989, Spielberg appeared at the National Scouting Jamboree, where he introduced a new merit badge called Cinematography. The merit badge has the movie slate for its appearance. Scouts earn the badge by doing amateur film work. That same year, 1989, was the release of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose opening scene had a teenage Indiana Jones being a member of a Boy Scout troop. Spielberg stated he made Indiana Jones a Boy Scout in honor of his experience in Scouting. For having the distinction of one of the few men to introduce a new merit badge to Scouting, Spielberg was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

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".

Spielberg with a public service award from US Secretary of Defense William Cohen, 1999

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 Spielberg the award in recognition of his movie Saving Private Ryan. The citation accompanying the medal states "Mr. Spielberg helped to reconnect the American public with its military men and women, while rekindling a deep sense of gratitude for the daily sacrifices they make on the front lines of our Nation's defense."

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. On July 15, 2006, Spielberg was also awarded the Gold Hugo, Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago International Film Festival's Summer Gala, 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).

Criticism

Spielberg has several critics, including 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 the films Schindler's List. Many have dismissed Glover's criticism of Spielberg, attributing it to a past dispute between the two men. Glover, who played the character George McFly in the 1985 smash hit Back to the Future, produced by Spielberg, refused to sign on for the 1989 sequel Back to the Future II. The producers spliced unused footage of Glover from the original film into the sequel without Glover's permission, prompting him to file a lawsuit in which Spielberg settled.

Spielberg, as a co-owner of DreamWorks, was involved in the heated debate in which the studio proposed building on the remaining wetlands in Southern California, though development was later dropped.

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. Biskind also illustrates Steven Spielberg's unusual experience writing Jaws. According to Universal Press associate Robert Ebert Spielberg once stated to him in defense that "Every single word in his book about me is either erroneous, or a lie."

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. 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.

French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard famously and publicly criticised Spielberg at the premier 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.

File:Truffaut.jpg

François Truffaut, both admired and worked with Spielberg

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, Stanley Kubrick and Terry Gilliam (although he has criticised some of his more recent work). The late French filmmaker François Truffaut admired his work and took a role in Spielbergs 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.

External links

• Steven Spielberg at IMDb
• Steven Spielberg at the TCM Movie Database
• SpielbergFilms.com - fansite
• *Steven Spielberg Bibliography (via UC Berkeley)
• Official Website of Dreamworks
• Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (founded by Spielberg)
• TIME 100: Steven Spielberg
• Senses of Cinema Great Directors Database Entry
• They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• The 60 Reasons Why Spielberg Rules - Empire

See also

• List of Steven Spielberg films

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