Steven Spielberg - Film Makers

Summary

"Steven Allan Spielberg" (born December 18, 1946), page 37 is an American film director and producer. Spielberg is a three-time Academy Award winner and is the highest grossing filmmaker of all time; his films having made nearly $8 billion internationally. Forbes Magazine places Spielberg's net worth at $3 billion. As of 2006, "Premiere" listed him as the most powerful and influential figure in the motion picture industry. "TIME" named him in the '100 Greatest People of the Century'. At the end of the 20th century "LIFE" named him the most influential person of his generation.

In a career that spans almost four decades, Spielberg's films have touched many themes and genres. During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, three of his films, "Jaws", "E.T.", and "Jurassic Park" became the highest grossing films for their time. During his early years as a director, his sci-fi and adventure films were often seen as the archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster film-making. In recent years, he has tackled emotionally powerful issues such as the Holocaust, slavery, war, and terrorism.

Early life

Throughout his early teens, Spielberg made amateur 8 mm 'adventure' movies with his friends, the first of which he shot at a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. He charged admission (25 cents) to his home movies (which involved the wrecks he staged with his Lionel train set) while his sister sold popcorn.

Spielberg became a boy scout and in 1958, he fulfilled a requirement for photography merit badge by making a 9 minute 8 mm film entitled The Last Gunfight. At 13, Spielberg won a prize for a 40-minute war movie he titled Escape to Nowhere.

At Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona in 1963, the then 16-year-old Spielberg wrote and directed his first independent movie, a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight (which would later inspire Close Encounters). The movie, with a budget of USD$400, was shown in his local movie theater and generated a profit of $100. A writer for the local Phoenix press wrote that he could expect great things to come.

After his parents divorced, he moved to California with his father. His three sisters and mother remained in Arizona, where he attended Passover seders at the home of Zalman and Pearl Segal on an annual basis. He graduated from Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California, in 1965, which he called the 'worst experience' of his life and 'hell on Earth'. It was during this time Spielberg attained the rank of Eagle Scout.

After moving to California, he applied to attend film school at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television three separate times but was unsuccessful due to his C grade average. After Spielberg became famous, USC awarded Spielberg an honorary degree in 1994, and in 1996 he became a trustee of the University. He attended California State University, Long Beach, to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War. 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.

As an intern and guest of Universal Studios, Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, the 24 minute long movie Amblin' in 1968. After Sidney Sheinberg, then the vice-president of production for Universal's TV arm saw the film, Spielberg became the youngest director ever to be signed to a long-term deal with a major Hollywood studio (Universal). He dropped out of Long Beach State in 1969 to take the television director contract at Universal Studios and began his career as a professional director.

Early career (1968-1975)

His first professional TV job came when he was hired to do one of the segments for the 1969 pilot episode of "Night Gallery". The segment, "Eyes", starred Joan Crawford (who was very supportive of her twenty-two year-old rookie director), and she and Spielberg were reportedly close friends until her death. The episode is unusual in his body of work, in that the camerawork is more highly stylized than his later, more 'mature' films. After this, and an episode of "Marcus Welby M.D.", Spielberg got his first feature-length assignment: an episode of "Name of the Game" called "L.A. 2017". This futuristic science fiction episode impressed Universal Studios and they signed him on a short contract. He did another segment on "Night Gallery" and did some work for shows such as "Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law" and "The Psychiatrist" before landing the first series episode of "Columbo" (previous 'episodes' were actually TV movies).

Based on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to do three TV movies. The first was a Richard Matheson adaptation called "Duel" about a monstrous tanker truck which tries to run a small car off the road. Special praise of this film by the influential British critic Dilys Powell was highly significant to Spielberg's career. Another TV film (Something Evil) was made and released to capitalize on the popularity of "The Exorcist", then a major best-selling book which had not yet been released as a movie. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV movie length pilot of a show called "Savage", starring Martin Landau. Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film was "The Sugarland Express", about a married couple who are chased by police as the couple tries to regain custody of their baby. Spielberg's cinematography for the police chase was praised by reviewers, and "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that 'a major new director is on the horizon'.Steven Spielberg by Joseph McBride, page 223 However, the film fared poorly at the box office and received a limited release.

Studio producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for "Jaws", a horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel. The film about a killer shark won three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound), and grossed US$470,653,000 at the box office, setting the domestic record for box office gross and leading to what the press described as 'Jawsmania'.Steven Spielberg by Joseph McBride, page 248 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.Steven Spielberg by Joseph McBride, page 250 It was nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss.

Blockbuster King (1975-1993)

Rejecting offers to direct "Jaws 2" 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 movies 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.

Spielberg's success with mainstream and commercially appealing films also subjected him to disdain from film reviewers. His film "1941", a big-budgeted World War II farce, flopped with both audiences and critics alike. Next, Spielberg teamed with "Star Wars" creator and friend George Lucas on an action adventure film. "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the first of the Indiana Jones trilogy, was his homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of Hollywood, with Harrison Ford (whom Lucas had previously cast in his "Star Wars" films) as the archaeologist and adventurer hero Indiana Jones. The biggest film at the box office in 1981, and recipient of numerous Oscar nominations including Best Director (Spielberg's second nomination) and Best Picture (the second Spielberg film to be nominated for Best Picture), "Raiders" is still considered a landmark example of the action genre.

One year later, Spielberg returned to his science fiction genre, with "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", the story of a boy and the alien whom he befriends, who is trying to get back home to outer space. "E.T." went on to become the top-grossing film of all time until it was beaten by another of his films, "Jurassic Park", in 1993. E.T. was also nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director.

Next, Spielberg and George Lucas made another Indiana Jones movie, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". The film was plagued with uncertainty for the material and script. The reviews were less positive than they were for its predecessor, though the film was a blockbuster hit in 1984. It was criticized for lacking the energy of the original, as well as for its grossly inaccurate and ignorant depiction of East Indian culture.

Between 1982 and 1984, Spielberg produced three high-grossing movies: "Poltergeist" (which he also co-wrote the screenplay), a big-screen adaptation of "The Twilight Zone" and "The Goonies".

In 1985, Spielberg released "The Color Purple," an adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, which is about a generation of empowered African-American women (Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey) during depression-era America (Danny Glover played the abusive patriarch). The film was a box office smash and critics hailed Spielberg's successful foray into the dramatic genre. Roger Ebert proclaimed it the best movie of the year and later entered it into his Great Films archive. The film received 11 Academy Award nominations, including two for Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. However, Spielberg did not get a Best Director nomination.

In 1987, as China began opening to the world, Spielberg shot the first American movie in Shanghai since the 1930s, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard's autobiographical novel, "Empire of the Sun". The film garnered 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 dramatic films, Spielberg directed another Indiana Jones film titled "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" with actor Sean Connery in a supporting role. The film earned positive reviews and big box office receipts, ending the franchise (or so it was thought) on a high note. Next, he re-united with actor Richard Dreyfuss for the drama "Always", about a daredevil pilot who extinguishes forest fires. Spielberg's first romantic film, "Always" was a box office flop and had mixed reviews.

In 1991, Spielberg directed "Hook", about a middle-aged Peter Pan (played by Robin Williams), who returns to Neverland. With innumerable rewrites and creative changes and hit-or-miss reviews, the film made $119 million domestically (with costs of $70 million). In 1993, Spielberg returned to the adventure genre with the Japanese "Godzilla" movie-inspired version of Michael Crichton's novel "Jurassic Park", about dinosaurs. With revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, the film would eventually become the highest grossing film of all time (at the worldwide box office) with $914 million.

Spielberg's film "Schindler's List" was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his life to save 1,100 people from the Holocaust. 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 stated that he used the profits to set up the Shoah Foundation, a non-profit organization that archives filmed testimony of the Holocaust survivors. Some critics maintain that "Schindler's List" is the most accurate portrayal of the Holocaust, and in 1999 the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest American Films ever Made (#8).

1991 to 2000s

In 1991 Steven Spielberg co-founded Starbright with Peter Samuelson - a foundation 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 Starbright Children's Foundation.

In 1994, Spielberg took a four-year hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio DreamWorks. In 1997, Spielberg helmed the sequel to 1993's "The Lost World: Jurassic Park", which generated nearly $230 million in domestic box office despite its mixed reviews. "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 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), which has released all of his movies since "Amistad".

In 1998, Spielberg released the World War II drama "Saving Private Ryan", about a squad of U.S. soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) who try to find a missing soldier in France. Spielberg won his second Academy Award for his direction. The film's graphic, realistic depiction of combat violence influenced later war movies such as "Black Hawk Down" and "Enemy at the Gates". The film was also the first major hit for Spielberg's studio DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with Paramount Pictures. Later, Spielberg and Hanks produced a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's book, "Band of Brothers". The ten-part HBO mini-series follows the 101st Airborne Division's Easy Company. The series won a number of awards at the Golden Globes and the Emmys.

In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. A futuristic movie about a humanoid android longing for love, "A.I." featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline. According to a "Sight & Sound" magazine poll of the greatest films ever made, film critic Armond White of the "New York Press" hails 'A.I.' as his all-time favorite movie.

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 who has been foreseen to murder a man he has not yet met. The film received strong reviews with the review tallying website rottentomatoes.com reporting that 199 out of the 217 reviews they tallied were positive. While criticized for its omission of some of the themes of Dick's original story, the film was praised as a futuristic homage to film noir, with its intelligent premise and 'whodunit' structure. The film earned over $300 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 a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. The film was a hit both commercially and critically.

Spielberg collaborated again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in "The Terminal", a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. In 2005, "Empire" magazine ranked Spielberg number one on a list of the greatest film directors of all time. In 2005, Spielberg did a modernized adaptation of "War of the Worlds" (a co-production of Paramount and DreamWorks), based on the H.G. Wells book of the same name, featuring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. As with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) provided the visual effects. Unlike "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", which depicted friendly alien visitors, "War of the Worlds" had violent alien invaders.

Spielberg's film "Munich", about the events following the 1972 Munich Massacre of Israeli 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 "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team", a book by Canadian journalist George Jonas, a book whose veracity has been largely questioned by journalists.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, and it 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. A year later he received his sixth Best Picture nomination for producing "Letters from Iwo Jima". To date, seven films that Spielberg personally directed have been nominated for this award.

Production credits

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", "Freakazoid!" and the critical and commercial success animated film, The Land Before Time. He was also, for a short time, the executive producer of the long-running medical drama "ER". In 1989, he brought the concept of "The Dig" to LucasArts. He contributed with the project from that time to 1995 when the game was released. He also collaborated with software publishers Knowledge Adventure on the multimedia game "Steven Spielberg's Director's Chair", which was released in 1996. Spielberg appears, as himself, in the game to direct the player. Spielberg was branded for a Lego Moviemaker kit, the proceeds of which went to the Starbright Foundation.

In 1993, Spielberg acted as executive producer for the highly anticipated television series, "seaQuest DSV"; a science fiction series set 'in the near future' starring Roy Scheider (who Spielberg had directed in "Jaws") and Jonathan Brandis akin to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" that aired on Sundays at 8:00 p.m. on NBC. While the first season was moderately successful, the second season did less well. Spielberg's name no longer appeared in the third season and the show was cancelled mid way through the third season.

Spielberg served as an uncredited executive producer on "The Haunting", "Shrek", "Evolution". In 2005, he served as a producer of "Memoirs of a Geisha", an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Arthur Golden, a film he was previously attached to as director. In 2006 Spielberg co-executive produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis a CGI children's movie called "Monster House", marking their first collaboration together since 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. Recently 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.

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 two Emmy awards, including one for Geoff Zanelli's score.

In 2007 Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett co-produced On the Lot the ill-fated TV reality show about filmmaking.

Upcoming projects

Spielberg is working on "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" which began filming in June 2007 and is scheduled for release on May 22, 2008. Spielberg has also begun plans for an Abraham Lincoln bio-pic, titled "Lincoln", which stars Liam Neeson as the 16th President of the United States, and 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.

"Jurassic Park IV" is also in development. Another upcoming project is a miniseries which he will produce with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, titled "The Pacific". The miniseries will cost $150 million and will be a 10-part war miniseries in conjunction with the Australian Seven Network. The project is centered on the battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Writer Bruce McKenna, who penned several installments of the first miniseries (Band of Brothers), is the head writer. Filming is expected to begin in August and will continue for a year, with locations mostly in Australia, to include Far North Queensland, Melbourne and the Northern Territory. Producers have chosen to base the series at Melbourne's Central City Studios. He is also producing two untitled Fox TV series, one focusing on fashion, another on time-travellers from World War II.

Spielberg developed three video games in collaboration with Electronic Arts that will be unveiled at the E3 Conference in Los Angeles, one code-named "LMNO", a contemporary action adventure and another with the tentative title "Blocks", a puzzle game designed for Nintendo's Wii console.

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 Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster these themes are portrayed through the use of low height camera tracking shots, which have become one of Spielberg's directing trademarks. In the cases when his films include children, ("E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", "Empire of the Sun", "Jurassic Park", etc.) this type of shot is more apparent, but it is also used in films like "Munich", "Saving Private Ryan", "The Terminal", "Minority Report" and "Amistad". If one views each of his films, one will see this shot utilised by the director, notably the water scenes in Jaws are filmed from the low angle perspective of someone swimming. Another child orientated theme in Spielberg's films is that of loss of innocence and coming-of-age. In "Empire of the Sun", Jim, a well-groomed and spoilt English youth, loses his innocence as he suffers through World War II Japan. Similarly in "Catch Me if You Can" Frank naively and foolishly believes that he can reclaim his shattered family if he accumulates enough money to support them.

The most persistent theme throughout his film is tension between parent-child relationships. Parents (often fathers) are reluctant, absent or ignorant. Peter Banning in "Hook" starts off in the beginning of the film as a reluctant married-to-his-work parent who through the course of his film regains the respect of his children. The notable absence of Elliott's father in "E.T.", is the most famous example of this theme. In "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", it is revealed that Indy has always had a very strained relationship with his father, who is also an archaeologist, as his father always seemed more interested in his work, specifically in his studies of the Holy Grail, than in his own son, although his father does not seem to realize or understand the negative effect that his aloof nature had on Indy (he even believes he was a good father in the sense that he taught his son 'self reliance', which is not how Indy saw it). Even Oskar Schindler, from "Schindler's List", is reluctant to have a child with his wife. "Munich" depicts Avner as man away from his wife and newborn daughter. There are of course exceptions; Brody in "Jaws" is a committed family man, while John Anderton in "Minority Report" is a shattered man after the disappearance of his son. This theme is arguably the most autobiographical aspect of Spielberg's films, since Spielberg himself was affected by his parents' divorce as a child and by the absence of his father. Furthermore to this theme, protagonists in his films often come from families with divorced parents, most notably "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (protagonist Elliot's mother is divorced) and "Catch Me if You Can" (Frank Abagnale's mother and father split early on in the movie). Little known also is Tim in "Jurassic Park" (early in the movie the child mentions his parents' divorce). The family often shown divided is often resolved in the ending as well. Following this theme of reluctant fathers and father figures, Tim looks to Dr. Alan Grant as a father figure. Initially, Dr. Grant is reluctant to return those paternal feelings to Tim (earlier in the film Dr. Grant has a discussion with Ellie about his negative feelings in regards to children). However, by the end of the film, he has changed, and the kids even fall asleep with their heads leaning on his shoulders.

Most of his films are generally optimistic in nature. Critics frequently accuse his films of being overtly sentimental, though Spielberg feels it's fine as long as it is disguised. The influence comes from directors Frank Capra and John Ford. There are exceptions, his debut feature "The Sugarland Express" has a downbeat ending where Lou Jean loses custody of her daughter and most recently "A.I." where David never receives acceptance from his real mother. His 21st century output, from "A.I." to "Munich" are slightly different in tone with respect to his earlier films. In "A.I.", David is shunned and rejected by his family and, indeed, by most of the world at large and ultimately never earns the love of his real mother. The crime-caper, "Catch Me if You Can", has a certain irony when Frank, who continuously rebels against authority figures throughout the film, becomes part of the very system he fought against."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

In terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known trademark for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several movies; "Jaws", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Always". Spielberg has also cast Harrison Ford for several of his movies from small roles, as the headteacher in a cut scene from "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" as well as in leading role in the "Indiana Jones" trilogy. Recently Spielberg has used the actor Tom Hanks on several occasions and has cast him in "Saving Private Ryan", "Catch Me if You Can" and "The Terminal". Spielberg also has collaborated with Tom Cruise twice on "Minority Report" and "War of the Worlds". Spielberg also prefers working with production members with whom he has developed an existing working relationship. An example of this is his production relationship with Kathleen Kennedy who has served as producer on all his major films from "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" to the present day "Munich". Other working relationships include 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 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 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 US $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.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6552597.stm Following the divorce, Spielberg and Irving shared custody of their son, Max.

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; East Hampton, NY and Naples, Florida.

There are eight children in the Spielberg-Capshaw family:

Jessica Capshaw (1976) - daughter from Capshaw's previous marriage to Robert Capshaw

Max Samuel Spielberg (June 13, 1985) - son from Spielberg's previous marriage to Amy Irving

Theo (1988) - adopted by Capshaw before her marriage to Spielberg; adopted by Spielberg

Sasha (May 14, 1990)http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0818587/bio

Sawyer (March 10, 1992)

Mikaela George (February 28, 1996) - adopted with Capshaw

Destry Allyn (December 1, 1996)

Janet Sanders (November 28, 1990) - goddaughter to Spielberg

Spielberg has several pets including a dog. His previous dog, Elmer, starred in several of his films in various guises including "Jaws", "Close Encounters" and "1941". http://www.empireonline.com/features/spielbergat60/60.asp

Genealogy

Adoption: "Italics"

Politics

Spielberg generally supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He has donated over $800,000 for the Democratic party and its nominees. 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..

Spielberg resigned as an advisory board member of his local boy scout council in 2001 because of his disapproval of the BSA'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.

On February 20, 2007, Spielberg, Katzenberg, and David Geffen invited Democrats to a fundraiser for Barack Obama (Obama excites entertainment community) By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer, but on June 14, 2007, Spielberg endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) for President.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070614/ap_en_ot/on_the2008_trail_46

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.

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 Speilberg attended, personally counseling many boys in their work on requirements.

That same year, 1989, was 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.

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. In 2004 he received the Légion d'honneur from president Jacques Chirac. 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).

In November 2007, he is chosen for Lifetime Achievement Award to be presented at the sixth annual Visual Effects Society Awards in February 2009. He will be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the January 2008 Golden Globes.

Criticism

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

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 Roger Ebert, Spielberg once stated to him in his 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 other aspects of the film.

French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard famously and publicly criticised Spielberg at the premiere of his film "In Praise of Love". Godard, who has continuously complained about the commercial nature of modern cinema, holds Spielberg partly responsible for the lack of artistic merit in mainstream cinema. Godard accused Spielberg of using his film to make a profit of tragedy while Schindler's wife lived in poverty in Argentina. American artist and actor Crispin Glover also criticised Spielberg in his 2005 essay "What Is It?". 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 film "Schindler's List".

Critics such as anti-mainstream film theorist Ray Carney also complain that Spielberg's films lack depth and do not take risks. In Spielberg's defense, critic Roger Ebert argues that Spielberg is very talented and has also said, 'Has Godard or any other director living or dead done more than Spielberg, with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors?' Some of Spielberg's most famous fans include film legends Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, and Terry Gilliam (although he has criticised some of Spielberg's more recent work). The late French filmmaker François Truffaut admired his work and took a role in Spielberg's film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

An episode in the sixth season of "South Park" satirizes Spielberg and Lucas for their revisions of previous films, such as "E.T." and the "Star Wars" series. In the commentary for this episode, Parker and Stone, the makers of "South Park", indicate that the films are being revised to make them more politically correct and to make money, disregarding the original work of art.