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Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director and producer. He is the most financially successful motion picture director of all time. He has directed and/or produced a number of major box office hits, giving him great influence in Hollywood. As of 2004, he has been listed in ''Premiere'' and other magazines as the most "powerful" and "influential" figure in the motion picture industry, and at the end of the 20th century ''LIFE'' named him the most influential person of his generation. • He has won three Academy Awards (including an Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award). He has been nominated for six Academy Awards for Best Director, winning two of them (Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan), and seven of the films he directed were up for the Best Picture Oscar (Schindler's List won). Spielberg ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history, in terms of both critical acclaim and popular success even though his films are sometimes portrayed as the archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster film-making (commercialism over artistic purposes) by critics. First coming to attention directing adventure films, in later years he has tackled emotionally powerful issues, such as the Holocaust, slavery, war, and recently terrorism.
Childhood Steven Allan Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to his parents Arnold and Leah. He also spent parts of his childhood in Camden, New Jersey, Haddon Township, New Jersey, Phoenix, Arizona and Saratoga, California. His last name comes from the name of the Austrian city where his Hungarian Jewish ancestors lived in 17th century: Spielberg. Spielberg grew up making movies. 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. 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 12, his first production was complete which included both script and actors. One year later 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 turnover of $100 in profit. 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 divorce he moved to California with his sister and mother. 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".• 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).• Spielberg attended California State University, Long Beach, majoring in English, because Long Beach did not have a film school at that time. While attending college at Long Beach State in the 1960s, Spielberg is a member of Theta Chi Fraternity. He dropped out of Long Beach State in 1969 to take a television director contract at Universal Studios. 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.• Spielberg also applied for admission to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts three separate times but was unsuccessful. USC later awarded Spielberg an honorary degree in 1994. In 1996 Spielberg became a trustee of the University. Early career Spielberg has 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. Apparently he found an abandoned janitors closet and turned it into an office. After some time, the security guards had seen him so often that they would wave him through the gate. He would however, dress the part, looking quite professional in a suit and tie (not a T-shirt and jeans) so he didn’t look so much like a kid. In fact, he had an unpaid summer job on the film lot.• Once at Universal Studios Spielberg made his first short film for theatrical release, creating Amblin', in 1968, at the age of twenty on 21. 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 (Spielberg's own production company, Amblin Entertainment, was named after this short film.) His first professional job came when he was hired to do one of the segments for the pilot episode of Night Gallery. The segment, Eyes, starred Joan Crawford, and she and Spielberg were reportedly close friends until her death. The episode is unusual in his body of work, in that the camerawork is more highly stylized than his later, more "mature" films. After this, and an episode of Marcus Welby M.D., Spielberg got his first feature-length assignment: an episode of Name of the Game called "L.A. 2017". This episode played to his interests in futuristic science fiction, and Universal first began to take note of his talents. He did another segment on Night Gallery (some people claim that he also directed a short five-minute segment called "A Matter of Semantics" when the credited director had to back out for unknown reasons, but this has never been confirmed), and did some work for shows such as Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist before landing the first series episode of Columbo (previous "episodes" were actually TV-Movies). Based on the strength of his work, Universal signed Spielberg to do three TV movies. The first was a Richard Matheson adaptation called Duel, first broadcast in 1971. It was immediately recognized as a taut, well-made thriller, and cemented Spielberg's emerging reputation. (Note that all video/DVD releases of the film have been the extended cut which was released theatrically in America in 1983, not the original, shorter cut.) Realizing what they had, Universal would not release Spielberg to CBS, and insisted he fulfill the contract. In 1972, he directed a TV movie called Something Evil, which was made and released to capitalize on the popularity of The Exorcist, then a major best-selling book which had not yet been released as a movie. Spielberg is said to be quite disappointed with the film, which he never regarded as more than a knock-off. He fulfilled his contract by directing the TV movie length pilot of a show called Savage, starring Martin Landau. Though the series was not picked up, the movie was shown on TV in 1973, and is occasionally re-run, usually highlighting Spielberg's participation. 1970s Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film was The Sugarland Express, based on the true story of a married couple who lead the Texas police on a highway chase as they embark on a journey to regain custody of their baby. Welcomed with warm reviews, the film nevertheless failed to catch on at the box office, but his producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown were prepared to offer Spielberg a more ambitious directing assignment. Spielberg's next film was Jaws, a horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel starring Roy Scheider about a killer shark that attacks people off the coast of a New England isle community. Jaws won three Academy Awards (for editing, original score and sound), and grossed over USD$100 million at the box office, setting the domestic record for box office gross. It was also nominated for Best Picture and featured Spielberg's first of three collaborations with actor Richard Dreyfuss. To this day, Spielberg maintains that Jaws was the hardest film he ever had to make. He would decline offers to direct its sequel by using his new influence to pursue more personal projects. Rejecting offers to direct Jaws 2 and Superman, Spielberg and actor Richard Dreyfuss re-convened to work on a pet project Spielberg had had in mind since his youth: a film about UFOs, which became Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The film remains a cult sci-fi classic and has been highly influential ever since. This is one of the rare movies that Spielberg both wrote and directed. A hit at the box office, the film also gained Spielberg his first Best Director nomination from the Academy and was nominated for six other Academy Awards, taking home Oscar in two (Cinematography -- Vilmos Zsigmond, and a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing -- Frank E. Warner). The success Spielberg was beginning to enjoy, as well as his eventual tendency to make films with wide mainstream and commercial appeal, also subjected him to disdain in critical circles by film reviewers. For example, Spielberg's next film was ''1941'', a big-budgeted World War II comedy farce set in L.A. days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, with the two top stars from Saturday Night Live, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, along with other all-stars. An exercise in excess, the film provided just the ammunition cynical critics would require to take down the young director. Over-budget, over-long (in its extended version), the film flopped with both audiences and critics alike, although in the end it did make a small profit at the box office, and eventually found its audience in television showings. Expanded versions of 1941 have been shown on network television and later on Laserdisc and DVD and it has earned a cult status partly because of Spielberg's eventual fame and partly because of its camp status. Desperately in need of quick redemption, Spielberg would next team with Star Wars creator George Lucas on a new action adventure film. 1980s
1990s After the failure of Always, Spielberg headed back to safer waters. In many ways, a Peter Pan story directed by Steven Spielberg seemed like a forgone conclusion. He had tried numerous times to film a live action version of Peter Pan without success. When writer James V. Hart pitched an alternate idea about Peter Pan returning to Neverland as an adult, Spielberg switched gears. Hook focused on a middle-aged Pan (played by Robin Williams), who returns to Neverland to face the title character (Captain Hook, played by Dustin Hoffman). However, by the time the film began shooting, innumerable rewrites and creative changes made by the numerous major Hollywood players attached to the project resulted in a film regarded by most critics as hit-or-miss at best. The film was made for $70 million (at that time a huge amount) and made $119 million domestically, but it was not as successful as some had hoped. Though Peter Pan had grown up, some were wondering if Spielberg himself ever would. In 1993, Spielberg decided to once again tackle the adventure genre, as he directed the movie version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about killer dinosaurs rampaging through a tropical island resort. The adaptation muted somewhat the novel's message about the consequences of mankind tampering with nature, instead focusing on the adventure aspects of the story. With the aid of revolutionary special effects provided by friend George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, the film would eventually become one of the top ten highest grossing films of all time (domestically), alongside his earlier E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg has stated in interviews that the Howard Hawks adventure movie Hatari! and the Japanese Godzilla movies provided inspiration for the Jurassic Park Films.• It was in that same year that Jurassic Park was released that Spielberg finally received the critical acclaim he had long sought for making Schindler's List (based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a man who risked his own life to save 1,100 people from the Holocaust). The screenplay, adapted from Thomas Keneally's novel, was originally in the hands of fellow director Martin Scorsese, but Spielberg negotiated with Scorsese to trade scripts (at the time, Spielberg held the script for a remake of Cape Fear). Schindler's List earned Spielberg his first Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture). While the film was a huge success at the box office, Spielberg claimed not to have partaken in the profits, and instead used the money to set up the Shoah Foundation. Some critics maintain that Schindler's List is the most accurate portrayal of the Holocaust, and in 1999 the American Film Institute listed it among the 10 Greatest Films ever Made ( 1993 was Spielberg's biggest year with the success of Jurassic Park and Schindler's List. Taking a four-year hiatus from directing to spend more time with his family and build his new studio DreamWorks, Spielberg found himself back in the director's chair in 1997. This time, he was helming the sequel to 1993's gigantic Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton's The Lost World. The film received mixed reviews, but did manage to generate nearly $230 million in domestic box office, giving it the third-highest total for 1997 behind Titanic and Men in Black. In hindsight Spielberg expressed his view that this sequel was a movie he wanted to see, but didn't necessarily want to make himself. Fatigued by the production, he would relinquish the opportunity to direct any more Jurassic Park films. Spielberg followed his 1993 formula of releasing a dinosaur movie followed by a historical drama by doing it again in 1997. If Lost World was his bid to conquer the box office, Amistad (like Schindler's List) was his bid to win over the critics come awards season. Spielberg released Amistad under the banner of his new studio DreamWorks (formed with former Disney animation exec Jeffrey Katzenberg and media mogul David Geffen). Based on a true story about enslaved Africans who rebelled against their captors, the film received lavish praise from the critics, but was noted for its violent massacre scenes. It did not do well at the box office however, and has been overlooked since its release. It would mark Spielberg's second essay on the treatment of Blacks in American History (the first being The Color Purple in 1985). Another of Spielberg's critically acclaimed films, the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, was released in 1998. The film follows a platoon of soldiers led by Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks), from the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy to the heart of French resistance, in order to retrieve a missing private (Matt Damon), whose brothers were lost to the war. Spielberg considered it one of his finest works, yet in a highly publicized "showdown", it lost the Best Picture Oscar at the 1999 Academy Awards to Shakespeare in Love. However, Spielberg would win his second Academy Award for his direction in the war epic. The film, renowned for its graphic violence, has proven highly influential on succeeding war movies like Black Hawk Down and Enemy at the Gates and it has set a standard for realistic depiction of combat. The film was also the first major hit for Spielberg's studio DreamWorks, which co-produced the film with its eventual sister studio, Paramount Pictures. Later on, Spielberg and Hanks, overwhelmed with the success of the film's subject, decided to team together to produce a TV mini-series based on Stephen Ambrose's historical novel, Band of Brothers. The ten-part HBO mini-series follows the trials and accomplishments of the 101st Airborne Division, or Easy Company, also starting from the landing in Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest. The series won a slew of awards both at the Golden Globes and the Emmys. 2000s Spielberg's recent films starting from the end of the millennium are considered markedly different from that of his previous films although many note similar themes being played out in them. Many critics have stated that Spielberg's recent films are an experimental phase. Whether this is intentional on Spielberg's part is unknown. Opinions on his recent films are also markedly different. Some critics say that Spielberg has lost his touch and whimsy while others claim he is entering a new stage of his cinematic life. Critical opinions on his recent films have earned more polarizing views than his previous films, something that could be viewed as the director taking risks that many have said he did not take in his earlier years. In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, ''A.I.: Artificial Intelligence'', a project planned by the two directors for many years but which Kubrick was unable to begin during his lifetime. The futuristic story the humanoid android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects and a multi-layered, allegorical storyline in keeping with Kubrick's original vision. It starred William Hurt, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, and child actor Haley Joel Osment as the android boy David. The film polarized both critics and audiences, some stating that the film was overly long and a pretentious impression of Kubrick, others believing it to be a masterpiece. The legendary director Billy Wilder called A.I. "the most underrated film of the past few years". The film failed to recoup its budget at the US box office, though it earned profits overseas. Following A.I., Spielberg 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 even met. 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 whodunnit 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. • Shortly after the release of Minority Report, Spielberg and Co. immediately went to work on Catch Me If You Can, a story of the daring adventures of a youthful con artist. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, with Saving Private Ryan star Tom Hanks as the FBI agent out to catch him. The movie marked a turn of genre for Spielberg, who was at this point seen to be branching out to different kinds of film genres aside from the usual sci-fi fare he was known for. It is arguably his most offbeat film to date. It earned significant critical acclaim and box office success. It also earned Christopher Walken a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is particularly known for John Williams' score and its unique title sequence. The completion of this film once again marked another conclusion to a marathon run of film-making as it closed the hectic back-to-back-to-back filmings of A.I., Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can; a trio regarded as Spielberg's "running-man" trilogy since it shares the common theme of a character fleeing authority. Spielberg collaborated once again with Tom Hanks along with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Stanley Tucci in The Terminal, a warm-hearted comedy about a man of Eastern European descent who is stranded in an airport after his home country suffers a civil war during his flight, strongly paralleling the situation of Merhan Karimi Nasseri. It received mixed reviews but performed relatively well at the box office. A modernized adaptation of War of the Worlds, featuring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning, was released in the U.S. on June 29, 2005. As with past Spielberg films, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) provided the special effects. In his films E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg portrayed alien visitors as potentially friendly for human beings willing to connect with them. War of the Worlds marked a departure from those optimistic themes; more violent alien invaders wreak havoc upon Earth. The film was a major box office success and critical opinions were generally positive, although some critics pointed out logical inconsistencies in the plot of the film and commented on its relative lack of a satisfying conclusion. Also hounding the film's release was the growing controversy sparked by Cruise and his Scientology religious beliefs, which arose during Wars 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. 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.• The screenplay for Munich was co-written by Eric Roth and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner. 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 Spielbergs sixth Best Director nomination. Spielberg also served as the executive producer of Memoirs of a Geisha, an adaptation of the best-selling novel by Arthur Golden, a film he was previously attached to as director. He was also executive producer on the critically acclaimed 2005 TV miniseries Into the West. In 2006 Spielberg co-executive produced with famed filmmaker Robert Zemeckis a CGI kids-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. 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 in 2008. • Spielberg has also begun plans for an Abraham Lincoln bio-pic. The Abraham Lincoln Project starring 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 space-travel film. Spielberg is also serving as co-executive producer for the new Transformers live action film with Brian Goldmer, 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). Spielberg also has rights to a Tintin film.• Themes, Style and Trademarks 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, War of the Worlds, 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. 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 portayed through the use of low height camera tracking shots, which have become one of Spielbergs 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 Spielbergs 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. 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). 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. There are exceptions, his debut feature The Sugarland Express has a downbeat ending where Ila Fae loses custody of her daughter and most recently A.I. where David never receives acceptance from his real mother. Recently however his 21st century output from A.I. to Munich are slightly different in tone with respect to his earlier films. In A.I., David is shunned and rejected by his family and indeed most of the world at large and ultimately never earns the love of his real mother. The crime-caper, Catch Me If You Can, with a certain irony when Frank, who continuously rebels against authority figures throughout the film, becomes part of the very system he fought against; while War of the Worlds was the first time Spielberg attempted to show aliens who were evil rather than friendly to humanity. Munich, his latest and most controversial film, is also his most ambiguous, as in the end it's uncertain whether the cycle of violence would ever truly end. In terms of casting and production itself, Spielberg has a known trademark for working with actors and production members from his previous films. For instance he has cast Richard Dreyfuss in several movies; Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Always. Spielberg has also cast Harrison Ford for several of his movies from small roles, as the headteacher in a cut scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as well as in leading role in the Indiana Jones trilogy. Recently Spielberg has used the actor Tom Hanks on several occasions and has cast him in Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal. Spielberg also has collaborated with Tom Cruise twice on Minority Report and War of the Worlds. Spielberg also prefers working with production members 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). The most famous example of Spielbergs working with the same professionals is of course his long time colloboration with John Williams and the use of his musical scores. One of Spielbergs 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 scences often uses images of the sun (e.g The Color Purple, 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". Filmography Television work (lengths include commercials) (this was released on a VHS named The Visionary after the other episode included) Other projects
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 what had appeared to be an iron clad prenuptial agreement. After his divorce with Amy Irving Spielberg developed a relatonship with Actress Kate Capshaw. He married the actress (whom he met when he cast her in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) 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 eight children — four of them biological: For his work on the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation since 1994, he was awarded with the Great Cross of Merit with Star, the German version of the Great Officer's Cross, in September 1998 for "a very noticeable contribution to the issue of the Holocaust". In 1999, Spielberg received an honorary degree from Brown University. Spielberg was also awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen at the Pentagon on Aug. 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." On Feb 7th, 2000, Spielberg's doctor discovered an irregularity on his kidney during a routine physical. It was later found to be Renal cell carcinoma, a form of kidney cancer. The kidney was later removed at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. At 53, Spielberg recovered quickly and required no follow up treatment. In 2001, he was given the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. However, he cannot use the title 'Sir' due to not being a Commonwealth citizen. Spielberg generally supports U.S. Democratic Party candidates. He was close friends of former President William Clinton and worked with the President for the USA Millenium 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. Criticism Spielberg has several critics, including American artist and actor Crispin Glover. In a 2005 essay titled What Is It? Glover says that Spielberg has "wafted his putrid stench upon our culture, a culture he helped homogenize and propagandize." Among Glover’s accusations are that Spielberg purchased the Rosebud sled used in Orson Welles’ 1941 film Citizen Kane for $50,000 but refused to hire Welles to write a screenplay in the later years of his life, that he received money from the United States government to promote his personal religious and cultural beliefs, that his films do not take risks, that he exploited tragedy for personal gain in the films Schindler’s List (although Spielberg was not paid for Schindler's List) and Saving Private Ryan, and that he, as a co-owner of DreamWorks, considered building a studio on the few remaining wetlands in Southern California even though he backed out of it.• In an interview in 2003 on the CBS television show 60 Minutes, actor Robert Duvall criticized Spielberg for meeting with Cuban president Fidel Castro in 2002. He said, "When he met with him, he should have had the decency to look out into the graveyard and seen all the people he killed." He then added, "...I'll probably never get a job at DreamWorks now, but I don't care!" Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls portrays the early Spielberg in a mostly unflattering light as a sycophantic and reverential figure to the old Hollywood studio system, lacking the artistic inclinations or intellectual backgrounds of his contemporaries and unable to relate to the youth culture of the 1960s and 1970s. One colleague recalled that during the volatile 1968 Democratic National Convention, Spielberg was far more interested in mastering a tricky visual effects shot. Biskind also illustrates Steven Spielburg'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 or not. Kubrick's long-time assistant Jan Harlan and the film's original story writer Ian Watson have said that the ending is exactly what Kubrick intended. Critics such as anti-mainstream film theorist Ray Carney also complain that Spielberg's films lack depth and do not take risks. However in defense, whilst this may be true for some of his films, films like Schindlers List and Saving Private Ryan are both thought provoking, deep in character and of a high risk nature due their controversial historic content. French New Wave giant Jean-Luc Godard famously and publicly slammed Spielberg at the premier of his film In Praise of Love. Godard, who has continuously complained about the commercial nature of modern cinema held Spielberg responsible for the lack of artistic merit in mainstream cinema. Through his film, Godard accused Spielberg of making a profit of tragedy while Schindler's wife lived in poverty in Argentina. In Spielberg's defense, critic Roger Ebert once stated that "If only people could look past his popularity they would see how talented he really is." Some of Spielberg's most famous fans include film legends Ingmar Bergman, Werner Herzog, Terry Gilliam (although he has criticized some of his more recent work) and the late French filmmaker François Truffaut who are said to admire his work. Trivia Further reading See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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