people.
Spielberg is arguably the most
financially successful motion picture director of all time. He
has helmed an astounding number of feature films that have become
enormous box-office hits, and this has given him incomparable
influence in
Hollywood. As of
2003, he has been listed in Premiere and other
magazines as the most "powerful" and influential figure in the
motion picture industry. As of
2003, he is seen as a figure who has the influence, financial
resources, and acceptance of Hollywood studio authorities to make
literally any movie he wants to make, whether it's a mainstream
action-adventure movie (Jurassic
Park)or a three-hour-long
black and white drama about a controversial
historical
subject (Schindler's
List) — a position that certainly makes many other
filmmakers envious.
His considerable success, as well as his tendency to make films
with wide mainstream and commercial appeal, also subjected him to
disdain in critical circles for much of his career. Despite their
enormous appeal, few film scholars and critics place such Spielberg
films as
Raiders of the Lost Ark or
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in the same class as
The Godfather,
Citizen Kane, or many other classics of the cinema. Several
of Spielberg's more "serious" works, such as
Empire of the Sun and
The Color Purple, have been seen as attempts to cast
himself as a legitimate maker of "serious" motion pictures.
Spielberg finally won the critical acclaim he had long sought when
he made
Schindler's List in
1993.
Spielberg is known by film historians as one of the famous "movie
brats" of the
1970s: along with fellow filmmakers (and personal friends)
George Lucas,
Francis Ford Coppola,
Martin Scorsese, and
Brian De Palma, Spielberg grew up making movies. He was making
amateur 8mm "adventure" movies with his friends as a teenager
(scenes from these amateur films have been included on the
DVD
edition of
Saving Private Ryan), and he made his first short film for
theatrical release, Amblin', in
1968 at the age of eighteen. (Spielberg's own production
company, Amblin Entertainment, was named after this short film.)
After directing episodes of various TV shows, including Night
Gallery and one of the early
Columbo TV movies, Spielberg directed his first well-known
feature with a
1971 TV movie entitled Duel. This film has become a
cult classic, having been released on video several times over the
years. Spielberg's debut feature film, The Sugarland Express,
won him critical praise and enough studio backing to be chosen as
the director of a summer movie that would secure him a place in the
history of motion pictures:
Jaws.
As of 2001, he had won two
Academy Awards for
Best Director, one for
Schindler's List and another for
Saving Private Ryan. In
1986, the
Academy gave him
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
The most famous films he directed:
- Indiana Jones 4 (2007)
- Munich (2005)
- War of the Worlds (2005)
- The Terminal (2004)
-
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
-
Minority Report (2002)
-
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
-
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
-
Amistad (1997)
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
-
Schindler's List (1993)
-
Jurassic Park (1993)
-
Hook (1991)
- Always (1989)
-
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
-
Empire of the Sun (1987)
-
The Color Purple (1985)
-
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
- The Twilight Zone - The Movie (Episode: Kick the Can)
(1983)
-
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
- ''Poltergeist
(1982) (uncredited)
-
Raiders of the Lost Ark (also "Indiana Jones and the
Raiders of the Lost Ark") (1981)
- 1941 (1979)
-
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
-
Jaws (1975)
- The Sugarland Express (1973)
-
Duel (1971)
Spielberg has produced (but not directed) a considerable number of
films, and can be credited with launching the career of
Robert Zemeckis. He is also a lover of animated
cartoons, and has produced several hit cartoons (and a few
flops), including
Tiny Toon Adventures,
Animaniacs, and
Freakazoid.
He is one of the co-founders of Dreamworks Studios (Dreamworks
SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and
David Geffen providing the other letters in the company name),
which has released all of his movies since The Lost World:
Jurassic Park in 1997.
Following the critical and box office success of Schindler's
List in 1993, Spielberg founded and continues to finance the
Shoah Project: 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.
