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Mar 20, 2021 · Steve Spielberg directed an episode of Columbo, and doing so had a major impact on his career. Here's a look at what happened.
- Writer
Apr 26, 2024 · Steven Spielberg has reportedly agreed to produce a film about Joe Biden to be shown at the Democratic National Convention that will “tell the president’s story”.
- Overview
- Early life and work
- Commercial success
Steven Spielberg (born December 18, 1946, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.) American motion-picture director and producer whose diverse films—which ranged from science-fiction fare, including such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), to historical dramas, notably Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Priv...
Spielberg developed an interest in filmmaking as a child, and during his teens his Escape to Nowhere (1962), a 40-minute war movie, won first prize at a film festival. He next directed Firelight (1964), a feature-length science-fiction yarn, which was followed by an accomplished short about hitchhikers called Amblin’ (1968). An executive at Univers...
Spielberg’s next movie, Jaws (1975), established him as a leading director, and it was one of the highest-grossing films ever. It featured Roy Scheider as the police chief of a resort town who battles a man-eating white shark. Joining him are Richard Dreyfuss as a marine biologist and Robert Shaw as a shark hunter. The highly praised thriller received an Academy Award nomination for best picture, and its ominous soundtrack by John Williams won an Oscar. The film all but created the genre of summer blockbuster—big action-packed movie released to an audience grateful to be in an air-conditioned theatre—and it established many of the touchstones of Spielberg’s work: an ordinary but sympathetic main character is enlightened through a confrontation with some extraordinary being or force that gradually reveals itself as the narrative unfolds.
Spielberg then directed the mystical science-fiction tale Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), which he also wrote. Dreyfuss was cast as the lead, and he submitted one of the best performances of his career, as a telephone lineman who encounters an unidentified flying object and subsequently becomes obsessed with UFOs. For the film, Spielberg received his first Academy Award nomination for best director. Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography earned the film’s only Oscar, though the special effects were also praised. Spielberg became just the second director in history to score back-to-back $100 million grosses.
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After the disappointing 1941 (1979)—which was received as an unfunny comedy, despite the presence of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd—Spielberg directed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a loving, expert (if slightly redundant) tribute to old adventure serials. The film and its sequels, which starred Harrison Ford as handsome archaeologist Indiana Jones, used rich colour cinematography, brisk editing, memorable musical soundtracks, and inventive special effects to create a cinematic experience that was typically light yet highly suspenseful. Spielberg received his second Academy Award nomination for best director; the film was also a best picture nominee.
Spielberg’s next film was even more successful. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was a moving exploration of an alien encounter that cleverly eschewed the epic scale of Close Encounters for the microcosm of its effect on a single California family. Henry Thomas gave a strong performance as the boy who discovers and befriends the stranded alien, and Dee Wallace portrayed his sympathetic mom. The film also featured Drew Barrymore in one of her first roles. As with most Spielberg films to that point, the special effects were a large part of the movie’s appeal—in this case, the wonderfully articulated E.T.—but it was Spielberg’s mastery of human (and alien) emotion that made the movie a blockbuster. Both Spielberg and the film were nominated for Academy Awards, as were Melissa Mathison’s screenplay, Allen Daviau’s cinematography, and Williams’s score; only the latter won.
- Michael Barson
Spielberg’s First Hollywood Job Was an Unpaid Internship While a student at California State University in Long Beach, he worked an unpaid internship at Universal Studios. While there, he had the opportunity to write and produce a half-hour film called Amblin’, a 1960s love story about two hippies who met in the desert.
Steven Allan Spielberg (/ ˈ s p iː l b ɜːr ɡ /; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director in history.
Steven Spielberg. Producer: Schindler's List. One of the most influential personalities in the history of cinema, Steven Spielberg is Hollywood's best known director and one of the wealthiest filmmakers in the world.
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The Spielbergs moved frequently because of the father's job. They moved to New Jersey, suburban Phoenix, Arizona, and finally to what would be known as "Silicon Valley" near San Jose, California.
