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Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American film director whose films range from science fiction to historical drama to horror. He is noted for the patriotism of his work and, in recent years, for
his willingness to tackle controversial issues. One consistent theme in his work is the abuse of others, whether it is a father abusing his children (physically or verbally), or capitalism or
a government agency abusing an entire class of 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
enormous 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. As of 2004, 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 is 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.
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.) His maiden directorial work was a segment of
the pilot film to Rod Serling's Night Gallery. After directing
episodes of various TV shows, including some early Columbo TV movies,
Spielberg directed his first well-known feature with a 1971 TV "movie-of-the-week" entitled
Duel (later released to theatres overseas and eventually in
the U.S.). This film, about a truck mysteriously terrorizing an average citizen, has become a cult classic, having been released
on video several times over the years. Spielberg's debut theatrical feature film, The Sugarland Express, (about a
husband and wife attempting to escape the law) 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, a horror film based on the Peter Benchley novel about encounters
with a killer shark. Jaws won four Academy Awards (for editing
and sound), and grossed over US$100 million at the box office, the record as of that time.
In 1976, Spielberg was asked by Alexander Salkind to direct Superman, but decided instead to expand on a pet project
he had on his 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 among its fans.
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 Akyroyd and John Belushi, along with other all-stars. Although the film did make a small
profit, it is considered by some to be Spielberg's first flop. An expanded version has been shown on network television and later
on LaserDisc and DVD.
But Spielberg's greatest film work was still to come, beginning in the 1980s. In
1981, Spielberg teamed up for the first time with his friend George Lucas to make Raiders
of the Lost Ark, his homage to the cliffhanger serials of the Golden Age of
Hollywood, with Harrison Ford (whom Lucas directed in Star Wars) as the dashing hero Indiana Jones. Raiders itself spawned two sequels, also directed by Spielberg and executive produced
by Lucas.
One year later, Spielberg returned to his alien visitors motif with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a Disney-inspired story of a boy and the alien whom he befriends (and is trying to get back "home" to outer
space). E.T. went on to become the top-grossing film of all time for many years.
When the movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,
was released, Steven Spielberg, a Porsche 928 aficionado, had his car's
moon-roof button re-designed with the movie's logo as both a gag for passengers, and a tribute to the movie's success.
Despite their enormous appeal, few film scholars and critics place such Spielberg films as Raiders or E.T.
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.
Although nominated throughout his career for an Academy Award, the
gold statuette had long eluded Spielberg, although in 1986 he was awarded The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial
Award for his work up to that point.
In 1993, Spielberg decided to once again tackle the adventure genre, as he released the
movie version of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, about killer dinosaurs rampaging through an amusement park on
a tropical island. It would eventually overtake E.T. as the all-time top grossing film for several years (until James
Cameron's remake of Titanic).
It was in that same year that Spielberg finally won the critical acclaim he had long sought for making Schindler's List (based on a novel about a man who sacrificed
everything to save thousands of people from the wrath of the Holocaust). That film earned him his first regular Academy Award for Best Director (it also won Best Picture).
In 2001, Spielberg filmed fellow director and friend Stanley Kubrick's final project, A.I.:
Artificial Intelligence, a project that had been planned for many years but which Kubrick was unable to finish during
his lifetime. The futuristic story of a human android longing for love, A.I. featured groundbreaking visual effects, but
unfortunately was not the blockbuster film Spielberg had hoped for. The film drew mixed reviews.
In recent years, Spielberg has experienced a resurgence in popularity with Minority Report (2002), starring Tom Cruise as a futuristic cop on the run from his own future; and his most recent
film, Catch Me If You Can (also in 2002), a story
about a con-man (with Tom Hanks).
As of 2004, he has won two Academy Awards for Best
Director, one for Schindler's List and another for
Saving Private Ryan. The most famous films he
directed:
See also: List of Spielberg films
Spielberg has produced (without directing) 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 Pictures
(Dreamworks SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen providing the other letters in the company name), which has released
all of his movies since Amistad 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.
Spielberg is currently married to Kate Capshaw, whom he cast in
Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. He has seven children--four natural: Max Spielberg (from his former marriage to
actress Amy Irving), Sasha, Sawyer, and Destry Spielberg (from his current
marriage to Capshaw); two adopted (Theo and Mikaela Spielberg); and one stepdaughter (Jessica Capshaw).
Steven Spielberg has been diagnosed with Asperger's
syndrome.
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