SPIELBERG

US, 2017, 150 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Susan Lacy.

This is an extensive study of Steven Spielberg’s films as well as a portrait of the director over the decades. It was produced by HBO. Spielberg has given many interviews over the decades and a lot of material from these interviews has been incorporated into the film as well as interviews with his parents, his sisters, various producers, his close friend directors (Scorsese, DePalma?, Lucas, Ford Coppola), as well as quite a range of interviews with actors who performed in his films.

There are some criticisms that this was a film from Spielberg’s point of view, with his own words. But, this was the intention of the film. It is Spielberg’s perspective on himself and his career and he is not uncritical himself, as a person when young, his reaction to his parents’ divorce and screamed relationship with his father, his marriage to Amy Irving, the experience of divorce, his marriage to Kate Capshaw and their large family, his filmmaking as a boy, his brashness as a young director at Universal, the changes over the decades in his films, techniques, subjects.

While brought up as Jewish, a strong influence from his grandparents, the family did not live in Jewish areas and Spielberg gave up his traditions. However, with his research for Schindler’s List and the experience of making it, he rediscovered his Jewish background and donated the profits from Schindler’s List to establishing the Shaoh Foundation, recording the experiences of Holocaust survivors as well as survivors of other genocides.

As a portrait of Spielberg himself without his films, this would be an interesting documentary. His father was a traveller, an inventor in IT, and Spielberg grew up with his sisters to a large extent in Phoenix Arizona. He was a child nerd, not interested in sport, bullied at school. But he had his camera, started to make films as a teenager in the 1960s (there are quite a lot of clips from these films which do indicate his talent for filmmaking, for performance, the special effects). His parents divorced and, while he was close to his imaginative mother who married again, he blamed his father for many years.

On a visit to Universal Studios he stayed behind, allegedly setting up an office there (partner David Geffen says it is of ‘Print the legend’ kind of story) but was taken on by producer Sidney Scheinberg and given many opportunities, filming a number of series episodes at Universal when he was 20, including directing Joan Crawford in a Night Gallery episode.

While the film opens with a study of how Jaws was made, despite all odds and his inexperience, filmed at sea rather than on land, the shark not working on so having to find different ways of creating suspense, the scenes remind audiences of what an impact Jaws made at the time. And, it broke box office records in 1975.

The film then goes back, highlighting Duel (1973), his response to bullying, a small film that made an enormous impact which led to his making The Sugarland Express, getting a favourable review from Pauline Kael, going on to Jaws and, with its success, really looking back.

There are extensive studies of key films: Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET, the Indiana Jones films, and, most importantly for his filmmaking, for his consciousness about his Jewish identity, and his first Oscar, Schindler’s List (and interviews with Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley). This was in 1993, the same year that he made Jurassic Park, introducing computer-generated effects, especially the dinosaurs. There is quite a lot of background for his making of Saving Private Ryan, and introducing interviews with Tom Hanks who has appeared in five Spielberg films.

Other films get strong treatment but always in the context of Spielberg’s belief in family, the difficulties that he experienced with divorce and alienation from his father, focusing on children in Close Encounters, ET, the reconciliation and truth telling with his father (Sean Connery) for Indiana Jones, AI/Artificial Intelligence, the Leonardo DiCaprio? character in Catch Me if you Can. There are also themes of freedom especially in Amistad and, at some length, in Lincoln (interviews with Daniel Day Lewis) and Bridge of Spies.

There is always some disappointment at the lesser treatment of other films – and merely some glimpses of Hook, War Horse, Tin Tin, and nothing on Always or The Terminal.

As the documentary was being brought to a close, Spielberg was working on Bridge of Spies. By the time the documentary was screened at the end of 2017, he already had The Post and Ready Player One ready for release.

This documentary was made as Spielberg turned 70.