Post by erik on Dec 18, 2016 13:26:41 GMT -5
The most successful film director in the history of Mankind is celebrating the big Seven-Oh today:
Steven Spielberg has a filmography, dating back even as far as when he worked in television in the late 60s and early 70s, that spans the genres, from outright suspense and horror (DUEL; JAWS) to science fiction (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND; E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL; A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE), high adventure (the Indiana Jones films), historical epics (LINCOLN), the Holocaust (SCHINDLER'S LIST), World War II (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), and the Cold War (BRIDGE OF SPIES). All combined, his films have grossed somewhere between seven and ten billion dollars at the box office, and have won dozens upon dozens of awards.
Born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Spielberg was basically in a transitory family because his father, following World War II, was involved in the burgeoning computer industry at IBM; and they lived in four different places between Spielberg's birth and the time he moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to make film his lot in life. After the first five years being in Cincinnati, the family moved to Haddonfield, New Jersey (outside of Philadelphia); five years later, they made the move way out west to Phoenix, where they lived from 1957 to 1964. It was while living in Phoenix that Spielberg learned about being a filmmaker, making numerous 8-millimeter and 16-millimeter films with friends in the nearby desert, and even at Sky Harbor Airport. The family once again was on the move in 1964, settling in Saratoga, in the heart of what would become Silicon Valley in northern California. His years in Phoenix and Saratoga weren't exactly the easiest ones, however, not simply because he wanted to become a filmmaker, but because he and his family were an anomaly--Jews in neighborhoods that were full of WASP's, a feeling of not belonging that would inform a lot of his films, and none more so than SCHINDLER'S LIST.
After having made the short film AMBLIN' while a student at Long Beach State University, Spielberg got signed to a TV contract at Universal, where he was almost immediately put in a pressure cooker by directing a segment of Rod Serling's TV pilot film NIGHT GALLERY that starred the legendary (and legendarily tempestuous) Joan Crawford. Although frustrated by working for TV, Spielberg made the most of it, directing episodes of series like Marcus Welby M.D., The Psychiatrist, Owen Marshall, The Name Of The Game, and Columbo that were way above average in terms of quality; and this led him to direct DUEL, the enormously terrifying made-for-TV film of an average motorist (Dennis Weaver) stalked on a California highway by an unseen but psychopathic truck driver. From that point on, save for two clinkers at the box office (1941; HOOK), Spielberg would make films that not only had an impact on the box office, but even more importantly would also give us images that would be fixed in our collective consciousness.
His signature shot (according to the man himself) is this one, from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS:
Steven Spielberg has a filmography, dating back even as far as when he worked in television in the late 60s and early 70s, that spans the genres, from outright suspense and horror (DUEL; JAWS) to science fiction (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND; E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL; A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE), high adventure (the Indiana Jones films), historical epics (LINCOLN), the Holocaust (SCHINDLER'S LIST), World War II (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), and the Cold War (BRIDGE OF SPIES). All combined, his films have grossed somewhere between seven and ten billion dollars at the box office, and have won dozens upon dozens of awards.
Born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Spielberg was basically in a transitory family because his father, following World War II, was involved in the burgeoning computer industry at IBM; and they lived in four different places between Spielberg's birth and the time he moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to make film his lot in life. After the first five years being in Cincinnati, the family moved to Haddonfield, New Jersey (outside of Philadelphia); five years later, they made the move way out west to Phoenix, where they lived from 1957 to 1964. It was while living in Phoenix that Spielberg learned about being a filmmaker, making numerous 8-millimeter and 16-millimeter films with friends in the nearby desert, and even at Sky Harbor Airport. The family once again was on the move in 1964, settling in Saratoga, in the heart of what would become Silicon Valley in northern California. His years in Phoenix and Saratoga weren't exactly the easiest ones, however, not simply because he wanted to become a filmmaker, but because he and his family were an anomaly--Jews in neighborhoods that were full of WASP's, a feeling of not belonging that would inform a lot of his films, and none more so than SCHINDLER'S LIST.
After having made the short film AMBLIN' while a student at Long Beach State University, Spielberg got signed to a TV contract at Universal, where he was almost immediately put in a pressure cooker by directing a segment of Rod Serling's TV pilot film NIGHT GALLERY that starred the legendary (and legendarily tempestuous) Joan Crawford. Although frustrated by working for TV, Spielberg made the most of it, directing episodes of series like Marcus Welby M.D., The Psychiatrist, Owen Marshall, The Name Of The Game, and Columbo that were way above average in terms of quality; and this led him to direct DUEL, the enormously terrifying made-for-TV film of an average motorist (Dennis Weaver) stalked on a California highway by an unseen but psychopathic truck driver. From that point on, save for two clinkers at the box office (1941; HOOK), Spielberg would make films that not only had an impact on the box office, but even more importantly would also give us images that would be fixed in our collective consciousness.
His signature shot (according to the man himself) is this one, from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: