Birthday Greetings: Steven Spielberg

[erik]

Steven Spielberg celebrates his 75th birthday today:


There's just something genuinely special about a director whose films cover so wide a swath of film genres and subject matters: suspense (DUEL; JAWS); science fiction (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS; E.T.; JURASSIC PARK); World War II (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN); the Holocaust (SCHINDLER'S LIST); the Civil War (LINCOLN); the Cold War (BRIDGE OF SPIES); the politics of the Vietnam War (THE POST); and now the world of the Musical (his 2021 take on WEST SIDE STORY). Not to mention the fact that this cinematic canon of his has grossed at least fifteen billion dollars at the box office.

And so the man celebrates the milestone 75 today, having been born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati.

[sliderocker]

Hard to believe Steven is 75. He has made so many great movies and some TV work. He once applied to direct an episode of "The Monkees" TV series in 1966, but was allegedly turned down by the group. However, that decision would've fell to the producers, Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson. Had they known the giant he was going to become within the industry, they probably would've signed him to direct several episodes of the series. But, he was essentially around the age of the Monkees and the ones who directed the series were ten to fifteen years older. The things that could've been.

[erik]

Spielberg may have tried out for directing an episode of The Monkees, but it may have still been a bit too radical for him. He was more of a classicist than anything else, influenced largely by old-guard Hollywood (John Ford; Frank Capra; Alfred Hitchcock); and in any case, he also spent a lot of his non-educational time (i.e., away from Cal State Long Beach, where he went to college because neither of the big film schools would take him in because of a less-than-stellar high school education) learning about film on the ground floor at Universal Studios.

He did make a 25-minute short film that was more in tune with his generation, entitled AMBLIN', in which a boy and girl find themselves together hitchhiking from the Mojave Desert to the Pacific Ocean (one sequence has the girl introduce him to smoking a joint). The folks at Universal were apparently impressed enough to sign Spielberg, who was only 22 at the time, to a contract inside the studio's television division. But for his first assignment, a segment of the pilot film for Night Gallery, the last major thing Rod Serling ever did, who did Spielberg first work with? Joan Crawford. YIPE!

Although he considered TV like a salt mine, Spielberg was nevertheless somehow able to create within this atmosphere, working in episodic TV at first, on shows like Marcus Welby, The Name Of The Game, The Psychiatrist, Owen Marshall: Counselor At Law, and Columbo (the show's very first episode). And then of course there was his ultra-masterful and truly terrifying made-for-TV psychological thriller DUEL, which eventually led him to the big screen.

Spielberg has often been credited (or blamed) for helping to bring the the so-called "blockbuster" mentality to Hollywood because of the mass success of JAWS, which made $250 million when it was released in 1975. Although this is true to an extent, it is only true to an extent. So-called "event" movies like GONE WITH THE WIND, THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, and THE STING preceded JAWS as massively popular movies. And how does one criticize Spielberg without then also casting a jaundiced eye towards Spielberg's friend George Lucas?

In the last three decades or so, after the huge commercial and artistic triumph that was SCHINDLER'S LIST in 1993, Spielberg has managed to divvy up his directing responsibilities between the obvious "popcorn" fare he has supposedly always been known for (JURASSIC PARK; READY PLAYER ONE; INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL) with more topical/historical fare (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; BRIDGE OF SPIES; THE POST), and done so with quite a bit of commercial and artistic success. At least ten of his films have made at least $750 million at the box office, with both E.T. and JURASSIC PARK shooting past the billion-dollar mark, which means that his films have, cumulatively, made between ten and fifteen billion dollars at the box office, not to mention the Academy Award wins (though it took the Academy a damned long time to honor him for Best Director [IMHO]).

As for his reworking of WEST SIDE STORY--I know there's a lot of talk in the industry as to how it has "underperformed" at the box office. But the high critical and audience reaction around it, not to mention the very possibility of its winning awards over the next couple of months, particularly for Spielberg's choice of casting newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria, is likely to reverse that. Watch this space.

[sliderocker]

Dec 21, 2021 9:54:18 GMT -5 erik said:

Spielberg may have tried out for directing an episode of The Monkees, but it may have still been a bit too radical for him. He was more of a classicist than anything else, influenced largely by old-guard Hollywood (John Ford; Frank Capra; Alfred Hitchcock); and in any case, he also spent a lot of his non-educational time (i.e., away from Cal State Long Beach, where he went to college because neither of the big film schools would take him in because of a less-than-stellar high school education) learning about film on the ground floor at Universal Studios.

He did make a 25-minute short film that was more in tune with his generation, entitled AMBLIN', in which a boy and girl find themselves together hitchhiking from the Mojave Desert to the Pacific Ocean (one sequence has the girl introduce him to smoking a joint). The folks at Universal were apparently impressed enough to sign Spielberg, who was only 22 at the time, to a contract inside the studio's television division. But for his first assignment, a segment of the pilot film for Night Gallery, the last major thing Rod Serling ever did, who did Spielberg first work with? Joan Crawford. YIPE!

Although he considered TV like a salt mine, Spielberg was nevertheless somehow able to create within this atmosphere, working in episodic TV at first, on shows like Marcus Welby, The Name Of The Game, The Psychiatrist, Owen Marshall: Counselor At Law, and Columbo (the show's very first episode). And then of course there was his ultra-masterful and truly terrifying made-for-TV psychological thriller DUEL, which eventually led him to the big screen.

Spielberg has often been credited (or blamed) for helping to bring the the so-called "blockbuster" mentality to Hollywood because of the mass success of JAWS, which made $250 million when it was released in 1975. Although this is true to an extent, it is only true to an extent. So-called "event" movies like GONE WITH THE WIND, THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, and THE STING preceded JAWS as massively popular movies. And how does one criticize Spielberg without then also casting a jaundiced eye towards Spielberg's friend George Lucas?

In the last three decades or so, after the huge commercial and artistic triumph that was SCHINDLER'S LIST in 1993, Spielberg has managed to divvy up his directing responsibilities between the obvious "popcorn" fare he has supposedly always been known for (JURASSIC PARK; READY PLAYER ONE; INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL) with more topical/historical fare (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; BRIDGE OF SPIES; THE POST), and done so with quite a bit of commercial and artistic success. At least ten of his films have made at least $750 million at the box office, with both E.T. and JURASSIC PARK shooting past the billion-dollar mark, which means that his films have, cumulatively, made between ten and fifteen billion dollars at the box office, not to mention the Academy Award wins (though it took the Academy a damned long time to honor him for Best Director [IMHO]).

As for his reworking of WEST SIDE STORY--I know there's a lot of talk in the industry as to how it has "underperformed" at the box office. But the high critical and audience reaction around it, not to mention the very possibility of its winning awards over the next couple of months, particularly for Spielberg's choice of casting newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria, is likely to reverse that. Watch this space.

Re: Steven directing an episode of The Monkees. Apparently, it bothered Steven to a degree as years later he ran into Mike Nesmith and Steven asked Mike why they didn't give him a chance to direct an episode. Mike told him he would've been okay with him directing an episode, but there was resistance from others. I don't think Mike meant the other Monkees as they were all young guys themselves. The Monkees have gotten tagged with a lot of nicknames over the years, pre-fab four, the first boy band, but they were, in Steve Martin's lingo, four wild and crazy guys. Their off stage antics was reportedly wilder than anything one saw on TV. Micky Dolenz once categorized the off screen antics as a nuclear meltdown waiting to happen and everyone around them trying to contain it. Comedian Jerry Lewis was approached by Bob Rafelson about directing an episode, but the Monkees were too wild for him.

I agree that Steven is a classist, but that label would also cover the screwball comedies of Hollywood's golden era, although Steven dabbled primarily in drama. I remember the Night Gallery episode with Joan Crawford. It was a testament to Rod Serling that series was able to draw some big name stars. Serling thought he would have creative control and while true, he did write a number of good stories for the show, he never had creative control.

Steven's list of credits on IMDB include a lot of work on TV, more than what I remembered. I didn't know he was the executive producer for Pinky and the Brain and that he directed one other episode of Night Gallery. And that he also appeared as an actor in 15 different movies, mostly like Alfred Hitchcok's appearances in his movies. And that he also wrote one song for a 1964 production he came up with. He is and remains, an amazing talent, along with George Lucas. He has done so many things they could probably start a Steven Spielbert streaming channel and it would likely take a year or more just to go through everything he has been part of. And as one of his complaints has always been commercials, he could probably require such a channel could have no commercials. I wouldn't mind paying extra for a Steven Spielberg channel.

As for the remake of West Side Story, there is a mistake, I feel in remaking something that is regarded as a classic. And I think such classics should come stamped Leave It Alone. Remakes of classics have proven to be booby traps. I can't remember, but I think it was someone got the bright idea in the late 70s to remake Casablanca or Gone with the Wind as TV movie. I'm thinking it was Casablanca, and they got David Soul for the Humphrey Bogart role of Rick. It was an embarrassment and I don't know how much damage was done to Soul's career. Someone should've gave thought to casting Gil Gerard in the movie. If someone was going to mess up someone's career, they might as well as hired someone who couldn't really act. (One of Gerard's first appearances was in the Earl Owensby production, Double Nickels. Gerard's acting was so wooden, so terrible, that he made Ed Wood look like a real actor in Glen Or Glenda.)

[erik]

Yes, Spielberg's credits, outside of his actual directing and producing duties, were spread out throughout his Amblin Entertainment company (and later, DreamWorks SKG, with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen), including Pinky And The Brain. As for that other Night Gallery episode--yes, that was one called "Make Me Laugh", which starred the great African-American actor Godfrey Cambridge.

As for remaking past films--no, I'm not necessarily wild about anyone in Hollywood doing it. The problem is that, beyond that, I am not sure Hollywood can live off of anything other than prequels, sequels, franchise favorites and stuff like that right now. Originality has long since gone out the window, thanks to the average budget of a studio movie now having climbed over $70 million.

When it comes to WEST SIDE STORY, one has to concede that he has done a fair amount of things differently--from a totally Latinx cast portraying Puerto Ricans (which, with the sole exception of Rita Moreno, wasn't true in 1961), to putting the Sharks/Jets confrontation into an historical context (the razing of the neighborhood in Manhattan the two sides fight over to make way for Lincoln Center), and making the Jets' racial animosity towards the Puero Ricans overt in a way that couldn't be done originally. And rightly or wrongly, none of the Spanish spoken in the film is sub-titled--though it didn't take all that much for me to figure the gist of what was being said.

The other thing that's also radically different is that everybody that has the singing parts is actually doing their own singing here, including the film's Tony and Maria, Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler (back in 1961, Richard Beymer was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant; and Natalie Wood was dubbed by Marni Nixon).

It is said now that Spielberg also wants to take on the idea of a Western, for the purposes of saying he made one; and given that he grew up in Arizona making a couple of short sagebrush films as part of his cinematic learning process, I wouldn't put it past him to do it.

[sliderocker]

Dec 21, 2021 19:23:55 GMT -5 erik said:

The other thing that's also radically different is that everybody that has the singing parts is actually doing their own singing here, including the film's Tony and Maria, Ansel Egort and Rachel Zegler (back in 1961, Richard Beymer was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant; and Natalie Wood was dubbed by Marni Nixon).

It is said now that Spielberg also wants to take on the idea of a Western, for the purposes of saying he made one; and given that he grew up in Arizona making a couple of short sagebrush films as part of his cinematic learning process, I wouldn't put it past him to do it.

Re: West Side Story Then and Now: all the actors doing their own singing is great. I don't know if people who watched the movie version way back when knew Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood's singing voices were dubbed by other singers. Marni Nixon, by the way, was the mother of Andrew Gold, and one bit of sadness was that she outlived Andrew. I have wondered if Marni ever talked to Linda and compared notes or if Marni might have given Linda some words of advice, since Linda disliked her own singing so much?

As for Steven making a western, just so he could say he made one, that's a grand idea. However, I would hope he would make a western like westerns were made way back when. I am not a fan of recent westerns where all the male characters are wearing long coats all of the time or hats that are just as much from the 1800s as the cowboy hats which were worn in the 50s and 60s. I'm also not a fan of the color one sometimes sees in the westerns. I think it's possible to make a realistic western without giving it an other worldly appearance. And I hope Steven does make his western. He's a born story teller and everything he has done has been done the right way.

[erik]

I think if Spielberg were to do a Western (which I wouldn't put it past him), my guess is that would be something along the lines of a modern adult Western, one that has relevance to today. This was something that director Sam Peckinpah had said about the genre in 1969, when he said "The Western is a universal frame within which it is possible to comment on today." This quote of Peckinpah's was in response to a reporter who asked him why, if he wanted to make a statement about violence, he didn't make a film about the Vietnam War (which was very much raging at the time) but instead made the most explosive Western ever made, THE WILD BUNCH, an intense and violent Western epic set along the Texas/Mexico border at the time of the Mexican Revolution (late 1913/early 1914) involving an outlaw gang whose time has come and gone.

I'm not saying that Spielberg would ever make a Western film quite like that, even though he, like his good friend George Lucas, had expressed a great deal of admiration for the way Peckinpah made it in all important facets (epic story; massive action sequences; world-class acting). But I do think it would be somewhat along those lines: a film that, in terms of its story and its plotting, shows how the West had changed once modernity impinged upon it.