Director case study - Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg.

'I'm not really interested in making money.'

'Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to and I see another movie I want to make.'

Steven Spielberg is an America director, producer, screenwriter and editor, a man of many talents. He is viewed as being of of the most famous and well known directors in history. Spielberg has created many films in different genres, for example 'Jaws' and 'The BFG'. By him creating different films in such different genres, it shows he has complete imagination and is very talented. In the early years of Spielberg he created many science fiction ad adventure films, so you can see how he has developed by completing a film in nearly every genre that there is. In his later years, he started to connect his films to address humanistic issues such as the Holocaust and terrorism in films such as 'The colour purple' and 'Empires of the sun'. 

Spielberg has been making films for over 4 decades, and one of his first films was the film 'Jaws'. Jaws was a massive hit with most people as they have never seen anything like it before. This film lifted him up in the industry and potentially got him to where he is now. Spielberg's mother was an Orthodox Jew, as this was the case, in later life i feel as though that is why Spielberg created films concerning the Holocaust, as it relates back to him and his past with his family and background. Spielberg used to deny being an Orthodox Jew to protect himself from being isolated and left alone, but now that he is where he is, he is proud to say that being a Jew helped him in ways that he couldn't do himself. By him being a Jew, that is how we got some of the best films from Spielberg.

Spielberg's first professional career came about when he was asked to help direct of of the segments i the 1969 pilot episode of 'night gallery'. This would star Jane Crawford, but apparently Crawford was horrified and worried about a 21 year old 'newbie' directing a film that she was involved in, her attitude was said to have changed after she started working with Spielberg and after realising how promising he was. This is a quote as to what Crawford said about Spielberg: 'When I began to work with Steven, I understood everything. It was immediately obvious to me, and probably everyone else, that here was a young genius. I thought maybe more experience was important, but then I thought of all of those experienced directors who didn't have Steven's intuitive inspiration and who just kept repeating the same old routine performances. That was called "experience." I knew then that Steven Spielberg had a brilliant future ahead of him. Hollywood doesn't always recognize talent, but Steven's was not going to be overlooked. I told him so in a note I wrote him. I wrote to Rod Serling, too. I was so grateful that he had approved Steven as the director. I told him he had been totally right'.

Spielberg was and is still known to be one of the most famous directors of our time and in history, as he has an amazing imagination which he can do what he wants with and a complete open mind.