Okay, so if you had to name, say, the most important
filmmaker of the last 50 years, you'd probably
come up with a whole list of incredible directors,
right? The great auteurs with these, you know,
singular artistic visions. For sure. But if you
change the question a little bit, who is the
wealthiest celebrity, who also happens to be
a director, and the highest grossing film director
of all time, well, that list gets very short.
It becomes a list of one, really. It really does.
Steven Allen Spielberg. I mean, his legacy is
just, it's unprecedented. You have this commercial
dominance on one hand and this real artistic
reverence on the other. As of December 2024,
his net worth is estimated at, get this, $5 .3
billion. That's just a staggering number. We're
not just talking about a successful director.
We're talking about the person who literally
built the modern blockbuster from the ground
up. He's the architect. He fundamentally changed
how movies work, both commercially with marketing
and distribution and artistically. He proved
that massive entertainment could also be really,
really profound. And that's our challenge for
today, isn't it? We have this mountain of source
material covering his entire life, his entire
career. So our mission is a real deep dive. We're
going to cut through that huge volume of work
to find the critical moments, the turning points,
his signature techniques, and, you know, the
surprisingly personal history that explains why
he became, well, arguably the greatest filmmaker
in history. Yeah. And the sources give us this
amazing chronological and thematic summary. It
covers everything from his childhood film. These
little eight millimeter movies all the way to
his new stuff and streaming and theater. It's
a huge journey. But the connections between his
early life and his later masterpieces are just
startlingly clear when you lay it all out. And
the recognition he's gotten from, you know, outside
the Hollywood bubble is something else entirely.
I mean, we're talking about the AFI Life Achievement
Award way back in 1995, the Presidential Medal
of Freedom in 2015. And this was fascinating.
An honorary knighthood from the UK in 2001. Now,
he's not a British citizen, so he can't be called
Sir Stephen, but he is a KDE, a Knight Commander
of the Order of the British Empire. Which just
shows that his influence goes way beyond movies,
right? It's cultural, it's historical, it even
touches on public policy. Absolutely. And then
just last year, in 2023, he got the first ever
Time 100 Impact Award in the U .S. This isn't
just celebrating a director, it's recognizing
a cultural force. So where did all of this...
This drive, this massive career actually began,
I think we have to go right back to the start,
to the formative roots of this filmmaking obsession.
So Steven Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
That was December 1946. But he mostly grew up
in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. And to really
understand the two sides of his firm making,
the huge spectacle and the deep sentiment, you
just have to look at his parents. That mix of
art and science, right? Tell us a bit about that.
Exactly. His mother, Leah Adler, she was a classically
trained concert pianist. Later on, she ran a
kosher Gary restaurant. She was the artist, the
free spirit. Then his father, Arnold Spielberg,
he was an electrical engineer. A real pioneer,
actually, who was deeply involved in early computer
development. The sources make it really clear
that his dad's interest in science and, you know,
futuristic tech, that's what fed Spielberg's
lifelong fascination with sci -fi and aliens.
But his mother's artistic side gave his work
its heart. Its emotional, childlike core. Yes.
It's the perfect storm for a filmmaker who can
give you the insane technological complexity
of a film like Minority Report, but also the...
The profound emotional warmth of E .T. It makes
perfect sense. And his first real connection
to film, that pivotal moment, came really early
and it was rooted in, well, terror, actually.
He was six years old and his parents took him
to see Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on
Earth. Right. He thought he was going to see
an actual circus, but that train crash scene
just terrified him. It did. But what's so telling
is how he dealt with it. I mean, most kids would
just hide, right? Spielberg, at age 12, decides
to conquer that fear by recreating the crash.
He used his Lionel trains and filmed the whole
thing with his eight millimeter camera. And in
that moment, he realized it wasn't just about
the spectacle. It was about the power of editing.
Precisely. He remembered that, you know, the
trains just going around the track was boring.
But once he staged the wreck, he realized, and
I'm quoting here, I could cut the film lots of
different ways and look at it over and over again.
Wow. The sources really emphasize this. His very
first home movie showed this deep, instinctual
grasp of film language. He understood he could
control emotional experiences, fear, excitement,
through the technical craft of editing. He was
learning this stuff before he was even a teenager.
He was incredibly prolific, too. He got his Boy
Scout Photography merit badge by making a nine
-minute western, an eight -millimeter film called
The Last Gunfight. And then at 13, he upped the
ante. He made a 40 -minute war film with his
classmates called Escape to Nowhere. It actually
won first prize in a statewide competition. He
made something like 15 to 20 of these little
8 -millimeter adventure films as a teenager.
This was his film school. And he was also absorbing
everything he watched in Phoenix. He talked about
seeing Kurosawa's films, Rashomon and The Seven
Samurai, which you can totally see influencing
the scale and action in his later work. For sure.
But all the sources agree on the one film that
was his true North Star. David Lean's Lawrence
of Arabia. The 1962 classic. Yeah. Spielberg
himself calls it the film that set me on my journey.
He says he's seen it more times than any other
movie. That totally tracks. Lawrence of Arabia
is the blueprint for combining this huge, overwhelming
scale with a really complex personal drama. It's
exactly what he's aiming for in something like
War Horse or the Indiana Jones movies. And moving
from his external influences to his internal
ones, we have to talk about the huge significance
of his Jewish heritage and the family upheaval
he went through. His paternal grandparents were
Ukrainian Jews, so that history was always very
present. tells that story about his grandmother
teaching English to Holocaust survivors in Cincinnati
and how one man taught him how to do math. Yes,
that story is. It's haunting. The man used the
tattooed number on his forearm to teach him.
He'd flex his arm, showing a nine, then turn
his arm over to show a six, and he'd say, it's
magic, it becomes a six. And now it's a nine,
and now it's a six. It's just such a moment of
profound, painful irony, using a symbol of industrialized
murder as a teaching tool for a child. And Spielberg
says, the irony of all that and the gift of that
lesson never really dawned on me until I was
much older. His father had lost between 16 and
20 relatives in the Holocaust. It was this constant
presence. But as a kid, he felt conflicted. He
admitted he was embarrassed by the outward perception
of my parents' Jewish practices. And he was bullied
for it. He talks about getting two bloody noses
in high school for being Jewish. Which later
informs that deep, deep need, that 10 -year waiting
period, before he finally felt he was mature
enough to make Schindler's List. So you have
this huge historical weight on one side, and
then on the other, this immediate family pain
that really fueled his imagination. His parents
divorced when he was 15 or 16. The sources all
point to this as Maybe the single biggest catalyst
for his signature themes. That pain was, as he
put it, purged through imagination. He felt abandoned
specifically by the father figure. Exactly. He
felt he needed a special friend, you know, an
emotional anchor to replace what he'd lost. And
he said very explicitly that an extraterrestrial
character would be the perfect springboard to
purge the pain of your parents splitting up.
So that's it. That's the core psychological origin
of E .T. It is. The deepest personal pain he
had translated directly into one of the most
beloved movies ever made. And you can't forget
his mother's influence in all this, Leah. He
described her as having a huge adventurous personality.
He said she saw herself as Peter Pan. The kid
who never wanted to grow up. And that spirit,
that sense of youth and flight and adventure
and wonder, it is literally woven into the DNA
of so many of his films, from hook to close encounters.
His parents were the blueprint, the engineer
father building the spectacle, and the Peter
Pan mother providing the emotional engine to
make it fly. So when we get to his actual career
launch, it's such a classic Hollywood story of
pure hustle. And maybe the biggest surprise is
that the most successful director ever was rejected
by the best film schools. Right. He applied to
USC's film school, which was the place to be.
But they rejected him twice because his grades
were just mediocre. So he ended up at Cal State
Long Beach instead. But his real education, well,
it didn't come from a classroom. No, it came
from him just being incredibly bold at Universal
Studios. It's a great story. He takes a tour
bus. has a random conversation that gets him
a three -day pass, and then he just has the nerve
to walk back in on the fourth day. The guard
recognized him and just waved him through. He
just established residency. He became an unofficial
apprentice for the next two months. It just says
so much about his drive. He found a fake office,
learned by watching, and just refused to leave.
And that hustle is what paid off. Universal execs
saw his 26 -minute short film, Amblin. It's a
35 millimeter film about two hitchhikers with
no dialogue. And they were so impressed that
the vice president, Sidney Sheinberg, offered
him a seven year directing contract. Which meant
he had to drop out of Long Beach, making him
the youngest director ever signed to a long term
deal with a major Hollywood studio. He basically
traded his college degree for a master level
apprenticeship where he was guaranteed to work.
But speaking of that degree. He did eventually
go back to Long Beach in 2002 to finish his Bachelor
of Arts. And to complete his requirements, he
submitted Schindler's List as his thesis project.
That's the ultimate mic drop, isn't it? But before
all that, there's one more really important early
lesson that shaped his whole visual style. The
famous meeting with director John Ford. Oh, yeah,
the sources detail this perfectly. Ford is in
his office, surrounded by these framed landscape
paintings. And he points to them and asks the...
young Spielberg, where's the horizon? And then
Ford explains the difference. Yes. He taught
him this fundamental rule of cinematic composition.
He said, when you're able to distinguish the
art of the horizon at the bottom of a frame or
at the top of the frame, but not going right
through the center, when you can appreciate why
it's at the top and why it's at the bottom, you
might make a pretty good picture maker. That's
an entire masterclass in one sentence. It's all
about perspective, about separating the human
from the vastness of the world. And you see that
single lesson in his framing throughout his entire
career, from the deserts and raiders to the ocean
and jaws. So with that seven year contract from
Universal, Spielberg dives into television. And
this really was his, you know, his boot camp,
a grueling, fast paced. but incredibly practical
apprenticeship. And his professional debut was
directing a segment for Rod Serling's Night Gallery
in 69. It was called Eyes, and it starred the
legendary Joan Crawford. He was, what, in his
early 20s? He was. And he immediately ran into
skepticism from the studio execs because he was
so young. They made him simplify some of his
more ambitious camera ideas. But Joan Crawford,
she saw something in him. She wrote these notes
to Serling about his unique, intuitive inspiration,
and that really helped him get his footing. So
for the next few years, he was just grinding
it out, directing episodes of shows like Marcus
Welby, M .D., The Name of the Game, and this
is a big one, the first ever non -pilot episode
of Columbo. Murder by the Book. And even though
he later said he wasn't satisfied with the material
itself, that period was absolutely vital. He
was basically directing a small movie every couple
of weeks. It's where he tested out camera moves,
learned pacing, and figured out how to manage
big personalities. It was the perfect training
ground. And all that technical practice really
came to a head with the TV movie Duel in 1971.
Duel was based on a Richard Matheson story about
this regular guy, a failsman. who gets stalked
on the highway by this massive anonymous tanker
truck. It's a very simple premise, but Skilberg's
direction just milks every drop of tension out
of it. He turns that truck into this kind of
supernatural metal monster. And the executives
saw its potential immediately. After it aired
on TV, Universal actually gave it a theatrical
release internationally, so that was his real
debut as a film director. And it still holds
up. The critic David Thompson praised it for
being this compelling spiral of suspense. It's
pure cinematic dread, and it really shows the
early signs of his ability to create suspense
by suggesting something rather than just showing
it, a technique he was about to perfect. His
official theatrical debut in the U .S. came in
1974 with The Sugarland Express, a much bigger
film about a couple trying to get their baby
back, which leads to this huge police chase across
Texas. It did really well critically. It won
Best Screenplay at Cannes. And the critic Pauline
Kael wrote that Spielberg could be that rarity
among directors, a born entertainer. But most
importantly, it was the start of his decades
-long collaboration with the composer John Williams.
The beginning of a legendary partnership. Williams
has scored all but, what, five of his movies
since then? That's right. And that early commitment
to a signature musical voice is just fundamental
to who he is as a filmmaker. And then came 1975,
the year that literally changed the entire film
industry forever, the year of Jaws. The making
of Jaws was just high -stakes chaos. It was based
on a massive bestseller, so everyone knew the
potential was huge. But shooting on the open
ocean, it was a logistical nightmare. They were
fighting the weather, the tides, saltwater corroding
the equipment. The shoot went over schedule by
100 days. Universal was threatening to shut it
down constantly. And the mechanical shark, which
they nicknamed Bruce, was a disaster. It was
always breaking down, sinking. Yeah. But that
mechanical failure, that ended up being the secret
to the therm's success. Right. His big aha moment.
Yeah. Because he couldn't show the shark, he
had to imply its presence. Exactly. He had to
fall back on classic suspense techniques. The
reactions of the victims, the underwater point
of view shots, those iconic yellow barrels, and
of course, John Williams' terrifyingly simple
score. He said later that The Broken Shark actually
resulted in a much better, scarier movie. It's
just a perfect example of creative problem solving
under extreme pressure. And the result was a
cultural earthquake. Jaws set the domestic box
office record, it made Spielberg a household
name, and crucially, it created the summer blockbuster.
Studios realized they could open a film wide,
everywhere at once, and concentrate all their
marketing. It changed the entire business model.
It also won three Oscars for editing, score,
and sound. And the ultimate praise came from
the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.
He praised young Spielberg for thinking outside
the visual dynamics of the theater, saying he
was the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium
arch. That's a massive endorsement, a passing
of the torch. It really was. So after that, he
turned down the sequel to Jaws and instead poured
himself into a real passion project, Close Encounters
of the Third Kind. The ultimate expression of
his lifelong fascination with aliens, which came
from his dad and his own feelings of being an
outsider as a kid. It was one of the very few
films he both wrote and directed. And to get
that sense of visual wonder, he shot it on 65mm
film, which gives you this incredible image quality.
He even cast one of his own filmmaking heroes,
Francois Truffaut. as the scientist Claude Lacombe.
Close Encounters was another huge hit. It really
cemented his reputation as the master of spectacle
with a heart. But the pressure was building,
and his next film, 1941 from 1979, which is this
big action comedy, was his first real critical
stumble. So was it just a genre problem or was
he maybe getting a little too big for his britches
with the budget and creative freedom after two
massive hits? A bit of both, I think. He admitted
he wasn't comfortable directing comedy, which
needs a kind of precision he hadn't really developed
yet. Critics just called it a chaotic, conspicuous
waste. It was just too big, too loud. But here's
the thing about Spielberg's scale. Even his failures
make money. Despite the criticism, 1941 still
grossed over $92 million worldwide. So even a
Spielberg flop was a global success, which really
puts the 1980s into perspective. He was about
to double down on everything that worked and
just solidify himself as the world's biggest
entertainer. The 80s kick off with another just
monumental collaboration, Raiders of the Lost
Ark in 1981. This came from a story by George
Lucas and Philip Kaufman, and it was a very deliberate
homage to those old adventure serials from the
30s and 40s. And Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
became an instant icon. The movie was a masterclass
in pacing and action. Huge box office, five Academy
Awards. Roger Ebert's review really captured
it, calling it an out -of -body experience. Then
the sequel. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
in 84, it took a much, much darker turn. It was
way more violent. And the criticism of its graphic
content, the human sacrifice, the heart -ripping
scene, it was so widespread that it actually
led to a fundamental change in the movie rating
system. Which is a huge legacy in itself. It
directly led to the creation of the PG -13 rating,
that middle ground between PG and R. Yeah. And
Spielberg later admitted that the darkness of
the film really reflected his own state of mind
at the time. He said he was unhappy with the
movie because it lacked his personal touches
and love. But he came right out of that artistic
darkness and delivered his biggest phenomenon
yet, E .T. the Extraterrestrial, in 1982, which
was just the purest expression of all that childhood
pain we talked about. It was a huge personal
triumph, but also a production landmark. Because
the story depended so much on the authentic emotions
of children, Spielberg made a really interesting
choice. He decided not to use his usual storyboards
and to shoot the film roughly in sequence. So
why was shooting in order so important for this
one? He wanted the kids, and by extension the
audience, to build a genuine relationship with
the ET puppet over time. So their reactions,
especially in that final emotional goodbye, would
be completely real. He basically sacrificed some
of his visual control for total emotional authenticity.
And it worked. The cultural impact of E .T. was
just off the charts. It passed Star Wars to become
the highest -grossing film of all time, making
$700 million worldwide, four Oscars, including
that iconic score from John Williams. But it
went beyond just being a movie. It was screened
for President Reagan at the White House. And
get this, the character of E .T. was a finalist
for Time magazine's Man of the Year. Wow, that
shows you the level of saturation. This little
alien had captured the public imagination like
nothing else. And this era is also when Spielberg
fully becomes more than just a director. He's
now a central power in Hollywood. David Thompson
observed that the Spielberg of the 80s seemed
more an impresario or a studio even than a director.
Right. He founded Amblin Entertainment, named
after his early short film, and just became this
prolific producer. Amblin basically became the
brand for all of the best 1980s kids' adventure
movies. I mean, just look at the list from 84
to 90. You've got Gremlins, The Goonies, the
massive hit Back to the Future who framed Roger
Rabbit. The credit Steven Spielberg presents
became this seal of quality. He basically defined
the style and the storytelling for an entire
decade of popular movies. But not everything
was a hit. His TV show, Amazing Stories, it struggled.
It did, even though NBC gave him a million dollars
an episode and... total creative control which
was unheard of it just proved that sometimes
even with a huge budget the constraints of television
were just too tight for his vision this period
is also when he made his first really deliberate
move into serious adult drama he started challenging
his own brand yes With The Color Purple in 1985,
based on Alice Walker's novel, he was actually
nervous about tackling cure character studies.
But the film was a big success, critically and
commercially. Roger Ebert named it the best film
of the year. It got 11 Oscar nominations, including
Best Picture. But controversially, he did not
get a Best Director nomination. It was like the
industry still wasn't ready to call the blockbuster
king a serious artist. And that lack of recognition
seemed to just make him more ambitious. Two years
later, he directed Empire of the Sun, based on
Gigi Ballard's novel about a young English boy
in a Japanese internment camp during World War
II. And that was a logistical breakthrough, right?
The first American film shot in Shanghai since
the 1930s. It was. And the initial reception
was a little mixed. Critics felt his signature
style, that sense of wonder, maybe downplayed
the horror a bit. But looking back, it signaled
a huge shift. Andrew Serres called it the best
film of the year. And David Thompson later called
it the first clear sign that Spielberg the showman
was an artist too. Then in 89, he went back to
what he knew worked with Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade. This was a very conscious return
to family -friendly adventure after the darkness
of Temple of Doom. And the genius move was casting
Sean Connery as Indy's dad. That created this
perfect buddy dynamic that really humanized the
character. It was a massive hit, his biggest
in CT. He also directed a personal project, Always,
a remake of an old film he loved as a kid, but
it didn't really connect with audiences or critics.
And then to round out the era. There was Hook
in 1991 with Robin Williams as a grown -up Peter
Pan. It made over $300 million, but the critics
were really divided. They called it maudlin and
too industrially organized. And the production
was famously difficult. So this brings us to
a point where he's basically mastered every genre.
He's navigated flops and massive hits, and he
has enough power and money to make the biggest
artistic gamble of his entire career. He was
ready for the definitive pivot. If you're looking
for the single most important year in Steven
Spielberg's entire career, you have to spend
some real time on 1993. This is the year he hits
his commercial and his artistic peaks at the
exact same time. It just completely transformed
his legacy. Okay, so on one side you have the
commercial apex, Jurassic Park. The perfect storm
of a great story, incredible technology, and
pure spectacle. It was based on Michael Crichton's
novel, and Spielberg relied heavily on ILM's
brand new CGI, especially for those full -body
dinosaur shots. He planned everything meticulously.
And the technology was so seamless, it just instantly
set a new bar for what visual effects could do.
And the result was just... It was mind boggling.
Jurassic Park became the highest grossing film
of all time when it was released. Then on the
other side, you have the artistic apex Schindler's
List. This is the film he was always destined
to make. But he put it off for a decade because
he kept saying he didn't feel mature enough to
handle a subject as serious as the Holocaust.
So what changed? What finally made him do it
in 1993? It was the birth of his son, Max. He
said that's what ignited a Jewish spirit in him.
It made him finally embrace his heritage and
realize he had a moral duty to tell this story.
And the logistics of that year are insane. He's
in Poland filming this raw black and white handheld
drama while at night he's editing the CGI heavy
commercial blockbuster Jurassic Park over satellite
links. Can you imagine the psychological whiplash
going from CGI dinosaurs during the day to the
stark black and white horrors of the Holocaust
at night? He said the only way it was bearable
was because he had his family with him in Poland.
The emotional toll must have been immense. And
the impact was profound. The film was nominated
for 12 Oscars. It won seven, including Best Picture,
and at long last, Spielberg's first award for
Best Director. But the legacy of Schindler's
List goes way beyond the Oscars. Spielberg famously
refused to take a salary. He used all of his
profits in the film to start the Shoah Foundation,
a nonprofit that archives video testimonies of
Holocaust survivors and witnesses to other genocides.
It was this incredible act of philanthropy, using
his commercial power for historical preservation
instead of personal gain. Roger Ebert's review
really praised the film for its restraint. Yeah,
Ebert made this powerful defense against people
who criticized Spielberg for being too sentimental.
He said that in Schindler's List, Spielberg acted
like God in the universe, present everywhere,
invisible nowhere. He just depicted the evil
without any melodrama. He just let the history
speak for itself. So after this incredibly intense
year, he takes a break in 1994. And then he comes
back and co -founds DreamWorks with Jeffrey Katzenberg
and David Geffen. Yeah, founding DreamWorks was
a major power move. He wanted more creative control
over production and distribution. They attracted
huge investors, including Paul Allen and Bill
Gates from Microsoft. And DreamWorks became a
huge player, especially with its animation studio,
which made Shrek the first movie to win the Oscar
for Best Animated Feature. So he returns to directing
with a couple of challenging historical dramas.
First. amistad in 97 about a slave ship mutiny
he was hesitant about it he was worried it would
be compared to schindler's list and it did underperform
at the box office spielberg himself said it became
too much of a history lesson and then came the
big one the world war ii epic saving private
ryan in 1998. this movie didn't just win awards
it completely redefined the war genre the realism
was the key Tom Hanks and the other actors went
through this intense boot camp with a Marine,
Dale Dye, to make sure their reactions were authentic.
And that opening D -Day sequence with its unflinching
brutality, it just changed war films forever.
It was a massive hit, made $481 million, and
it got Spielberg his second best director Oscar.
And the recognition was serious. He and Tom Hanks
both got the Distinguished Public Service Medal
from the Secretary of Defense, and they continued
that partnership, producing the HBO miniseries
Band of Brothers and later The Pacific. So as
he moves into the 2000s, he keeps exploring these
really complex themes. It starts with AI artificial
intelligence in 2001. That was originally a Stanley
Kubrick project, but Kubrick thought the story
was closer to Spielberg's sensibilities. And
that led to a really divided response, didn't
it? Critics couldn't decide if it was a perfect
hybrid of their styles or just a mismatch between
Kubrick's coldness and Spielberg's sentimentality.
Exactly. It confused some audiences, but critics
like A .O. Scott called it the best fairy tale.
The most disturbing, complex, and intellectually
challenging film he had ever made. It really
showed him pushing his own boundaries to honor
another master's legacy. He followed that up
with the sci -fi Neonore Minority Report with
Tom Cruise. That one was a huge critical and
commercial success. Yeah, Ebert named it the
best film of 2002. He praised Spielberg's craftsmanship
and his focus on story and character above all
the futuristic tech. It proved he could handle
these big philosophical questions like free will
versus determinism and still deliver a thrilling
movie. Then came Catch Me If You Can, also in
2002, another huge hit. Spielberg loved stories
about sensational rogues, and this one fit right
into his recurring theme of broken families,
with the young con artist looking for a new father
figure in the FBI agent who's chasing him. It's
another brilliant example of him weaving his
personal themes into big entertainment. And his
2005 film Munich, based on the 1972 massacre,
was one of his most controversial films ever.
It explored the moral cost of revenge. And he
knew he was walking an ethical tightrope. He
was so cautious, he even sought advice from former
President Bill Clinton before he made it. And
despite the controversy, some critics felt the
firm's moral ambiguity was borderline anti -Semitic.
It still got five Oscar nominations, including
another one for Best Director. It just shows
that even at the peak of his career, he was still
drawn to these really challenging projects that
forced the audience to think. He was. And he
wrapped up that decade with another Indiana Jones
film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which made
a fortune, and then the motion capture adaptation
of The Adventures of Tintin. He was just moving
so fluidly across all these different genres,
using new technology, but always, always focusing
on character and truth when he was tackling serious
subjects, which really sets the stage for the
next phase with all the historical dramas like
War Horse and Lincoln. Exactly. Lincoln, especially,
which got 12 Oscar nominations. It showed his
incredible skill at taking dense political history,
which could be so dry, and making the backroom
deals and moral struggles feel immediate. Okay,
so we've tracked the timeline of this just massive
career. Now I think we need to zoom out a bit
and look at the engine behind it all. His self
-taught philosophy, his signature techniques,
and the incredible loyalty he has with his dream
team of collaborators. Spielberg famously said,
I didn't go to film school. I was self -taught,
but I had great teachers. And his list of teachers
is basically a who's who of classic cinema. Lubitsch,
Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Ford, Kubrick. The list
goes on. It's an incredible syllabus. And he
has that ritual, right? He tries to watch a John
Ford film before he starts any new movie because,
as he says, he inspires me. And we can't forget
his obsession with Citizen Kane. He literally
owns a piece of it. He bought one of the prop
sleds from the movie. He called it a symbolic
emblem of quality in the film business. It's
like this physical reminder of the standard he's
always trying to live up to. So how does he actually
choose his projects? He's described his process
as a litmus test. Yeah, a story has to speak
to me. And that goes right back to what we were
saying about purging his childhood pain. A story
has to resonate with him on a deep level, often
connecting to his family or his identity. But
he also likes it when his collaborators challenge
him to make sure he's willing to take a stand
on something difficult. and when we talk about
his signature methods classic pre -1993 spielberg
has a very specific look those extreme high and
low camera angles the long takes and his love
of wide angle lenses to create depth That wide
angle lens is so important. It lets him keep
both the foreground and the background in focus
at the same time. So you can see the threat coming
from a distance while the character in the foreground
is reacting. It adds all these layers to the
visual story. And he usually storyboards everything
meticulously, especially for the big scale movies.
But the exceptions to that rule are really telling.
They are. He didn't use storyboards for E .T.
or The Color Purple. Because for those films,
he cared more about getting spontaneous, authentic,
emotional performances than he did about rigid
visual planning. And he learned a big lesson
after the production nightmare on Jaws, which
became a permanent rule for him. Oh, yeah. Always
save the special effects scenes for last to keep
control of the budget and never let the media
onto his sets. That way he can manage expectations
and prevent leaks. His camera style saw this
huge shift, though, with the arrival of the cinematographer
Jonas Komisky in 1993. That partnership changed
everything. Before Comiskey, his style was more
classical smooth dollies and cranes like in Raiders
or E .T. But starting with Schindler's List,
they adopted this more handheld, high contrast,
realistic style for his dramas. Comiskey won
Oscars for both Schindler's List and Saving Private
Ryan. It was a very conscious shift in his aesthetic
toward a more immediate, almost journalistic
feel. So let's try to boil it down. What are
the big recurring themes that you see again and
again across his entire body of work? OK, so
first, it's the ordinary person in extraordinary
circumstances. His heroes are usually regular
people, cops, electricians, kids who are flawed
but find a way to become heroes. And that's so
satisfying for an audience because you can see
yourself in them. Second, the parent -child relationship,
almost always with a flawed or absent father
figure, which is so personal it goes right back
to his parents' divorce. You see it everywhere,
from Close Encounters to E .T. to Indiana Jones.
And third, especially in his family films, is
this theme of wonder and faith, this childlike
optimism, the belief that the goodness in humanity
will prevail. And his fascination with aliens
fits right in there, since he said he always
felt like an alien as a kid. And to maintain
that style and that emotional core, he relies
on his dream team of collaborators. He is incredibly
loyal. Michael Kahn has edited all of his films
since 1977, with a single exception of E .T.
That kind of trust in the editing room is essential
to his style. He also works frequently with the
writer David Koepp and the production designer
Rick Carter. And then there are the actors. Tom
Hanks, five films plus their TV work. Harrison
Ford is Indiana Jones. Mark Rylance has been
in three films and won an Oscar for Bridge of
Spies. And the partnership with Yanis Kaminsky
is what gave us that huge visual shift toward
realism. They're one of the most important directors
in entire for duos of the last 30 years. But
the longest and maybe the most essential collaboration
is with the composer John Williams. Their partnership
started on the Sugar Land Express and has been
going strong for 50 years. I mean, Williams won
three of his five Oscars for Spielberg films,
Jaws, E .T. Schindler's List. The music is just
completely inseparable from the emotional experience
of a Spielberg movie. And that story about their
collaboration on Schindler's List just says it
all. William sees a rough cut of the film and
he tells Spielberg, you need a better composer
than I am for this film. And Spielberg's response
is just perfect. He says, I know, but they're
all dead. It's this high praise disguised as
a joke, but it shows the complete trust between
them. Spielberg knew Williams was the only one
who could give that film the emotional weight
it needed. So as we get into the 2010s and beyond,
Spielberg just keeps showing how fluid he is.
He's concentrating more and more on historical
dramas and literary adaptations, really leveraging
his skill with huge casts and complex stories.
He kept that historical focus going with films
like War Horse in 2011 and Bridge of Spies in
2015, which got Mark Rylance that well -deserved
Oscar. He also tackled these massive adaptations,
like Roald Dahl's The BFG in 2016, which was
his first Disney -branded film as a director,
and then the super nostalgic sci -fi film Ready
Player One in 2018. A really interesting pivot
came with The Post in 2017, a very political
film about The Washington Post and the Pentagon
Papers. And Spielberg felt this incredible urgency
to make it immediately. He said, history is certainly
repeating itself, which was a pretty clear commentary
on the political climate at the time. And more
recently, he seems to have entered this really
personal, reflective phase. First, with the musical
West Side Story in 2021, it got seven Oscar nominations
and Ariana DeBose won one. But he later said
it would be his last musical. And then The Fablemans
in 2022, which is just the most revealing film
of his whole career. It's a thinly veiled version
of his own adolescence. And while it was critically
acclaimed all over the world, it was a surprise
box office flop. It proved that his personal
story didn't have the same commercial pull as
his genre work. But the critical response was
definitive. In France, they called it the most
important and singular film of his career. Critics
said that Spielberg at 76 had come to represent
the idea of cinema as wonder. Which suggests
that even when he's looking inward, his ability
to create that cinematic wonder is still just
unparalleled. And looking ahead, he's still incredibly
busy. He stepped back from directing the last
Indiana Jones film. Dial Destiny, but he was
still a hands -on producer on it. And he's producing
Stanley Kubrick's unrealized epic, Napoleon,
as an HBO miniseries, and he's developing a new
film about the character Frank Bullitt with Bradley
Cooper. His next confirmed directing project
is called Disclosure Day. It's set for 2026,
and it's reportedly about UFOs, starring Emily
Blunt and Coleman Domingo. And we have to talk
about his move into the streaming world. Amblin
signed a huge deal with Netflix in 2021 to make
multiple films a year for them. He's making sure
his production company stays right at the center
of the conversation. And his influence goes beyond
film. He's been a huge gamer since 1974. He's
the creator of the Medal of Honor video game
series. And he famously hates cut scenes in games.
He prefers interactive storytelling that keeps
the player engaged. He's even moved into theater
recently. He made his Broadway producing debut
in 2022, and he's co -producing a few more shows.
He's just constantly expanding into new ways
to tell stories. And finally, you can't separate
his legacy from his personal life and his political
and social action. After his divorce from Amy
Irving, he married Kate Capshaw in 1991. And
Capshaw's conversion to Judaism is something
Spielberg credits with bringing him back to his
own heritage. He said, she has made me a better
Jew than my own parents, which connects right
back to that childhood embarrassment and the
moral urgency he felt with Schindler's List.
And in terms of social action, he has always
used his power for his principles. He resigned
from the Boy Scouts National Advisory Board back
in 2001 because of their anti -homosexuality
stance. And he resigned as an advisor to the
2008 Beijing Olympics to protest China's inaction
in Darfur. He said his conscience will not allow
me to continue business as usual. These are real,
material actions from a billionaire standing
up for his beliefs. And that philanthropic work
continues. After the October 7th attacks in Israel
in 2023, the Shoah Foundation immediately mobilized
and gathered over 100 video testimonies from
people who experienced the attacks, continuing
its mission to preserve history in real time.
So this brings us full circle back to his overall
legacy. He is without question the most influential
and commercially successful director of all time.
Commercially, it's not even contest. Three of
his films, Jaws, E .T., and Jurassic Park, all
became the highest -grossing film ever when they
were released. And seven of his films are in
the National Film Registry, which cements their
cultural importance. And while some critics,
like Peter Biskin, have accused him of infantilizing
the audience with sentimentality, Roger Ebert's
defense pointing to the Shoah Foundation makes
a powerful case for the moral depth of his work.
He didn't just make movies. He taught a whole
generation of filmmakers how to make movies.
He influenced everyone from Peter Jackson to
Jordan Peele. So what does it all add up to?
We've tracked his journey from a kid recreating
train crashes to a global mogul who redefined
entertainment and used his power for historical
preservation. We've seen how his personal history,
the divorce, his complex relationship with his
Jewish identity directly fuel his most iconic
work, like E .T. and Schindler's List. He's the
ultimate example of how the most personal story
can become the most universal. And we established
that one of his most consistent themes is putting
ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
And he's always looking for wonder, faith, and
the unknown, which is so often represented by
aliens. Which brings us right back to the future.
Right. We know his next directing project, Disclosure
Day, is reportedly about UFOs. This is a direct
line back to his sci -fi roots and even deeper
to his earliest emotional wounds. So we'll leave
you, the listener, with this final thought for
this deep dive. Spielberg has had this lifelong
fascination with the alien and the unknown, which
was born from his own feelings of alienation
as a kid and his desperate need for a special
friend. So how much of his continuing obsession
with the extraterrestrial, culminating in a film
literally called Disclosure Day, is still driven
by that original intimate pain? And is this upcoming
UFO story the ultimate career -long expression
of the special friend that lonely kid in Phoenix
needed all those years ago? That's definitely
something to think about the next time you hear
those two ominous notes from John Williams' score.
Thank you for diving deep with us.