Spielberg’s Bio

Steven Allan Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on 18th December 1946. From a young age, Spielberg loved to make home movies with his father’s camera and go to the cinema. After several relocations and his parent’s divorce Spielberg began studying English at California State University. Having been rejected from Southern California’s film school.

While studying, he produced Amblin’. This short impressed Universal’s vice-president Sidney Sheinberg and he offered Spielberg a TV directing job. After directing several TV projects he directed the TV movie Duel. Which attained cinema distribution overseas and widespread critical acclaim. Spielberg then made his feature debut with Sugarland Express. Which marked his first collaboration with composer John Williams. His next film, Jaws, was the first film to gross over $100 million, was the highest-grossing film ever at the time and was Spielberg’s first film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Close Encounters of the Third Kind followed and earned Spielberg his first Best Director nomination.

In the 80s Spielberg continued directing hit movies. He also founded Amblin Entertainment with Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy in 1981. The company produced many of Spielberg’s movies as well as many other classic films. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Spielberg also began making adult-focused stories. Such as The Colour Purple, Schindler’s List (which won the best picture oscar) and Saving Private Ryan, among others. The prior two won him Best Director Oscars. Additionally, in 1993 his film Jurassic Park revolutionised CGI implementation in movies. And he created DreamWorks Pictures in 1994 with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

2001 saw Spielberg release A.I. Artificial Intelligence in tribute to his friend Stanley Kubrick. And, at the time of writing, since 2002 he has directed 14 critically acclaimed films in varying genres. All this work has made him the most financially successful director of all time.

 Spielberg’s Style

Several recurring themes and cinematic techniques have become trademarks of Spielberg’s filmography. His stories often showcase ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And often focuses on how parents, affect their children and sometimes themselves. These elements make his films feel more grounded and relatable.

Spielberg also loves moving his camera. Whether it’s a smooth dolly shot, shaky cam or sweeping long takes Spielberg’s films use active cameras to make the audience feel more involved. Spielberg also uses the camera to express a character’s perspective. Either directly, through POV shots, or through perspective shots designed to elicit a feeling in the audience similar to what the characters are feeling. His films also often have reflections as a thematic/dramatic element and feature bright colours and light to draw the audience’s attention to a specific point and emphasise something mysterious.

Spielberg’s Best

So what are Spielberg’s best films?

Duel

A tight thriller with effective simple characterisation and masterfully tense direction.

Jaws

A horror masterpiece elevated by John Williams’ terrifying score, brilliant camerawork, and Roy Scheider’s, Richard Dreyfuss’ and Robert Shaw’s fantastic performances.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Harrison Ford is a perfect hero, the plot is fun, the score iconic and it features some of cinema’s best moments.

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

A touching story, great child performances, brilliant effects and a beautiful score. E.T. is cinematic magic.

Catch Me If You Can

A brilliant character study and the perfect amalgamation of escapist fantasy and grounded adult storytelling.

Also Read: Quentin Tarantino Directing A Star Trek Film? Here’s What It Would’ve Been Like

The post The Magic of Steven Spielberg appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

SPOILER WARNING – It’s hard to imagine someone reading this who isn’t fully up to date but there will be spoilers for Star Wars and Indiana Jones films.

Han Solo

Han Solo is the lovable rogue of Star Wars. Luke Skywalker may have been the lead character but Han Solo was cooler, funnier and far more handsome. Introduced as little more than a dodgy freighter captain with a bad-ass best friend he becomes one of the heroes of a rebellion and wins the love of a princess (and senator, general and many other awesome things). I think for a lot of people Solo is the most identifiable character in Star Wars – he doesn’t have magic powers, he’s not a princess or emperor and he’s not an alien. He was an ordinary guy trying to make the best of living through a bad time but couldn’t just do nothing when confronted with evil.

Indiana Jones

Dr Henry “Indiana” Jones is a prominent archaeologist and professor known to be popular amongst his students. He is also a ravine-jumping, Nazi-punching, evil-defeating hero. I always loved the combination of intellectual and action-hero and while it has been done before and since nobody did it better than Indiana.

Iconic Moments

Both have a plethora of iconic moments, ranging from the funny to the brave to the romantic. Han Solo’s frantic conversation on the Death Star intercom trying to explain away a gun battle is hilarious but does it beat Indiana posing as a ticket inspector who promptly throws a Nazi off of a zeppelin?

The moment where Han shows up to save Luke at the end of A New Hope is the defining image of the hero riding in at the last minute to save the day. For romance, Han wins easily – he has a moment that is arguably the most well-known in all of Star Wars: Leia- “I love you”, Han- “I know.”

Indiana Jones has at least two of the greatest action sequences of all time – the first is in Raiders of the Lost Ark where he races after the truck carrying the Ark and takes it over. He jumped on vehicles, fought soldiers and at one point was hanging onto the front of the truck while the metal he was desperately holding onto snapped off. The second being Indiana rescuing his father from a tank in The Last Crusade which is another all-round amazing sequence.

Han Solo also has something Indiana doesn’t have (not yet anyway) – an iconic death. Being murdered by your own son while you try to reach any goodness still within him is brutal and heartbreaking. Han already seemed to feel like he had failed his son and there was no way he was going to try and fight him (I do love that just after Kylo Ren kills Han, Chewbacca shoots him, as he had no qualms about fighting him).

The Look

Both characters are instantly recognisable and have surely been used millions of times as cosplay and fancy dress. Han Solo’s simple black trousers, white shirt, black waistcoat is so good that when everyone else wore full camouflage on Endor he chose to wear his normal stuff with a camouflage coat. As for Indiana, again simple but it’s the hat that makes it and because of Indiana Jones, the fedora is officially the world’s coolest hat. What’s amazing about Indiana is not only the default treasure seeker outfit, he also has the default old-fashioned professor look too.

The Character

There are a lot of similarities between the two – both are charming risk-takers who like doing things their own way. Both started out as mainly being concerned for themselves but their innate goodness takes over. Both are people who fight the bad guys, even when they outnumbered and almost certain to lose. They differ in background – Indiana’s parents were both academics and had a better life than young Han Solo, who even before his past was filled in a bit more in Solo was safely assumed to be fairly tough. Indiana has a respectable side – as well as an adventurer he is an esteemed academic, while Han does become a general this is part of a rebellion and as The Force Awakens showed he fell back into his old and more questionable life.

The Winner Is…

Which is the more iconic role? And which did more for Ford’s career? It’s an incredibly tough choice but I’d have to go for Indiana Jones, the clinching argument is the film isn’t called Han Solo and the Return of the Jedi. In acting terms, the success of the Indiana Jones films rests entirely on Harrison Ford.

Also Read: Star Wars: Course Correction

The post Harrison Ford: Nerf Herder or the Grave Robber? appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.