Barkman Adam - A Critical Companion to Steven Spielberg

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Barkman, Adam, editor. | Sanna, Antonio, editor.

Title: A critical companion to Steven Spielberg / edited by Adam Barkman and Antonio Sanna.

Description: Lanham : Lexington Books, [2019] | Series: Critical companions to contemporary directors | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: "This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of all the works of Steven Spielberg is written by some of the top scholars working in fields ranging from philosophy and art to history and film studies. The chapters illuminate for scholars and fans the entire artistic career of Steven Spielberg"-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019019938 (print) | LCCN 2019980924 (ebook) | ISBN 9781498593595 (cloth) | ISBN 9781498593601 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Spielberg, Steven, 1946---Criticism and interpretation.

Classification: LCC PN1998.3.S65 C75 2019 (print) | LCC PN1998.3.S65 (ebook) | DDC 791.4302/33092--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019938

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019980924

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Adam:

To Logan

May you stand firm under the aegis of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful

and ever-seek, as Indy would have it, the Grail that brings life

Antonio:

To Francesca Arca, Aurora Bayslak,

Eva Falqui, Elisabetta Miele, Sandra Sirotti, Veronica Dess,

and all those child-like adults who still dream while looking at the stars

Alternatively defined as the Poet of Suburbia, a magician director, Hollywoods most powerful filmmaker, the most successful movie director in Hollywood, America, the Occident, the planet Earth, the solar system and the galaxy, and the most influential popular artist of the twentieth century, Steven Spielberg is truly a remarkable film director, the study of whose works would in many ways be an adequate study of the history of contemporary cinema itself. Some images from his filmssuch as the little boy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the doors threshold in front of the lights emanating from a UFO, or Elliott racing through the sky on a bicycle, framed by the moon in the background in E.T., or the ripples forming in the glass of water suggesting the approach of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Jurassic Parkhave indeed become iconic representations of cinema as much as the subject of allusions, quotations, parodies, and remakes. Nevertheless, Spielberg is also renowned as an excellent producer through the companies he founded, namely, Amblin Entertainment in 1984 and Dreamworks SKG in 1994. Among the films he financed as producer or executive producer are celebrated titles such as The Goonies (1985), the Back to the Future trilogy (198590), Cape Fear (1991), Men in Black (1997), and Super 8 (2011), and among the TV films, TV series, and video games he helped produce are Amazing Stories (198587), Pinky and the Brain (199598), Falling Skies (201115), and the Medal of Honor video game series (19992002).

Characteristic of Spielbergs films is the fact that they are at once both commercial (with a wide appeal to everyone) and extremely personal. Indeed, they are filled with references to the directors personal experiences: the child holding the thermometer to a light bulb in E.T., the difficulty of saying goodbye in Always, the representation of a dysfunctional family in several of his films, and his phobias of snakes, insects, and rats in the Indiana Jones films are only a few examples. However, Spielberg is also famous for his long-time collaboration with John Williams (who has composed the music for all but four of the directors films since 1974), director George Lucas (whom he met in 1967 and whose films are repeatedly visually and verbally quoted in Spielbergs oeuvre), and the group known as the Movie Brats, which includes Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, John Milius, and Paul Schrader.

Steven Spielberg was born on December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His workaholic father, Arnold, was a pioneer in computers (he worked on RCAs first transistor computer), while his mother, Leah, was a concert pianist. He spent his childhood and adolescence in American suburbia, where he experienced embarrassment over his Jewish identity and was sometimes discriminated against at school (his ethnic identity, as many critics have noted, was finally asserted openly only in Schindlers List). Spielberg also suffered from rootlessness as his family moved around the country (from Ohio to New Jersey to Arizona and finally to California) due to his fathers employment. His love for TV (he called it his third parent) and TV shows such as The Twilight Zone (195964) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (196265), as well as for the Saturday matinees, the films of Ingmar Bergman, John Ford, Federico Fellini, and Orson Welles, and historical films such as Gone with the Wind (1939), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962) inspired him from an early age and furnished him with an imaginative and creative nature that led him to direct a number of amateur films in his youth. Among these films are the black-and-white aviation movie