Spielberg (2017)

A documentary on Steven Spielberg, filmmaker. Includes interviews with relatives, film critics, peers and people who have worked with him.

Director:

Susan Lacy

Stars:

Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Richard Dreyfuss

Nominated for 1 Primetime Emmy. Another 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Steven Spielberg	...	Self
Martin Scorsese	...	Self - Director
Richard Dreyfuss	...	Self - Segment "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
Bill Butler	...	Self - Cinematographer, Jaws
John Williams	...	Self - Composer
David Edelstein	...	Self - Film Critic
Michael Phillips	...	Self - Producer
Nancy Spielberg	...	Self - Sister
Anne Spielberg	...	Self - Sister
Janet Maslin	...	Self - Film Critic
Sue Spielberg	...	Self - Sister
Leah Adler	...	Self - Mother of Steven
Arnold Spielberg	...	Self - Father of Steven
J.J. Abrams	...	Self - Director
Sid Sheinberg	...	Self - Former President, MCA Inc. / Universal (archive footage)

Storyline

A documentary on Steven Spielberg, filmmaker. Includes interviews with relatives, film critics, peers and people who have worked with him.

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Plot Keywords:

hbo | famous person | 

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Taglines:

Direct from the heart.

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Genres:

Documentary | Biography

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Certificate:

TV-MA

Did You Know?

Trivia

Around 00:39:00, you can see the famous picture of the movie brats group use to illustrate the relations between Spielberg, Lucas, DePalma, Coppola and Scorsese, but you can see Zemeckis in this picture too. This is a fake photography, the original one was took for the 50 years birthday of Lucas, and Zemeckis was not in. There is numerous fake versions of this photo, one with R2D2 in place of DePalma himself, circulating on and TheHollywood reporter.

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Goofs

A clip of "Wayne's World 2" (1993) that parodies "Jurassic Park" is incorrectly labeled as "Wayne's World" (1992). The first "Wayne's World" film could not have included a parody of "Jurassic Park," since "Jurassic Park" had not yet been filmed when "Wayne's World" was released in 1992.

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Quotes

Herself - Film Critic: He speaks cinema as if it's his native language.

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Connections

Features Bridge of Spies (2015)

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Soundtracks

All Down the Line
Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
Published by ABKCO Music, Inc.
Performed by The Rolling Stones
Courtesy of Promotone B.V.

User Reviews

Somewhat rah rah, but overall, very good!

This documentary does a good job of analyzing Steven Spielberg's film career. It is in rough chronological order, but not exact chronological order. For example the film starts out with "Jaws" (1975) and comes back to Steven's film directorial debut with "Duel" (1971) later.

It goes into details about his home life only when it is relevant to his work as filmmaker, and it is apparently relevant a great deal. The audience knows this because it is Steven Spielberg himself who contributes the most to the commentary. Apparently Steven has a great gift - he has retained a vivid memory of what it was like to be a child all of these years later. That explains why he made some of the films he did, and how he worked with children and could show the viewpoint of children so well. Spielberg talks about how he has had the same team of professionals working with him on films for years, some since the 70s, and he pays tribute particularly to composer John Williams.

It does go into some of his failures, though only briefly. Apparently he considers "1941" (1979) a failure, and I guess I can see how coming off one hit after another in the mid to late 70s he might feel that way.

Many of the actors and actresses that have starred in his film are almost giddy with praise, and I guess we should expect that, but that is countered with Spielberg's criticism of his own work, which is very insightful.

The best stories: the pandemonium and the overruns in time and money on the set of "Jaws", and how Steven Spielberg, the perennial C student, could not get into USC film school no matter what he tried, so in 1968 he simply trespassed on the Universal lot, found a vacant office and took up residency, and began to go on different sets learning how professional directors practiced their craft. He was even thrown off the set of a Hitchcock film once! However, it was six months before anyone even challenged his presence at Universal, and even then he ended up with a seven year contract directing for Universal TV. Things and security have certainly changed in 50 years!

I'd highly recommend this work to anybody who wants the story of Spielberg's career from the mouth of the subject himself. 147 minutes seems like a long documentary, but for me the time just flew by.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 October 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Spielberg

Company Credits

Production Co:

HBO Documentary Films, Pentimento Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

147 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

16:9 HD