Of Dinosaurs, Aliens & Love…Spielberg saga

Ajith Vijay Kumar

They say there’s no business like showbiz. Transporting even the most nondescript individual on the street to a fantastic world of make believe is an art mastered by very few and if there’s anyone who can be safely placed in that elite list…its Steven Spielberg. Like a true master in the art of cinema, Spielberg has been – for 35 years – creating a web of magic, a canvas where even the most intriguing human emotions is exposed threadbare. However, the answer to what makes Spielberg one of the greatest cine magicians of all times lies beyond these simple explanations. For one, he is ‘the most’ commercially successful film director world has ever seen, according to Forbes he has a personal wealth of USD 3 bn, but more importantly his meteoritic rise can be attributed to his ability to create masterpieces cutting across film genres. The Adventurer The Spielberg ‘magic’ started early. Born on 18th December in Cincinnati, Steven Allan Spielberg has been making movies literally from the day he stepped out of cradle. In an interview with the American Film Institute he recalled his earliest movie making experience. Inspired by the first movie he saw – the 1952 classic “Greatest show on earth” - he made adventure 8mm home movies. The 1952 masterpiece had some elaborate scenes of train accidents, an inspired Steven recreated those scenes using his Lionel toy train set. But he was not just another bored kid trying out fantasies at home, Spielberg had his eyes set out on some thing that he was destined to rule one day and that’s Box Office. The smart kid used to charge an admission fee of 25 cents from his friends and family who came to watch his masterpiece while his sister sold popcorns during the show. By the time he was 13 Spielberg had already won a prize for a 40 minute war movie titled Escape to Nowhere. His journey to superstardom had started… However, the best way to understand his transformation into an avant-garde filmmaker would be by equating the movies he made with his own evolution as an individual. As it’s with every child, the young Steven was an adventurer, the world was like a big jig saw puzzle, he liked adventure and the thrill associated with it. That’s why his earliest attempts at film making were all centered on adrenaline pumping themes – train crashes, mysteries, wars… Dad is “Intelligent” yet not “Sensitive” For most kids the first hero, someone who has Superman’s aura, is their dad. Steven was no different; his father Arnold Spielberg was a self confessed sci-fi freak. In an interview published in the Time magazine, Steven has vividly described his first introduction to all that’s sci-fi and extraterritorial. "My dad took me out to see a meteor shower when I was a little kid," he said, "and it was scary for me because he woke me up in the middle of the night. My heart was beating; I didn`t know what he wanted to do. He wouldn`t tell me, and he put me in the car and we went off, and I saw all these people lying on blankets, looking up at the sky. And my dad spread out a blanket. We lay down and looked at the sky, and I saw for the first time all these meteors. What scared me was being awakened in the middle of the night and taken somewhere without being told where. But what didn`t scare me, but was very soothing, was watching this cosmic meteor shower.”Steven was scared but he was amazed too. He feared the unknown but loved the way fear transformed itself into wonder. More importantly as a young child he might have wanted to excel in what his dad excels in. That’s why it shouldn’t come as a wonder that some of his biggest blockbusters dealt with science, mystery, extraterritorial. Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook and A.I, all these flicks dealt with situations either out of a sci-fi book or with the life beyond the confines of what we know as our world. The other important streak in his films is the portrayal of troubled parent-child relationship. Especially the father-son relationship has always been the flash point in many of his movies. As things were, teens were quite a disturbing phase of his life, his parents got divorced, and he found it extremely difficult to graduate from California’s Saratoga High School. Life was full of questions; he was alone searching for one thing a kid needs most…love. This inner turmoil comes under his lens in many of his movies like E.T, Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Munich. And the fact that it’s always the father figure – who is insensitive yet in many ways worth looking up to – who has been the protagonist in many of his movies. Importantly, kids in his movies love such figures, want to follow his foot steps, but are amused and at times pained and angry as to why is the protagonist not taking care of them. ] And that’s where the secret of his success lies. He is still a kid, trying very hard to impress his father. It’s like as if he is asking his father, “Dad am I doing well? Dad am I a worthy successor to your love for everything that’s sci-fi?” Who Needs Oscar? The biggest paradox in first-half of the Spielberg story had been the less than optimum critical acclaim that came his way. Agreed, his name had the power to fill-in multiplexes but his movies were also thought as being “too frivolous.” His critics didn’t leave any opportunity to point out that his movies lacked storylines…lacked emotions. Leaving those rare Academy Award nominations, he was really no-where near of being named as a great director. In reality he was not too concerned of being dubbed as a mediocre film-maker with a grand canvas. If he could make Varanasi’s Benarasi Paanwala and Mike Andrews from downtown Manhattan watch his Dinosaur movies with the same sense of amazement and wonder, he knew he was delivering on something not many could do with consistency – box office success. But with time it was natural that Spielberg too started to worry about his legacy. At the end of day he didn’t want to be remembered as a movie maker whose films were a remedy for boring Sunday afternoons. This realisation and the need for being remembered as a ‘master’ was the driving force behind his new found liking for human emotions when they make themselves visible at times of tragedies. Being a Hungarian Jew – from a village called Spielberg- it was but natural that he chose stories from the Holocaust era. The result: Schindler’s List, the first in his small yet significant list of critically acclaimed films. The movie was his way of proving to the world that Steven Spielberg is not a slave to one single genre; he too can work with human emotions and that he had in him what it takes to rekindle the passion within. A doctor trying to save his fellow Jews from Nazi gas chambers was a compelling plot. The joy, sorrow, reverence, hate and love as felt by a man and all those around him was brilliantly captured by Spielberg. And, the year’s (1993) Best Director Oscar was his! Schindler’s List. indeed brought to fore a new Steven Spielberg. He was now, not afraid of dealing with subjects that were subtle yet profound in their effect. Critics were convinced he had something in him and more importantly they thought he might just ‘not’ go back to his older formula of larger than life storyboards. But he shocked them and in good measure too. The next directorial venture after the List was? You guessed it, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Steven just couldn’t get over his fascination for the big canvas. However, this time around he was determined not to confine himself in one genre (most of the pre-Schindler’s List movies were sci-fi), he followed the Jurassic Park sequel with Saving Private Ryan. The World War II movie set brought him his second Best Directors Oscar statuette. The Middle Way Evolution takes it toll, by early 2000s the trademark Spielberg style of moviemaking was ‘not always’ in the limelight. Probably, the graying hair was having its effect; he was now making movies that were on a different tangent from his basic instincts (at least of what we know), although movies like Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, War of the Worlds were coming out of his stable, but the new millenniums Spielberg was experimenting too. He was in a way consciously trying to push the envelope further, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal were never the type of movies that generally bore Spielberg’s name in the credits. The Spielberg Legacy Critics call him frivolous, but none can deny his everlasting influence on the art of cinema. A victim of his own astonishing success, Spielberg will go down the annals of history as “the man” who created a very potent mix of visual brilliance and heartfelt emotions. But more definitively, the ease with which he was able to communicate with teeming millions, the power of his characters (Dinosaurs proudly stood by Goddess Durga in Puja Mandals) would be his biggest…ever lasting legacy. Standing tall amidst the Santa Monica Mountains, like Rio’s ‘Christ the Redeemer’, Spielberg would continue to rule the big bad world of Hollywood and the hearts of his admirers worldwide. And, hopefully another dreaded animal would rise from its fossils soon…