Features:
Description:
As with every other program in The Directors series, this edition is best recommended for the generous interview segments with its subject. Steven Spielberg has always been an articulate and interesting speaker, so it's a pleasure to find him in peak form here, sharing his own perspective on his phenomenally successful career. His remarks about his early films are the most interesting, such as the frantic filming of Duel, which required six editors to meet a broadcast date merely three weeks after a two-week shoot. Later repeating his belief that Schindler's List is "the best film I've ever made," Spielberg also explains that he was originally developing Michael Crichton's popular TV series ER as a feature film, but switched to Jurassic Park when Crichton revealed the premise of his then-in-progress dinosaur thriller. These tidbits will interest any Spielberg fan, but the remainder of the program is perfunctory at best. Of the other interview subjects, only Ben Kingsley has anything intelligent to say (in very brief clips Harrison Ford is boring by comparison), and the narration reveals an almost pathological focus on Spielberg's many awards and honors, no matter how obscure or conspicuous. For those who want to understand the astonishing success of Steven Spielberg, this program may prove frustrating. It's better to view it as a primer with an abundance of illuminating anecdotes, glossing over any Spielberg film (like 1941) that would be considered even marginally disappointing. --Jeff Shannon
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