Steven Spielberg: Interviews (Conversations With Filmmakers Series)

Rating:
Summary: An insightful, entertaining read.
Review: I've been waiting a long time for a book like this. Populist filmmakers like Steven Spielberg are too often ignored by publishers who would rather print in-depth literature on the likes of Coppola or Scorsese, so it's nice to see a meaty tome such as this on the bookshelves. Spielberg lets rip on all the stuff you often wondered about whilst watching his films, and proves himself to be rather adept at delivering hilarious anecdotes. Unlike the George Lucas Interviews book, Spielberg isn't shy when it comes to discussing his private life. All in all, an enlightening read. Jolly good.

Rating:
Summary: An insightful, entertaining read.
Review: I've been waiting a long time for a book like this. Populist filmmakers like Steven Spielberg are too often ignored by publishers who would rather print in-depth literature on the likes of Coppola or Scorsese, so it's nice to see a meaty tome such as this on the bookshelves. Spielberg lets rip on all the stuff you often wondered about whilst watching his films, and proves himself to be rather adept at delivering hilarious anecdotes. Unlike the George Lucas Interviews book, Spielberg isn't shy when it comes to discussing his private life. All in all, an enlightening read. Jolly good.

Rating:
Summary: Good stuff
Review: There's a lot of really good stuff in here.

First, the interviews span some 25 years, so you get a sense how he's matured and yet how he's stayed the same.

Second, Spielberg is very candid, so interviews with him tend to reveal more than many others.

Third, there's just a lot of good stuff in here, some of which you may have heard and some not. For instance, I had never heard the story of how, as an awkward 12 year old, he and a mentally retarded boy were dead last in a school race and their peers cheered the retarded boy to beat young Spielberg. Spielberg describes how he knew he had to let the boy with without him realizing it and did just that. And then he describes how after the race, after the others carried the retarded boy on their shoulders, Spielberg was both devastatingly happy and sad.

Or there's the anecdote about his encounter with Stanley Kubrick -- how the master was not as stand-offish as one might think, and yet how he sized up Spielberg with "his probing, questioning eyes, always looking at you to see if you're true or falso. To see what you're made of, to see what you have upstairs. His chess player's eyes. Real surgeon's eyes."

There's lots of other examples I can bring but if you have any interest in Spielberg or movies just go out and get the book. It's a great read about a fascinating man whose own character arc and maturity as a movie-maker is the stuff great stories are made of.