Professor David Peimer
The Great Directors: Spielberg, Part 2
David Peimer | The Great Directors: Spielberg, Part 2
- So, hi everybody, and hope everybody’s well everywhere. And we going to continue today with Steven Spielberg, Part Two. And obviously we did looked at, in particular, “Schindler’s List,” and “Jaws,” primarily, and a little bit of “E.T.” pardon me, last week, Spielberg this week, and then I’m still going to look at Polanski and Coppola in this series of three great film directors. And then we move into a whole different area come October, obviously, with all the Jewish holidays. And then after that, a whole lot of other things. So just welcome everybody. Again, hope you’re well, and thanks for your help, Georgia. So, Spielberg, Part Two, just one or two things I wanted to mention again. What he’s been so acclaimed for, obviously, besides making a fortune and having, in a way, reignited the idea of the Hollywood blockbuster, he has such a mastery of the art of storytelling with the camera and how the emotional arc of the journey of the characters goes along with that storytelling. It’s the emotional arc and the storytelling visually, that he is absolutely brilliant at, and which has led to such a remarkable range and diversity of films. And I want to look today a little, obviously there’s so many, we can’t look at them all. Otherwise it would just be literally, a fruit salad, a touch on a whole lot. So now I want to look a little bit more at “Jurassic Park,” a little bit more at “E.T” ‘cause there’s some very interesting moments in some of the scenes, and then a couple of interviews with Spielberg himself. Which they’re about “Schindler,” but I think they’re very revealing about him as a person and about his approach. And these interviews were made 25 years after “Schindler” was made. It’s so revealing. I always love it to hear the original artist actually speak about their own work.
And then a little bit about “Saving Private Ryan,” you know, towards the end, because that’s obviously such a masterpiece. If we just think about it from science fiction to the “Indiana Jones” to “Jaws,” to “Saving Private Ryan,” to “E.T.,” “Schindler,” “Jurassic,” the remarkable range of genres, I think really makes him stand out. And I’ve always felt that with Kubrick, and it’s not by chance the two of them had such enormous respect and understanding of each other as artists and filmmakers, the remarkable range of Kubrick’s films from the satire of “Dr. Strangelove” to “Barry Lyndon,” to “2001,” to “The Shining,” to, you know, each one is almost taking on a genre of its own. And I feel the similar thing with Spielberg. There are so many. Let’s put aside the word blockbuster for the moment. and, you know, raking in millions, billions, and just look at the remarkable range of genres from science fiction, to Holocaust, to Normandy landings, to adventure stories with “Indiana Jones.” I mean an archaeologist, an intrepid, almost cowboy sort of rogue archeologist-type character. I mean, it’s such a range that he’s taken on the adventure stories there. So I think that’s part of the credit together with being such a fantastic storyteller with the emotional arc. You know, again, the critics have always and a lot of them, a not short number, small number, have said that it’s, oh, they’re sentimental in the end, they infantalize the audience, we become like little children as spectators again. He overwhelms us with spectacle after spectacle, and sound. There’s no irony. There’s no reflection. Whereas I don’t agree. I think that he is really one of the truly great filmmakers of certainly the latter part of the century, and of course into our century now.
And I think that it’s not by chance these films are shown again and again on television and studied in so many places around the world for these very reasons that I’m mentioning: the storytelling, the emotional journey that goes with it, with the identification with the main characters, and the sheer ability to use that camera, and light and colour, knowing how to create it. The other point that I was making last week, which I want to talk a bit about today, is how he’s able to build up dramatic tension. You know, he only showed that shark and I think it’s so important, 'cause he refers to it again and again in interviews. He only shows the shark in “Jaws,” we’re really about 18 minutes into the film. And it was because the shark was a mechanical shark, obviously, which kept failing, you know, and this mechanical object, which is just a machine. It’s not a shark, it’s a machine. It just keeps falling to the bottom of the tank as they’re filming it in the tank. And he realised instead of getting depressed about it, his brilliance was to say, “Well, okay,” it dawns on him like Hitchcock, and Hitchcock praised him for it, I’m going to create the tension of the anticipation of fear and terror before actually showing the result. You know, you actually see the shark for the first time. And it’s that ability that he uses, I think, throughout all his films. You build the tension, build the tension slowly, slowly out of something very ordinary. But there’s something hidden. And it may be nature, it may be a dinosaur, it may be a shark, it may be something else of nature. It may be something of human, you know, in “Schindler” and “Saving Private Ryan.” It’s not nature, but it’s humans. But it’s built and it’s built slowly, step by step by step until the moment.
Just before you can’t take any more of of the tension, he shows us the real thing. So he found a solution to a machine called a shark, for mechanical shark, not working, malfunctioning all the time for 20 minutes. And he found it through watching Hitchcock and others, as he acknowledges. And that technique is what part of what is, I think, his brilliance. To turn a problem, as the Chinese might say, into an opportunity to solve a very real problem. And that’s the technique I think we see so often used. He also gained confidence moving away from storyboarding. You know, every image would be storyboarded in the beginning. But when the shark problem hit, he realised he can’t. So he started to take that out and trust instinct more in the actual filming. Of course, you shoot thousands of feet of footage. And then of course the editing is the crucial key, as we know. But it’s that ability to be able to improvise in the moment when problems arise. And it always will arise in any artwork, whether it’s music, painting, film, whatever, novels, theatre. It’s that ability to see the opportunity, not only the problem side, and how to solve it, as he does. Okay, if we can show the next slide, please. So this, I just wanted to show this slide because I don’t want to show too much of. We all know “Jurassic Park” too well, and the dinosaurs. Why did I choose this image? This slide here in particular? Because it’s the ordinariness of a car. There’s one light on, that we see. It’s obviously raining, grey, misty, all of that.
The lighting is impeccable and to be expected. We can’t actually see anybody in the car. We see this massive creature, which our imagination, 'cause it’s going back 60 million years. Our imagination creates the dinosaur. It’s all in the imagination. Nobody’s ever seen a real dinosaur. So we know from, obviously from skeletons, and we recreated, but it’s actually imagination. But the dinosaur that it’s not doing, it’s not evil in the sense, but we have our own connotation with dinosaur. The teeth, immediately. This is just a huge head, which is as big as the car. And there’s just the light. And it’s this tension between human and the natural world. You know, not just good and evil, but it’s nature coming and going. It’s the human world of creating something, which should be pretty strong, pretty sturdy, can handle storms, can handle massive storms, in fact. Many things, you know, a strong four by four car like this. But for the dinosaur, a nudge of a nostril would destroy it in less than a second. So it’s the tension that I’ve always felt in these kind of images, these still images from these films. And I may be sounding a bit overidealistic here, but he intends it. He knows how to create the tension in us. You know, we just look at it and we don’t know. I mean, this could be a vegetarian eating dinosaur, or bored, disinterested, just having a look disinterested, you know, and then walk off, like lions in safari or whatever. And then there’s the car. So it’s this constant sense of it could go this way, it could go that way. And that’s part of the brilliant art of storytelling. The dramatic tension is raised and released, raised and released. Could go this way, it could go that way. So it’s not just a sense of goodies and baddies. It’s not just a sense of cowboy and Indian, a simplistic binary. It’s a constant creation of dramatic tension that he does. Okay, next I’m going to surprise everybody by showing John Williams conducting some of the music from “Jurassic Park”.
If you can show it, please. If we can freeze it there. Thanks. So I wanted to just show John Williams himself. We all know the brilliant composer for quite a lot of Spielberg’s films, but obviously how absolutely crucial film is, I mean, the sound is. How he uses, Spielberg in the end, uses sound and lighting. So crucial in part of creating the mood and the atmosphere of the films that he makes. And it’s starting just with that subtle strings, and then building and building and building and coming and going. To me, it’s a constant shifting of dramatic tension that John Williams has that you can imagine in the films. You know, that the tension rises and falls. Tension rises and falls. Then it gets a bit bigger, than it comes down. He’s constantly aware of the need for dramatic tension to rise and fall to keep us gripped. And I’ve taken young people of different ages in Liverpool to listen to the Liverpool Philharmonic, which is a 60-person orchestra, while they’ve shown, for example, “E.T.” So they’ve shown the film silently of “E.T.” with subtitles so you don’t hear the characters talking, and then the orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic, plays John Williams’ music live. And it’s a fascinating experience ‘cause you’ve got the 60-person orchestra playing it live in the auditorium, and you just see the visuals, and you just read the subtitles. It’s a fantastic experience to help appreciate not only the brilliance of John Williams’ composing, but the role of music, of course, that we all know in film and in these films of Spielberg, and many of the other great filmmakers. And you experience it on different sensory levels, then. You experience the sound, which is auditory level, the visual, ‘cause you’re looking at the visuals, the emotional, obviously. But it’s sound and visual, which are split, but brought together. It’s fascinating when you watch just the visual and a 60-person orchestra where you split it up.
And I wanted to play this just for us so we can imagine the whole world of dinosaurs, “Jurassic Park,” which I’m sure everybody knows only too well, just through some of the music here. Okay, I’m going to interweave a little bit more about Spielberg and his life together with some clips and the interviews that we’re going to go through in a moment. Let’s remember what he also did in 2001. He and Tom Hanks produced “Band of Brothers,” which was the miniseries following Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division in the Second World War. So that entire miniseries, “Band of Brothers,” obviously the line from Shakespeare’s “Henry V” you know, “we band of brothers,” which is one of the great phrases of all militaries. But let’s not forget that he and Tom Hanks produced that as well as so many other things. “A.I, Artificial Intelligence,” which Kubrick at first asked Spielberg if he would direct. Kubrick was meant to direct it first, but then gave it on to Spielberg, showing the closeness of these two great artists. And Spielberg said, “I trust story and character the most.” It’s always story and character, which is as old as Aristotle’s poetics two and a half thousand years ago, where Aristotle couldn’t decide which was more important, the narrative, the story or character, or both. In the end sort of a mixture of both, obviously. He directs “Catch Me if You Can,” based on the story of the con artist, Frank Abagnale, Tom Hanks starring again. And Spielberg said, “I love movies about rogues. "Rogues who break the law, but you love them nevertheless.”
In one sentence, he gets the theme of the movie about the con artist, you know, the lovable rogue. In 2005, he directs “Munich,” which is of course about Mossad going after the terrorists who killed or murdered the 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in the 1972 Munich massacre. So he goes into that genre, as well, which is, you know, he’s done a spy. It’s not quite spy, but it’s built around the spy genre in terms of “Munich.” And of course the deep themes. He directs “Lincoln” in 2012, about Abraham Lincoln, a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis, written by Tony Kushner depicting the last four months of Lincoln’s life. Acclaimed; makes $250 million. Now that’s just the last four months of Lincoln’s life. So he knows, I mean, look at the range of genres, the range of subject matter that he is taking on. He’s not just repeating the same kind of genre or even the same subject matter. Each time is completely different story and character. He said, “I prefer to shoot quickly, "with large amounts of coverage, "so that I’ll have many options in the editing room.” And that’s classic of his approach. Shoot huge amounts of film and a huge amount of footage, and then edit it radically when you finally get to the editing room, which is so, so crucial. Whether it’s long shots, closeups, high camera, low camera, the handheld camera, the wide-angled lens, all these create depth. He is aware of the technical possibilities of the technology and the camera in the way that Kubrick is as well. We cannot ignore the technical side, and I don’t want to get into detail now, of how to use that camera to create mood, atmosphere, story, everything. And in an interview in 2015, Spielberg said he articulated how he chooses the film and how he chooses his projects.
And I’m quoting him. He said, “The story must speak to me. "And often it’s about ordinary people "in extraordinary circumstances. "The ordinary people succeed in becoming the hero "in inverted commas. "There can be a sense of wonder, which may be child-like. "In the end, the goodness of humanity must prevail, "or will prevail in my films. "It may be a loss of innocence, "but some kind of goodness of humanity.” And that’s what he’s been criticised, as if it’s sentimental, which I don’t think it is. I think he understands it far too intelligently. Ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Says the ordinary ones in a dinosaurs, the ordinary ones in “Jaws,” an ordinary con artist, German businessman called Schindler. You know, ordinary people caught up in these extraordinary situations. “E.T.,” it’s a very ordinary family caught up in something. So it’s the ordinariness. And that’s why I think he uses Tom Hanks so much, because Tom Hanks is able to capture that sense of the ordinary person, but caught up in totally extraordinary situations which they cannot expect, or predict, or know what to do, how to do it. They could opt out, and back off, or do something about it, or not. “The story must speak to me,” he says. And I think that’s one of the marks of a great filmmaker, 'cause he must be getting, he must have got, yeah, so many choices, options of stories that, but when it grabs, when the story grabs, so the film will follow. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please. And this is from “E.T.” phone home. It comes after this. This little bit about “Jaws” first.
[Frances] Grandpa, what’s wrong?
[Colonel Travers] I’m afraid Betsy Sue isn’t going to run tomorrow.
[Frances] Oh no. Is it anything serious?
I’m sorry .
[Mary] Harvey, I’m home. Come here, boy.
Very ordinary.
[Gertie] Here he is.
Here’s who?
[Gertie] The man from the movie. I think you killed him already.
Honey, just as soon as I unload this, okay?
I want you to meet somebody.
This stuff has gone up so much in one week.
I want you to meet somebody.
Okay honey, as soon as I get finished putting all this stuff away. Stupid Ragu, I knew it wouldn’t come out.
[TV] B is for basket. Hello? Yeah, this is she.
[TV] And bandit.
Bandit. Ball. Basket, bandit, ball.
[Mary] He was feeling a little ill yesterday.
Bananas.
Intoxicated?
[Gertie] Bubble
[TV] And biscuit.
[Gertie] Beetle, biscuit.
You sure you have the right Elliott?
Birdy, B, B.
[TV] And boxes.
B.
[TV] B is for boy.
B.
[TV] With a baseball and bat.
Hey, you said B.
B.
You said B! Good!
[TV] And banjo.
B. Good.
Okay, I’ll be right down, thank you.
[TV] B.
Gertie, I have to go pick up Elliott. Will you be a good girl and-
Mommy, he can talk!
Of course he can talk. I’ll be right back in 10 minutes. Stay there.
[Big Bird] Ladies and gentleman, little Grover here will demonstrate by kidding himself two times.
[Grover] Two times.
[TV] Two times, okay.
[Grover] Can I start?
[TV] Go ahead, Grover.
[Grover] Okay, here we go.
Phone.
[E.T.] Phone.
Phone.
[E.T.] Phone.
[Big Bird] Rocket ship. I think it came from outer space.
You want to call somebody?
[TV] What have you been reading?
[Mary] I am not paying for fraud.
[Gertie] Be good. Be good. Stay here; stay. And don’t tell anybody. No, nobody. Be good. Be good.
Oh, God!
Elliott.
What?
Elliott? Elliott?
I taught him how to talk now. He can talk now.
[E.T.] Elliot.
[Gertie] Look what he brought up here all by himself.
[E.T.] Elliot.
[Gertie] What’s he need this stuff for?
[E.T.] Elliot.
E.T., can you say that? Can you say “E.T.”? E.T.
E.T. E.T., E.T., E.T. Be good.
Be good; I taught him that, too.
And you should give him his dignity. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.
[E.T.] Phone.
Phone? He said phone? He said phone?
Can’t you understand English? He said phone.
Home?
You’re right. That’s E.T.’s home.
[E.T.] E.T. home phone.
E.T. phone home.
E.T. phone home. E.T. phone home!
He wants to call somebody.
If we can hold it there, please.
What’s all this shit?
Thanks, Georgia. So I wanted to show how, first of all, of course there’s the ordinariness, you know, the family, the mother comes home, she’s busy with the fridge, with the phone, with other things, et cetera. The ordinariness of everything yet again. And out comes this little creature who we have to start adoring. Whether it’s sentimental or not, doesn’t matter. This croaky, ancient, wisdom-sounding voice, almost. The finger, the emphasis on the fingers. Hitchcock spoke about how he always, he always used the hands of the characters to show what the character’s feeling so much. And Hitchcock was the first to realise that in film, when you show the hands and the fingers, you can express emotion which doesn’t need words. It doesn’t often even need the face. But it’s the fingers and the hands that convey the emotion. And Spielberg understands that from Hitchcock. And here he’s created the same thing. The ordinariness first, and then the voice, the home, and then of course the classic line which nobody can ever forget once you’ve seen this film, no matter what age or what generation, “E.T. phone home.” The ancient feeling of belonging, of home, wherever home is. Where the home is, where the heart is, as the song goes. Or where the home is a geographic place, the town one grew up in, the street, the house, the smells, the first rooms, you know, childhood. Everything is evoked in those three words: “E.T. phone home.”
And all of that is evoked in us, the audience, through this little creature and the little kids. And especially we have that sense of wonderment, we have that sense. All of this is evoked in us through her, through the little girl watching E.T. do it. And of course the fingers, you know. We make the connections with space, everything. And Spielberg allows the audience that space between what’s going on on the screen and the imagination soars into the universe, into planets, galaxy, space, et cetera, all of that. It just happens in that moment. And I think there’s something also that he allows, which is that the audience’s imagination, not only emotion, audience’s imagination can fill in the rest. And we as audiences love that. We don’t want everything just rammed down our throats. We want to fill in as we are going along 'cause it’s part of the pleasure that we can relish in watching really well-made movies. Okay, I want to skip the next one, which has some iconic scenes in it. But let’s skip it. And can we go onto the one afterwards, please, Georgia, which is interview with Spielberg. We can skip this one and go on to the one afterwards. Now this is a, I’m starting a series of interviews with Steven Spielberg. So we see him talking about his own process. And it’s about “Schindler,” but nevertheless. It’s with Spielberg. Okay, thank you.
The list is an absolute good.
[Lester] It was a box office hit.
I was the only one that wanted to shoot the picture in black and white. The studio didn’t.
[Lester] A powerful film about the Holocaust that for so many was so much more than a movie.
They say that no one dies here. They say your factory is a haven.
[Lester] It inspired survivors to share their stories.
They stripped him from everything.
[Lester] Educating the world.
It wouldn’t have happened without “Schindler’s List”. The Shoah Foundation wouldn’t have existed.
[Lester] Now the Academy Award-winning film is coming back to the big screen.
I think this is maybe the most important time to re-release this work.
[Lester] Our sit-down with Steven Spielberg 25 years after his groundbreaking movie, “Schindler’s List”. The true story of a Nazi businessman saving the lives of Polish Jews during the Holocaust was not one director Steven Spielberg expected to be a commercial success.
I couldn’t imagine, based on the story that we told, that an audience would tolerate just the amount of violence, you know, human against human, or inhuman against human. And I just couldn’t imagine that audiences would allow themselves to go through a motion picture recreation of the Oskar Schindler story. I was very surprised.
But as you’re telling the story, you can’t pull your punches because history is history.
History is history. And if you’re making, you know, I felt that if I’m going to make a story that represents the survivors, and represents the 6 million who were murdered, I have to be as close to the reality of the people that we had interviewed that told us it was like for them.
How many cigarettes have you smoked tonight?
[Lester] Yet “Schindler’s List” became both a box office hit, earning Spielberg his very first Best Director Oscar, but also a historical touchstone.
[Nazi] Women to the left. Men to right. Women to the left.
[Lester] What took so long to finally do it?
I didn’t think I was ready to tell the story for a long time. Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal, had read a review in the New York Times Review of Books on Thomas Keneally’s book, “Schindler’s Ark” as it’s called in Europe, and “Schindler’s List”, as it was titled for America, and “E.T.” had just been released and we were all very happy about the results. And he called me on a Sunday and he said, “I want to send you a review of a book I just read.” And he had a messenger come over to my house with this review of “Schindler’s List”. And I read it and I found it very compelling. But he had gone beyond the review. He went the following week and he bought the book for me. And yet I wasn’t really ready in my own life 'cause I was making movies about extraterrestrials, and movies about Indiana Jones, and sharks, and I was into kind of mass popular entertainment concepts. And I wasn’t ready to go personal like that. And I received the book before I ever made the two personal movies that allowed me to make “Schindler’s List”. The first was “Colour Purple”, and the second was “Empire of the Sun.” And those for me were the stepping stones that gave me the courage to take on a story of the Shoah.
[Lester] Shot in Poland where the real Oskar Schindler first employed Jews to run his factory, sparing them from death camps. I can’t imagine what it was like to shoot this film. You’re in Krakow, you’re in some of the places where this actually happened. I know there’s cameras around, and all the trappings of movie, but the scenes had to have taken a personal toll on you, your crew, your cast.
Yeah, well I think everybody felt that we were memorialising something, and it felt to all of us as if we were shooting in a cemetery. So there was a kind of amazing, I guess you’d just call it a equanimity of respect. And it was quiet on the set, and everybody just did their work. No one was laughing, no one was telling jokes, no one was talking about football scores back home. It was really, really one of the most, I’ve only had this experience twice. One was shooting “Schindler’s List” and the second time it was very reverential was shooting “Lincoln.” The two times that I think the entire company came together to pay their respects in how quietly they dedicated their work.
But you met Schindler’s survivors along the way?
Yes, a lot of them.
That’s a lot of pressure on a director. You’re telling their story.
Telling their story.
And you have to make it for an audience, and a theatre audience, but also you want to be true to them, right?
Yeah, but God bless the one Schindler survivor that came over to me. I believe her name was Luisa Nusbaum. And she, it was the little girl that Schindler kissed, that sent Schindler to prison for kissing a Jew. A bit of an act of sedition, I guess they called it. And we invited her, we invited a lot of the survivors to watch their scenes being reenacted. And she came over to watch a shoot. And she came over to me, and she said, “I want to tell you my story.” And I said, “Well, I’m telling your story.” She said, “Oh, that’s nothing. "That was a tiny part of my life. "I want to tell you my entire story of what my life was like, "who I am; I want you to see me, "and I want to be able to, you tell my story "so that story can inform everybody about what happened "to me and others liked me.” And she was the one that put into my mind an idea that maybe when this film is finished, I can tell many stories like hers and send people all over the world to find the survivors and allow all of them to become teachers. And that’s how the Shoah Foundation began.
The film pulled no punches, remaining bound to a brutal history. The emotion of the movie itself shooting it, I mean the scene when the women are led into the shower, and they look at those nozzles, I felt that I was feeling their fear, that moment of uncertainty about what’s about to happen. How difficult was that scene to shoot?
Well, let me just say this. No one acted that day. You know, professional actors, a lot of them were brought in from Israel to play the Jewish characters. There was no acting. I mean, they took off their clothes, and we were very quiet, and we led them toward the showers. And there was a massive kind of, you know, traumatic reaction that was almost, one reaction inspired the next reaction. And there was kind of a virtual panic that really happened in that very dark space. And it was just frightening. And we did it over and over and over again the entire day. And that was one of the moments on the entire film where nobody had to be an actor. Nobody had to practise their art, their craft. They existed in that reality.
Okay, thanks. Couple of things here, which I want to go straight on to the next part of the interview, 'cause this is what I think the most fascinating interview that Spielberg has done, this one. It’s a whole hour with Lester Holt. I’m going to show another clip in a minute. Talks about the history and memorialising it. And I think that word is so crucial to how to memorialise something of such an event. Of any event. And what he does later with “Saving Private Ryan”. And then of course he talks about the story and the trauma. How do you show the trauma so many decades later? How do you try and reflect people’s real lives? But at the same time, you’re actually making a fictional film. And it’s understanding that it is through memorialising, it’s through creating memory and how to do it through memory that he finds his own way, finally, how to make the film. Okay, and the story, of course, coming and memorialising history. And that’s such a key phrase, and that’s why he links it with “Lincoln,” I think as well. 'Cause memorialising history, not only for the performers, the actors, but for us the audience and for him, of course, as the filmmaker as well. And so powerful. If you think of contemporary events and, well, many events, recently and others. Okay, we go on to the next clip, please, which is part of the interview.
[Lester] Spielberg insisted the film be shot in black and white. You shoot it in black and white.
[Steven] Yes.
What was the thinking about that?
I was the only one that wanted to shoot the picture in black and white. The studio didn’t. Sid was fine with it, but everybody under Sid was saying, “How do we sell cassette?” No one thought the film was going to make any money, and they were going to go ahead and give me $19, 20 million to go to Poland to tell the story, which I knew was going to be over three hours long. And they were doing it knowing that there was more of a public service message, less of a commercial enterprise. But they were hoping they would make some money when they sold the cassettes, 'cause it was a huge sort of ancillary market for movies in those days. Not anymore. But they didn’t think they could sell a cassette if it was in black and white. And at one point they were negotiating with me, they said, “Shoot it in colour, "we’ll release the film in black and white, "but then we’ll release the cassette in colour.” And I said, “ No, I don’t know the Holocaust in colour. "I wasn’t around then. "But I’ve seen documentaries on the Holocaust "and anybody who’s seen any documentaries, "they’re all shot in black and white. "It’s my only reference point.”
[Lester] You wanted this to feel real.
I wanted it to feel real. And the only reference point we had, it was contextualised in black and white for anybody that watched a documentary on it.
So here, first of all, nobody expected it to make money, which is a huge risk for him and for the studio, of course. And it’s not only the fact that he’s made these famous blockbusters already, but that he’s prepared, and willing to, and wants to; feels the urgent need to tell the story. Again, going back to what he said early on, “The story must grab me.” And he has to tell the story and finding a way to do it. And everybody says, “Don’t shoot it in black and white.” Everybody, can we imagine the pressure? Even with him being so famous, and having made so much money through films, et cetera. But everybody’s saying “You’re crazy.” You can imagine. Producers, actors, I mean, film people, anybody, saying, “You’re crazy, "you can’t shoot it in black and white. "It’s not a documentary,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But it shows inside the humility of the man, I think it shows a steel determination. And no matter what anybody else said, black and white. And of course, not only will the red dress moment, but the black and white is what makes it stand out so powerfully. He understands the importance of colour, memorialising historical context, all of it together in the film, as he does in any other film which requires colour. But remember the ending shot in “E.T.” where they get on the bicycles and they start to fly up in front of the moon, which is a bit of a steal from “Mary Poppins,” but they suddenly start to fly in front of the sky and the moon? And it’s the clutter, it’s the light, it’s the feeling. But here he understands, you’ve got to do it, but with black and white. And that steel determination. No matter what anybody else says, I’m going to stick to my guns. Okay, if we could show the next clip, please, on the interview.
[Lester] A foundation creating an indelible history of the Holocaust and other genocides, including a visual history archive featuring more than 55,000 testimonies.
I’m at an age where I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. I felt it’s important that it’s not forgotten.
It’s an educational component that is uniquely attached to this film.
It is, and it wouldn’t have happened without “Schindler’s List”. The Shoah Foundation wouldn’t have existed.
And now we’re in an era that antisemitism is on the rise-
Xenophobia, racism.
We all know what happened in Pittsburgh. Is it possible that somehow we’re forgetting, we’re losing the impact of that era?
Well, I think it’s just that hate has become, hate’s less parenthetical today and it’s more a headline. And the Shoah Foundation does its best to counter hate through basically reaching out and trying to teach people about empathy, and respect, and understanding through testimony, which is why we have 55,000 survivors of the Holocaust, as well as other genocides, in our database. And that gets disseminated all over the world.
This is a history that might otherwise be lost.
This was going to become lost history, yes.
What do you want? I mean, this is a movie that you never imagined that this would be a movie they’d be showing in classrooms in 2018. What do you want people to take away from this film who may not, they know about the Holocaust, but may not have really focused on it?
Well, just that individual hate is a terrible thing. But when collective hate organises and gets industrialised, then genocide follows. And that hate is not something that is not to be taken seriously. And we have to take it more seriously today than I think we have had to take it in a generation.
[Lester] Today.
We can halt it there, please. Thank you. I think he’s so articulate. Individual hate is one thing, but when it’s collective hate and it becomes industrialised, and we have to take it so seriously. We haven’t had to for so many decades, since the Second World War, really. And how to do it. He understands that the core is such hate that it can lead to something like the Shoah. And how to counter it through storytelling and testimony, but told through the art of storytelling. Because again, it’s not documentary, it’s not nonfiction, it’s fiction. He articulates within a minute or two, I think, something which obsesses so many very important filmmakers, theatre makers, novelists, et cetera. It’s how you counter hate through storytelling. That’s it. He got it in one line; he does it. Okay, just a couple of bits of information which are important was that after the Lebanon War in 2006, and Spielberg donated 1 million to Israel, $1 million. And the Arab League led a boycott of all his films. And it’s so important to understand the role of what he’s trying to do in fiction and in film. Why they would choose him to boycott. And let’s remember, he’s telling stories which are memorialising history, the Munich Massacre, and the hunt for the terrorists. “Schindler.” He’s telling science fiction children’s stories, almost, “E.T.” He’s telling “Jaws”, he’s telling “Saving Private Ryan” and other things. So such a vast range.
But he’s the one that the Arab League votes to boycott and ban. It’s interesting, when the threat comes, which is the artist always, usually it’s the satirist. But in his case not. He’s the one that is chosen. And the question is, why? And I’ll leave it to everybody’s imagination. It’s pretty obvious, I think, and pretty clear why he would be singled out as the one, because he understands how to memorialise history through fiction of film. And he’s the one that they would choose to effectively boycott and ban. Okay. And then he talks about, he talks about this after the October the seventh attack, which obviously we’re coming up to a year from it. Where he talks about, “I never imagined "I would see such unspeakable barbarities "against Jews in my lifetime. "The stories need to be told and need to be recorded.” This is a guy who’s made 36 feature films already of such a vast range, but he understands the times he’s living in. We are all, the world we are all living in, and we are all part of. And I’m not talking about whether one takes this side or that side of Netanyahu, or whatever. That’s a totally separate issue. He understands the role of the artist in the bigger picture of the life of the world that we live in. Okay, if we can show the next one, please. “Saving Private Ryan.”
Captain, if your mother saw you do that, she’d be very upset.
I thought you were my mother.
Be thou not far from me, oh Lord.
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee. I detest my sin for having offended thee, oh Lord.
All my strength. Haste thee to help me.
DOG-1 is it! Right here!
We’re in business! Move! Move!
Reiben.
Go sir go!
Reiben!
[Miller] Come on, Doyle!
Sarge?
[Miller] Doyle! Do it!
Don’t shoot! Let 'em burn!
So I wanted to show this because it’s part of the, as we all know, the very famous 18-20 minutes of the opening sequence of the Normandy landings in “Saving Private Ryan”, which is also a testament to his enormous courage to say, “Right, I’m going to spend that amount of time "at the beginning of a movie just showing the landing "and showing warfare as realistically as I can.” But of course, it’s shaped by cinematic techniques completely. And again, that courage, that steel to go against everybody saying, “Don’t shoot in black and white,” “Schindler.” Are you crazy? 20 minutes of war at the beginning? I mean, who’s going to watch it? Why is it so gripping? What is he doing with film and the camera that is storytelling. We all know the D-Day landing. We have our own imagination. The camera, when it moves, it zooms right in on the individual. That sniper, as he shoots that one German machine gunner, you know, and we hear him talk and it’s very soft. Suddenly all other sound goes. We’re right inside the sniper’s head. And he takes his time, takes his time, build up, build up, like I’ve been saying all the time, same with the shark. Build it up, build it up, and then let the bullet go. And you see the dead German up at the top. We zoom right in on the individual soldiers, and not only their faces, but their bodies become so visceral. He understands how to make, from Hitchcock, the hands, but also here it’s a body. And when a bullet hits a body, what’s going to happen?
We understand the sound. It’s not just machine guns, and machine guns, and bullets, and da da, but it’s individual bullets and then a machine gun. But then the individual bullets are actually what last more effectively in our evoked imagination emotionally. Again, everything is telling the story to evoke our emotion step by step. And it’s those individual bullet sounds and the effect of the bullet on the body, whether the body is American on the beach, or the body is the German. And it’s the, obviously the horror and the hell of warfare, you know. And it’s the handheld camera, so it’s got that jumpy moving. So we feel that we are part of these bodies and these minds of these young guys, 19, 20 years old, 18, 19, 20, 21 on Normandy. I didn’t want to show the scene with the landing itself, but once they’re on the beach, more specifically, because he’s moving. And then every now and then he suddenly zooms right after the camera, and you see the big picture through the barbed wire. And you see these little figures, like ants, almost, down there. So for the machine gunners they’re just little ants and just kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. But then that’s the zoom with the camera going right back and then right up close again onto the individual. And I think it’s through the body, through the bullet, through the sound, through the chaos of the handheld camera, the movement. It’s chaos, but it is actually got an aim in the whole thing, which is obvious and we all know what it is.
And it suddenly changes. There’s an explosion. So all of this, I think, is carefully crafted in the editing room, probably from thousands, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of footage of edit of film made and then editing, editing, editing radically, but not editing so it’s just a fruit salad. But so that the emotional story takes us along. Because what is it? It could be summed up. Usually this would be shown in 20, 30 seconds maximum, in so many of the classic films. It’s the D-Day landing on Normandy Beach, Omaha Beach, or whichever, and that’s it. And then the story is before, and the story is after with a couple of individuals. But no, he’s going to make a story out of 20 minutes of the beach itself. And that’s an extraordinary achievement. It’s one occasion, one event, but he’s going to tell a whole emotional story of life and death, of what is happening in the moment of war itself. In the moment of the jargon, the fog of war, the chaos of war, the hell of war. In each moment he will find a way to tell the story yet again and again. And it becomes watchable again, and again, and again, because of the way he’s using all these techniques, putting it together. And I go way back to what I said with that mechanical shark. You know, let it build up. Don’t throw everything in with the audience too early on. Let it build. Will it pop? Will it sound by sound? Step by step. Shot by shot. Zoom out, barbed wire, ants almost. Zoom in, the German’s hands up. What are you going to do? Every moment is built up, built up, built up, rather than just giving us all everything.
And that’s what makes a brilliant artist with a camera. And of course we’ve got light and sound going with it as well, which are, you know, crucial with that camera. So I think all of the, and this is totally, and this is a handheld camera, so it’s a completely different way of working, handheld camera, compared to a camera which is obviously on wheels, and all the rest of it. So it’s the filmic devices, his understanding of technology, of how that camera can create a story out of very little, whether it’s phone home, whether it’s the jaws of the shark, whether it’s the dinosaur with its nostril up against the the four by four. Each time we don’t know, is it going to be life or death? Is it going to be hell or not? Is it going to be redemption? Is it going to be relief or isn’t it? It’s the rise and fall of dramatic tension, which is the real art and craft of making fiction film, and making theatre, and writing a novel. The rise and fall of tension.
Sometimes humour and satire will, humour will let it fall and release of tension, and then rise again, and release tension yet again. It’s crucial to the key of juxtaposing the images, crucial to the key of juxtaposing sound, and the closeup, and the follow along shot, and all the others that go with it. Okay, I’m going to hold it here. Just to give a strong sense of Spielberg the artist, his working of the art and craft of film, with so many feature films, 36, and so many different genres, that I think, and it’s not just the blockbuster mentality, make him one of the true great filmmakers of our times, and obviously of the whole latter part of the last century. Okay, so I’m going to hold this here with them, with Spielberg. I’m going to the Q&A, and next week we move on. This is just some of the films. Thank you for showing this, Georgia. Just some of the films that we wanted to show. This is just a few of the 36 that he’s made that are endless. The list goes on, and on, and on. A true master artist. Okay, thank you. So let’s go into questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: “Which orchestra played?”
A: That one, I think, if I remember, it was with the Vienna Philharmonic that John Williams was invited there to conduct his own music and doing it. Okay, that’s from Maria.
Q: Marilyn: “Could you please comment on the contributions "of Steven Zaillian who wrote many of Spielberg’s films?”
A: Well, I think crucial, obviously the scriptwriter, I haven’t had time to go into it yet because I wanted to focus on Spielberg the filmmaker and what he’s doing with the camera and the visual. But certainly the screenplay is absolutely always edited to the minimum. And you always find the key phrase, the key phrase, “E.T. phone home,” unforgettable forever. Some of the other phrases. “We’re looking for Ryan. "Are you Private Ryan?” We can go on and on. And “Schindler” between Stern and Schindler. I think that he is absolute minimalist. And only the words that are essential and necessary for the storytelling are the words that are actually going to be in the final script. And he leaves the rest up to the master filmmaker, the visual. But it’s a great point because it’s obviously the opposite of the novel and often the play.
Okay. Yeah, it was the Vienna, thank you very much. One of the three great acoustic halls, absolutely, where John Williams is directing his own work. Great, thanks.
Yanna, “A professional symphonic musician who’s performed "in venues similar to the venue you described, "told us that Williams’ music "is fiendishly difficult to perform.” Yes. And in fact, what was fascinating when I took this group of younger people, teenagers really, and they watched. They were gripped. The whole of “E.T.” was shown visually, as I said, with subtitles. So there’s no audible speaking you hear, with the 60-piece Liverpool Philharmonic orchestra. And they were transfixed for the whole length of the film. And I thought these are teenagers, these are younger people, there’s that, but it didn’t hardly moved. So it’s fascinating that it can be done in a different way as well. And it is fiendishly difficult. I think so many people underestimate John Williams’ brilliance with the music. And the only one that I think that I would compare to is Ennio Morricone with the Sergio Leone films. The music of Morricone is a totally different genre. I mean it’s the spaghetti western cowboy movies, but it’s absolutely brilliant. And I’ve played before the Danish Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen playing the music of Morricone from the Sergio Leone films, which are masterpieces of their own. One of my favourite filmmakers of all time. But that music is brilliant, and you see these orchestras, 60-piece orchestras, playing as well. And they are fiendishly difficult. That’s a great word. It’s a great adjective. Thank you, Yanna.
Q: Nina: “Do you think Spielberg was successful "with ‘West Side Story,’ a musical? "It wasn’t his normal terrain. "I thought Jerome Robbins was more successful.”
A: Yes, I would agree with you, Nina, completely. I think that it was a step too far, and he acknowledges it, Spielberg. That’s why he stepped back from ever trying to do that again. Because he realised this is a step too far. So I agree with you. I don’t think it was the, I’m not going to say it was either brilliant, successful, or a disaster. I just don’t think he achieved what his ambition would’ve wanted to achieve. Great point, though, that you’re making. Because what we have is such a, isn’t it amazing? And I love it on the community here on Lockdown, we have this treasure of so much art of musicals, and genres of films, genres of novels, and poetry, and literature and theatre. So much richness of just human imagination creating. I read yesterday Spielberg is going to do a movie, “Cola Wars.” Is going to produce, to be directed by Judd Apatow. Another project: seven-part HBO series about Napoleon. He’s 77, or is he 78 now? 77 or 78 now Spielberg. And he’s certainly not slowing down, I agree with you.
It’s fascinating you mention Napoleon. You know, the two most Googled names, when you look at the Google numbers, are Napoleon and Einstein. Fascinating to see the two most Googled names in the world. Billions of Googles on Napoleon and Einstein. We can speculate the reasons why. But Spielberg is certainly not slowing down, as you say. And he’s taking on more memorialising history. I think he, not only the science fiction genre, or the adventure stories, “Indiana Jones,” “Jaws,” et cetera, et cetera. But these are the ones which are going to last so much. You know, the “Lincoln,” “Schindler,” “Saving Private Ryan” may, who knows, we cannot know, imagine the future. But I think those will stay for a long, long time and become possibly part of the ones which take priority of the Spielberg, of the list all his films.
Q: “Can you talk about the part Judaism played in his career?”
A: Yeah, did “Schindler’s” change his perspective? Well, you know, it’s really important because there are many film artists, there are many filmmakers who’ve made millions and millions, many people, and yet he is the one who created, the Shoah Foundation. 55,000 stories have been told on the Shoah Foundation. So, you know, he’s the one who actually did something about it. Last week I spoke about what he donated in terms of Israel, and other things, et cetera. But he’s the one who created it. He didn’t have to. He’s the one who did it. He’s the one that wanted to memorialise history and have the story go on and on, and have these individual stories told. And he tells it through the one lady coming up to him. “Yeah, but you told part of my story, "but now I want to tell the whole story.” He’s obsessed and fascinated with storytelling, and I think that’s the key in human nature. It’s the ancient, ancient art of storytelling. Whether it’s one person with a fire under a tree where everybody’s just outside the cave, and they’ve just, whatever, going back. It’s this art of storytelling that is so remarkable for us as humans, and we cannot resist. And is one of the most powerful treasures that we possess.
Did it change his perspective on Judaism? Well, he said that he was bullied as a kid, and he talks about one fight in particular. There was one kid who would bully him for being Jewish as a kid, and punched him in the nose, and a couple of other things. And that he was bullied and he was called certain words, which I’m not going to repeat now, as a Jew at school. And that his family would always talk about the Holocaust. In his words, always. Or so often talk about the Holocaust because his father lost his parents, lost at least 16 relatives in the Holocaust. So there is an enormous huge resonance in his own family, and his own family’s history. Did it change his perspective? He hasn’t spoken about if it changed. I think it’s that he gained the courage, as he says in that interview, finally to tell one story. And it’s just one story from the Holocaust. But obviously about Judaism and Jewish people, Jewish history. But I think, as he says, he felt ready for it, mature enough. I would say found the courage as an adult to tell it.
Monica: “I think because up to that point "he doesn’t talk much about it.” No, he doesn’t. But his family did. His parents did. And always in his mind, that’s for sure.
Michael: “The sound fluctuates.” Oh, low bandwidth. Oh yeah, sorry about that.
Julian: “Sounds like you have the reason, "but could you try…?” Thank you very much. Julian’s trying to help Michael there. Thanks, appreciate. Sandra. Sandra, oh, okay. I hope you’re well.
And fantastic to see his… “Spielberg is definitely more of a star "than any of those in the films he made. "What an enormous contribution to society.” Absolutely. Sandra, thank you. I couldn’t put it better. The contribution to society of the Normandy landings, or sharks, or the fascination with “E.T.” and that character, science fiction movies, adventure stories, memorialising history, spy movies, the “Bridge of Spies,” “Catch Me if You Can,” con men as fun, rogue outlaws, in a way, you know, turning it into a fun experience, the outlaw, the rogue, just on the other side of the law, but not really doing malicious evil to people in “Catch Me As You Can,” and other films. “Bridge of Spies” we haven’t talked about, and “Lincoln.” So thank you. Very kind.
Gertrude: “Spielberg’s favourite photograph is David James, "who is a niece’s cousin.” That’s amazing. Wow. Gertrude, if you could be in touch with us at Lockdown and if you wouldn’t mind sharing the photograph and the story. Thank you. Okay, Gertrude. Thank you.
Hannah: “How much more you allow us to under,” oh, well, thank you. You’re very kind. You’re all too kind. I’m just trying to, like I guess all of us, tease out these truly great artists, how they do what they do and achieve it.
Ruth, a lot of you are so kind. Rita, thank you. Very kind comments. Sheila, thank you. Lorna, these are very kind comments.
They found the war clip from “Saving Private Ryan” really distressing. It is, and yet it’s so many years later since he made it, but it hasn’t dated. I didn’t think it’s dated one minute. Which most films, artworks date, but the truly great ones last forever, from cave paintings to now. And I agree with you. And that’s why I chose that particular, those couple of minutes of that whole opening sequence isn’t dated, I agree.
Ron, great to see you, Ron. Hope you’re well.
Q: “Who are Spielberg’s most ardent critics? "Truth be told, I find most of his works manipulative "and tedious, notwithstanding the box office, Syke says, "Give me Kubrick.” And then Rita disagrees. Ron says, “I realise I’m in the minority.”
A: Well, that is part of the debate that I mentioned right at the beginning of today’s talk where I said some critics find that he’s sentimental, and that he manipulates morals, and has a simple moral story inside it and always has a kind of happy ending, or a good ending. And there are a lot of, I suppose, film critics, film scholars, Pauline Kael, who’s one of the most important and interesting film scholars, classic American. She’s a real classical scholar of film, if you like, said that he’s a magician with the camera. And I think that’s, it’s not her just trying to find the clever phrase. But I think it’s seeing the artistry inside it. And Ron, you may find it absolutely manipulative and tedious, and I fully respect that. For me, it’s not only about the box office success of Spielberg, it’s the extraordinary range of genres, the extraordinary range of understanding the camera. It’s extraordinary range of theme and content, and how he chooses, and how he builds up dramatic, the rise and fall of dramatic tension. And he and Kubrick were great friends and often spoke to each other. So, I mean, Kubrick’s one of my absolute favourites of all time, brilliant masterpiece. And a clear sense between the two of them. Obviously both of them were Jewish, but at the same time, and understand the outsider, that’s for sure. You know, I understand the role of the outsider, caught up in extraordinary historical or other situations.
Herbert: “Most Googled names, Napoleon and Einstein, "and only one of them was Jewish.” Exactly. I mean it’s an extraordinary thing that I discovered, just being playful one day. One is Jewish and one wasn’t. But that’s the effect. Exactly. That’d be a great joke, Herbert.
Estelle, thank you. A lot of you are so kind, your comments, thanks.
Rona: “I was an interviewer for the Shoah, "and it was the most rewarding experience of my life. "I think his mother had a big influence on him.” That’s fascinating, Rona. Perhaps you could email the community on Lockdown as well, through the Lockdown link about your experience interviewing for the Shoah, because that’s fascinating. The role of yourself as the interviewer of survivors, which is another whole fascinating world. And as you say here, Rona, the effect it had on you. That adds to the whole story of the community of Lockdown.
Jules: “His mother ran a kosher restaurant in L.A.” Yep. Thanks for that.
Madeline: “His current wife converted to Judaism. "His religion is very important.” Absolutely. I mean his Judaism is absolutely, I think, central to his life. And I’m not saying how religious he is or isn’t. I’m saying it’s Judaism, and Jewish history, and Jewish culture, and Jewish memory that are so crucial to him. There’s no question about that. As it was with Kubrick. When you read Kubrick’s letters, and when you read what Kubrick’s wife said, and people who worked with him a lot, how central his Jewishness was to him for Kubrick as well.
Lawrence: “You know why he gave up making a film "on the kidnapping of Mortara?” I don’t know. Be fascinating to hear, if you want to email me and tell me. Brian, thank you. So many of you, so many kind comments, and thank you very much. Really appreciate.
Okay, so we’ve done two sessions on Steven Spielberg, and we’re going to go on to, there’s so many that I love, but I have to choose. We’re going to go on to Coppola and Polanski. Two different kinds of masters of the art of film, in my opinion. Kubrick I’ve done, and some of the others, Woody Allen, I’ve done quite a lot of the others, the German Expressionists and others. So in this little series here, thank you so much to everybody, and hope you have a wonderful rest of the weekend. And thanks so much Georgia to you. Take care.