{"id":3894,"date":"2013-12-11T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-12-11T05:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2013-12-11T19:41:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T00:41:07","slug":"steven-spielberg-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/steven-spielberg-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"An (Imaginary) Interview with Steven Spielberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spielberg\"
\n

\nI’m not really sitting with you right now, Steven Spielberg, but I want to be. \u00a0There’s really nothing I could think of that would be more of an achievement. \u00a0To be honest, I don’t think about your movies enough anymore, and I don’t reference you enough in my pieces on this site.\u00a0 It’s because talking about you is kind of old hat.\u00a0 You are unequivocally the most successful, and the most household name-y of any movie director in history. \u00a0You created my childhood, and millions upon millions of other childhoods. \u00a0Your name had as much market value in the 80s and 90s as McDonald’s and Reebok. \u00a0(I made that last sentence up but it sounds real!)<\/i><\/p>\n

So anyway, yeah, I’m sitting here (not really) with the most iconic living legend filmmaker of all time, Steven Spielberg:<\/i>
\n
\nI love that you spell your name Steven and not Stephen!\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks.<\/p>\n

I don’t care about The Sugarland Express<\/a><\/b>\u00a0(Steven makes a \u2018who the fuck is this brat\u2019 face) so I want to ask about Amblin’<\/a>, to start. \u00a0Amblin’ is just two hippie people walking around, and they’re \u2018ambling\u2019 I guess? \u00a0And it’s all set to music. \u00a0It has your visual style, but it’s not really anything.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, in those days you didn’t really have to do anything. \u00a0If you shot something and it looked stylized and proficient, they just said “This kid can direct!” and then you were automatically friends with the studio heads and had like three-picture deals at the age of 22.<\/p>\n

Wait but didn’t you lie about your age to be thought of as a whiz kid?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Okay, 25.<\/p>\n

Duel<\/a> is sweet.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, Duel is sweet.<\/p>\n

There’s a really funny part where the car runs into some shit and you hear a looped line of this old woman going “My snakes!\u201d\u2014I guess the car crashed into her snake farm?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, we had that in there.\u00a0 Do you have questions, or\u2014<\/p>\n

Duel seems like a Second Unit’s wet dream\u2014there’s so many great shots of mirrors and car mounts and what not. \u00a0You obviously storyboarded all of it, but did you shoot all of that yourself or did you have a Second Unit?\u00a0 Hold on\u2014(looks up on IMDb)\u2014it looks like there was a dude on Second Unit named James Fargo.\u00a0 But my point here is, you get a lot out of insert shots.\u00a0 Rather than just using them as B-Roll, you use them for dramatic effect.\u00a0 The best example of this in cinema history came later in your career with the shot of the water cup in Jurassic Park<\/a> (which, ironically, was as hard to make work as the fuckin\u2019 dinosaurs).<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah I mean, a shot is a shot, you can’t just waste time showing the audience things. \u00a0If a guy’s driving a car we’ll know that by seeing him driving\u2014we don’t need to see the road and the hood and the tires.\u00a0 If we do see those things, there should be a reason why.\u00a0 As I’m sure you know, I keep up with a lot of the modern indies, and I like a lot of them more than you do, but, I’m old, so I have that built in thing where I have to be positive about what the next generation is doing in art.\u00a0 But, I do agree with you that a lot of the modern indies are just footage of people doing mundane tasks set to spacey guitar notes.\u00a0 In my day, the score helped you feel things as much as the shots, and they worked together, and the shots meant<\/em> something.\u00a0 Like you mentioned, in Duel, you see that speedometer needle rising and it means something, it puts you in the drama. \u00a0Closeups have that power\u2014they aren’t really meant for peoples faces.\u00a0 A face is a face. \u00a0Isolating something that our vision wouldn’t normally isolate is the real power of the close up.<\/p>\n

That’s why you’re the best of all time, my man!<\/b><\/p>\n

(Spielberg sips his coke, and nods, knowing, but comical, not like, pompous)<\/p>\n

So now that we understand one of the tiny but profoundly important things that makes you the best director of all time, let’s talk about some of your missteps.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

(Hesitant) Okay.<\/p>\n

Of your movies that nobody cares about, which one is your favorite?\u00a0 Always<\/a>, 1941<\/a>, or Amistad<\/a>?<\/b><\/p>\n

Always, because of John Goodman and Holly Hunter.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I’ve never even seen 1941 or Amistad.\u00a0 1941 I’ll probably try to look at someday, since I love the cast.\u00a0 What happened with those though?<\/b><\/p>\n

I don’t know, you can’t win em all.<\/p>\n

No shit.\u00a0 Anyway, Jurassic Park is awesome, but I always thought the end was kind of abrupt though\u2014they just fly away, the dude sees some birds, and that’s it.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

What else would you like to happen? \u00a0We probably shot some stuff or there was something more in the script, but what else is there to say?<\/p>\n

I mean, I hear you, but still.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

What about the second one<\/a>, did you make it give me a headache on purpose? \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

No dude, honestly, I don’t know what happened with that one. \u00a0I obviously don’t do many sequels. \u00a0I mean with Indiana Jones<\/a>, I proved I can make three movies in a series, one better than the next, but those are separate adventures. \u00a0In The Lost World<\/a>, we tried to continue the story. \u00a0And everything that happens makes sense, but I don’t know, it just didn’t work. \u00a0That was Vince Vaughn’s big break though.<\/p>\n

Funny you mention Indiana Jones, and I agree, they get progressively better, and with Jurassic Park, you made the sequel right away, four years out, just like Indiana Jones.\u00a0 So yeah, I don’t know.\u00a0 I’ll spare you the conversation about Indiana Jones 4<\/a>.\u00a0 South Park covered that<\/a> for me.<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, Trey and Matt burned me again\u2014I love those guys and they’re true fans of mine and I appreciate it.\u00a0 I met them briefly when they made that thing for Universal Studios<\/a> back in the early 90s.\u00a0 That thing was brilliant, but I didn’t expect them to go on to be so transcendent.\u00a0 Good on them, but those fucks stopped me from updating the original Indiana Joneses\u2014<\/p>\n

Thank god for that.\u00a0 Hey, that scene in Jurassic Park 2 where the glass is breaking on the camper thing and they might fall through is one of the great edge-of-your-seat scenes in movie history.\u00a0 Too bad it’s buried in such an abysmal movie.\u00a0 But, dare I say, you did that scene better than your good friend De Palma!<\/b><\/p>\n

Ha!\u00a0 He taught me everything I know! \u00a0Tell him I said that!<\/p>\n

I will! \u00a0Hey, Schindler’s List<\/a> is a thing you made. \u00a0It’s not really something you can watch a lot. I saw it when it came out, but I was only 7. \u00a0It’s like an \u2018important\u2019 movie\u2014when you made it you were by far the most popular director in history so that was kind of like a gimme, just in the sense that it’s like \u2018oh yeah, of course this is good\u2019. \u00a0It’s funny too because it came out so close to Jurassic Park and was so different.<\/b><\/p>\n

All true.<\/p>\n

One thing nobody ever talks about is the impact Saving Private Ryan<\/a> had on the culture and climate of filmmaking for the next ten years.\u00a0 In 1964 when Kubrick did Dr. Strangelove<\/a>, he used a handheld camera to mimic the newsreel footage of the time.\u00a0 Following that cue, you used a handheld camera in the opening Normandy scene in Ryan.\u00a0 You also utilized a high shutter speed to not only mimic the newsreels but also so you could see every little detail of dirt and dust and blood.\u00a0 It wasn’t a new effect\u2014you see it littered throughout movies since the very beginning, and it is, at its essence, just a simple in-camera effect that’s built into the mechanics of the camera, but you were the first to use it so stylistically.\u00a0 As a fallout, the effect caught on and was copied ad nauseum.\u00a0 But nobody that copied it used it interestingly.\u00a0 Same thing with The Matrix<\/a> when they did the 360 shot.\u00a0 What’s funny is a small indie movie called Buffalo ’66<\/a> did the same effect a year before, so the actual effect wasn’t new.\u00a0 But in The Matrix, the shot has meaning\u2014it shows how time slows down and physics can be manipulated in a computer-generated world. \u00a0The people who copied it just used it for flash because it looks cool.\u00a0 But anyway, what I find funny and awesome is that so deep into your career you were still informing the visual styles of the time, still ahead of the game, still being inventive.\u00a0 So good on you.<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks, yeah, I mean, as directors, we all do things just because they look cool.\u00a0 But along with that is \u2018why does it look cool?\u2019\u00a0 For me, and a few like-minded people, what looks cool to us is directly tied to how it expresses the story.\u00a0 Bob Zemeckis comes to mind\u2014he operates the same way.\u00a0 A lot of our shots are just off-the-cuff, I just get the impulse to put the camera somewhere, but later when you analyze it you realize why and it’s like, \u2018oh yeah, of course, the camera goes there and moves this way because this is what’s happening in the story\u2019.<\/p>\n

Catch Me If You Can<\/a> is a great movie.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

Did you recommend DiCaprio to Scorsese?<\/b><\/p>\n

Probably.<\/p>\n

Hey, why did you have that Catherine Zeta Jones stuff in The Terminal<\/a>?\u00a0 If that movie was 80 minutes and didn’t have that stuff, it would be one of your best, but not only did you bloat it, you made it silly. That hot chick is not going to fall for a weird dirty guy that lives in an airport.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I don’t know, I like that stuff, it’s whimsical.<\/p>\n

Yeah I know, like with the Wes Anderson indian guy doing the plate spinning and everything, but whatever. At least don’t cast Catherine Zeta Jones, she’s too hot for it.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Eh, it’s fine.<\/p>\n

Says you.\u00a0 Well listen man, this has been a dream come true.\u00a0 You are a genius and your images and sounds made me want to do what you do.\u00a0 I’ll never do it as well, but I’ll spend my life trying.<\/b><\/p>\n

Thanks, I had fun. \u00a0I’m a huge fan of your stuff on Smug Film, and your videos. \u00a0I love that one shitty music video you made for somebody I’ve never heard of<\/a>!\u00a0 No but seriously, I love Fake Henrik Zetterberg<\/a>. \u00a0You and Jakob are very talented. \u00a0Here’s a few million dollars. \u00a0(Hands a check)<\/p>\n

Thanks, man.\u00a0 And to end, I gotta ask\u2014in the 80s and 90s you threw your name on everything: The Goonies<\/a>, *Batteries Not Included<\/a>, Animaniacs<\/a>, Back to the Future<\/a>\u2014and it was genius because it kept your name salient and helped bolster those titles.\u00a0 But dude, why why why why why<\/i> did you take your name off of Three O’Clock High<\/a>? That movie is so good.<\/b><\/p>\n

No comment.<\/p>\n

Fuck.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"spielberg\"
\n

\nI’m not really sitting with you right now, Steven Spielberg, but I want to be. \u00a0There’s really nothing I could think of that would be more of an achievement. \u00a0To be honest, I don’t think about your movies enough anymore, and I don’t reference you enough in my pieces on this site.\u00a0 It’s because talking about you is kind of old hat.\u00a0 You are unequivocally the most successful, and the most household name-y of any movie director in history. \u00a0You created my childhood, and millions upon millions of other childhoods. \u00a0Your name had as much market value in the 80s and 90s as McDonald’s and Reebok. \u00a0(I made that last sentence up but it sounds real!)<\/i><\/p>\n

So anyway, yeah, I’m sitting here (not really) with the most iconic living legend filmmaker of all time, Steven Spielberg:<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,21],"tags":[3333,3334,3281,3335,3343,582,3342,987,133,3338,2015,641,2402,3341,37,3336,576,3104,3332,439,66,1008,3339,564,1576,1861,2685,104,185,67,3329,3330,622,1009,387,3331,3340,706,1575,3337],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-gregsinterviews","tag-3333","tag-always","tag-amblin","tag-amistad","tag-animaniacs","tag-back-to-the-future","tag-batteries-not-included","tag-brian-de-palma","tag-buffalo-66","tag-catch-me-if-you-can","tag-catherine-zeta-jones","tag-dr-strangelove","tag-duel","tag-fake-henrik-zetterberg","tag-greg-deliso","tag-holly-hunter","tag-indiana-jones","tag-indiana-jones-4","tag-james-fargo","tag-john-goodman","tag-jurassic-park","tag-jurassic-park-2","tag-leonardo-dicaprio","tag-martin-scorsese","tag-matt-stone","tag-saving-private-ryan","tag-schindlers-list","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-steven-spielberg-interview","tag-sugarland-express","tag-the-goonies","tag-the-lost-world","tag-the-matrix","tag-the-sugarland-express","tag-the-terminal","tag-three-oclock-high","tag-trey-parker","tag-universal-studios"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3894"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3908,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3894\/revisions\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}