Steven Spielberg -- whose 40 years as a director have earned him fortune, fame and affection -- sat down at the Director's Guild on Sunset Saturday to talk about his career with J.J. Abrams, in the middle of opening weekend for Super 8, the film he directed and Spielberg produced, James Cameron, who revealed he not only turned down a directing job on Spielberg's Amazing Stories, but also resisted Spielberg's script notes on Aliens, and Michael Apted, well known for both documentaries (such as the Up series) and feature films.
This tribute was part of the DGA's celebration of its 75th anniversary saluting "game-changers" who have advanced the art and craft of directing. Earlier events featured Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, and possibly the most famous guild-quitter of them all, George Lucas.
This program featured clips from six Spielberg films -- three chosen by Abrams, three by Cameron -- with Spielberg answering questions about actors, technical challenges and script development. Apted moderated.
Six clips from over 25 movies? Yet, because of Spielberg's candid answers, and the panelists' probing questions, the clips from Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List were enough for the evening.
For Jaws, Abrams' clip showed Robert Shaw's Quint and Richard Dreyfuss' Hooper drink and compare war wounds. Spielberg told war stories of his own, including how Shaw blew the first day shooting that scene and had to be carried away to sleep off a bender, then came back the next day and basically nailed the scene in one take.
Spielberg revealed that he doesn't rehearse: "I'd rather use the first five or six takes as rehearsal," he said. "Rehearsal is what trailers are for." He doesn't want to miss the "magic that can happen on a first take." He also doesn't believe in table readings: "I did that once and it made me want to quit the movie."
Cameron's first clip was the arrival of the mother ship in Close Encounters. According to Spielberg, making Close Encounters was the fulfillment of a dream from his high school days in Arizona, when he would drive to Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix and watch planes land overhead. Sounds like an iconic scene from Lost. Could be Abrams' intentional homage: after college, Abrams took a job that apparently had a big impact on him: re-editing Spielberg's 8mm features, including Firelight, Spielberg's 1964 iteration of the story. "In one form or another," Spielberg said, "this is a story I always wanted to tell."
Spielberg confessed that if he'd been married or had children at the time, he might not have ended Close Encounters with the hero abandoning his family. He said he felt conflicted when he showed the film to his own children, years later.
But he more regretted re-cutting the ending -- part of deal to add new scenes after the film's release -- to show what's inside the ship. Cameron blamed Spielberg for the "director's cut" phenomenon; now, many movies are re-released with new material after a theatrical version.
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I repeat, 1941 made money for the studio. And a very fine and underrated movie too.
Spielberg rules.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1941/