- Self - Producer: Steven was a nerd. A loveable nerd, but he was a nerd. He was not into sports or drugs or rock and roll, but he was passionate, and he was so enthusiastic. He used to love to talk about film, and it was infectious, his enthusiasm.
- Self - Screenwriter: You're saying, "all my credibility as a fantasy filmmaker, I'm gonna risk all that on CG dinosaurs, and all my credibility as an artist I'm gonna put on the line too, and I'm gonna do it over the course of 12 months. Fingers crossed." They seem obvious now. They were by no means guarantees.
- Self - Segment "Lincoln": There may be people who say he's not edgy enough, he's not bitter enough, he's not quirky enough, or he's not dark enough, but, when it's all over and said and done, what Steven has left is enormous. To have both humour and suspense, and adventure and heart, through his grand eyes of storytelling, is a helluva good thing.
- [first lines]
- Steven Spielberg: I started making movies when I was a young kid. But, I remember the time I almost gave up my dream of being a movie director. I must have been 16. A movie came into town called, "Lawrence of Arabia". And everybody was talking about it. I never sat in a fancy theater seat before. Premium ticket price. 70mm projection. Stereophonic sound. And when the film was over, I wanted to not be a director anymore. Because, the bar was too high. There's a scene where he looked at himself in that sword-knife. When he was first given the robes and he thought he was alone and he walked around laughing and looking at his shadow where the diaphanous robe he was holding out was actually imprinted on the sand and shadow. It was a great moment. And then later when they rout the retreating Turks, you seem him again, covered in gore, and he's got the knife in the same position he had it in his pristine days, in his glory days, and he's looking at himself - who he's become. It was the first time seeing a movie I realize that there are themes that aren't narrative story themes, they are themes that are character themes, that are personal themes. That David Lean created a portraiture, surrounding the portrait with a mural of scope and epic action. But, at the heart and core of "Lawrence of Arabia" is: who am I? I had such a profound reaction to the filmmaking and went back and saw the film a week later. I saw the film a week after that. And I saw the film a week after that. And I realized that there was no going back. That this was going to be what I was going to do or I was going to die trying. But, this *was* going to be the rest of my life.
- Steven Spielberg: [on filming "Jaws"] What you don't see is generally scarier than what you do see. The script was filled with: shark, shark here, shark there, shark everywhere. The movie doesn't have very much shark in it.
- Steven Spielberg: [on filming "Jaws"] This was supposed to be a thriller, based on people like you and me that are out of our element and having to fight something we have no comprehension how to deal with. That needs a level of authenticity that I thought shooting it in the backlot of Universal in North Hollywood would not give it. So, to me there was no going back. It had to be shot in the ocean. I thought it was going to be a cakewalk. But, I didn't know anything about tides or currents. I didn't know about how the wind affects the water. How the color of sky changes the color of the water. Or, how you can't get anything to match. It was one nightmare, worst case scenario after the other. I didn't think we'd ever finish. I just assumed I'd be fired off the picture.
- Steven Spielberg: Just try to hold a whole movie story in my head is a very lonely thing. There's nobody to really help me with that. I have to see it before I film it.
- Self - Segment "Jaws": "Jaws" started filming on May 2nd. I was hired, I think, on May 3rd. And they had no shark, no script, and no cast when they first started.
- Steven Spielberg: The more I feel backed into a corner, the more rewarding it becomes when I figure my way out of the corner.
- Steven Spielberg: Every time I start a new scene, I'm nervous. It is like going to school and having to take a test. I've never heard the lines spoken before. I don't know what I'm going to think of hearing the lines. I don't know what I'm going to tell the actors. I don't know where I'm going to put the camera. And every single time, it's the same. But, I tell you, it's the greatest feeling in the world. I'll tell you why it's a good feeling. The more I'm feeling confident and secure about something, the less I'm gonna put out. The more I'm feeling "uh-oh, this could be a major problem in getting the story told," I'm going to work overtime to meet the challenge and get the job done. And so I hate the feeling of being nervous, but, I need to feel in this moment I'm really not sure what I'm doing. And when that verges on panic, I get great ideas.
- Steven Spielberg: [on filming "Jaws"] We were isolated in the middle of the ocean, 12 miles off shore. And it was technology over art - every single day. We'd get a shot, art was there, but you couldn't recognize the art from the effort.
- Self - Director: It was Cassavetes who said, "If you want to be a real filmmaker, you can't be afraid of anything or anybody." And Steven's not. But he's there with Joan Crawford... everyday and he's got to shoot and he's got to be on schedule and it's got to be good.
- [laughs]
- Self - Director: Meaning that he has to have a vision. The shots have to have a point of view.
- Steven Spielberg: The success of that changed my life. You know, it gave me final cut. It gave me a chance to pick and chose the movies I directed from that moment on. So, "Jaws" was a free pass int my future.
- Self - Sister: At first he just scared us. But, through his movies, he gets to scare the shit out of everybody now.
- Richard Dreyfuss: Steven was known as the uncrowned prince - he was the guy who was going to make it. I mean, he was directing Joan Crawford - when he was 20.
- [chuckles]
- Richard Dreyfuss: That'll teach you a *lot* of things.
- Steven Spielberg: Joan Crawford is the first professional SAG member
- [laughs]
- Steven Spielberg: I ever directed in my *life*.
- Steven Spielberg: After "Night Gallery" came out, there was a lot of criticism on the fact that I was a novelty item, the youngest term director ever put under contract in history. And the producers who do the hiring, wouldn't hire me. There was a lot of hostility and I had to prove myself to everybody.
- Self - Director: I was over at Francis Coppola's and "Duel" was going to be shown that night. So, I sort of snuck away from the party and I said I want to see this film. I want to see what this kid did. You know, I was sort of on the fence about Steven. He knows what he's doing. Nice. But, a little too Hollywoody for my taste. I saw "Amblin" and I thought "Amblin" was nice, but, it wasn't, you know, it was very, very flashy, it was very, very professional. And for the rest of us, we were all rough-edged, crazy guys that were doing much more dirty work. So, I thought, well, I watch the first half hour and just see what he's up to. And I end up watching the whole thing. And I came down to Francis and said,"This guy's amazing. You really got to look at this film."
- Self - TV Writer: Steven had a gear in his brain that automatically translated words into pictures - almost without it being a conscience process for him. There was a unique visual voice there that you had to not only pay attention to, but, you had to give somewhat of free rein to.
- Self - Director: Steven was able to walk into a room, look for a second or two, and say, "Here. Here. Move that here, Give me a 25mm here. Put it this way. Face forward. Move it. Silhouette here. Two takes. Three takes. That's enough. Thanks. Let's move on." It was amazing.
- Steven Spielberg: My early themes always had the underdog being pursued by indomitable forces of both nature and natural enemies and that person has to rise to the occasion to survive. And a lot of that comes from the insecurities I felt as a kid and how that bled over into the work. I was always the kid with the big bully and "Duel" is my life in the schoolyard. The truck was the bully and the car was me.
- Steven Spielberg: When ABC saw "Duel" they were very excited by what they were seeing. But, at the very, very end when the truck did not explode in a pyrotechnics display, they George Eckstein called me and said, "The Network's really upset that the truck didn't blow up. So, they're ordering us to go back to that cliff and blow the truck up." And I said, "I'm not going to do it." The death of the truck is so agonizing. I said, "I made that truck die slowly." The oil like blood dripping off the steering wheel. The wheel slowly rolling to a stop. The fan still going, but, the truck's dying. I mean, the death of the truck - that's what the audience wants to see. This criminal element - paying the price for what it did to this man. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't blow up the truck.
- Self - Film Critic: Right off the bat, it was clear that no one moved the camera like Steven Spielberg. Other directors had a fantastic sense of space - Orson Welles - you name it. People who understood composition. But, the way that Spielberg's camera moved through a shot and then ended up somewhere that completely shifted or intensified the emotion of the scene - that was just a natural gift he had. Who knows where that came from. But, it was his own technique.
- Self - Director: His strength is really the ability to be able to tell a story, in pictures, instinctively.
- Self - Director: "Duel" was a composition that had a very illusive and interesting theme, you know, this unknown menace. Everyones been on a road and some idiot has crossed in front of you and, you know, you're tempted to rev up fast and go do something nasty to him. And here he took this and made it into a parable.
- Steven Spielberg: For me, directing is camera work and so I'm very on the front line of that. I've got to set up the shot. I've got to block the actors. Choreograph the movement of the scene. Bring the camera into the choreography. Figure when the came is going to stop, how it moves, how far it moves, what the composition is. So, I've always got my eye on the lens and that's what I do. I even pick the lens I want.
- Self - Director: There was George and Francis. And then there was Marty and me. And then there was Steven. We came from different places; but, needless to say, we're always very happy to be together. And when we got together, it was like a fraternity of directors.
- Steven Spielberg: [after watching an early cut of "Star Wars" with George Lucas and Brian DiPalma] George said, I think it's going to be a disaster. He was very depressed. We all went to a Chinese restaurant after the film was over and Brian stood up and started take a shry about "What's going on here? I don't understand this story? Who are these people? Whose the hairy guy? Where did they come from? Where's the context? Where's the backstory? It's driving me crazy." Brian went off on George. And George just sat there. He turned red. I think he wanted to kill him. But, out of all that something great came. Brian basically said, "You need like an old fashioned movie, to start the picture with a forward. And all these words come on the screen and they travel up the screen and the forward tells you what the hell you're lookin' at and why you're in the theater and what the mythology is. Tell us what this world is and then we can enjoy the picture." And that was the birth of the famous prologue.
- Steven Spielberg: I had been very influenced by how far Stanley Kubrick took "2001: A Space Odyssey" into the world of really expressionist art. And I wanted to take "Close Encounters" even further. I really wanted the audience to look at the screen and say, "I'm having a sighting." But, I wasn't sure any of this was going to work.
- Steven Spielberg: George showed a bunch of us "Star Wars" for the first time and there were no effects in yet. It was just World War II black-and-white stock footage intercut with blue screen production color footage. And then showed that movie to us expecting us to be able to see the movie.
- Self - Director: Steven always was a creature of the studio and his thinking and his methodology went that direction. And he became a master of it. He was very fortunate that the kind of movie he really had a sense for, was also the kind of movie that the audience had a sense for.
- Steven Spielberg: I identified with the obsession that Richard Dreyfuss was struggling with. I was near it, in that movie. Something opens up his imagination to go for something that he thinks is going to provide some cathartic answer. He had to go through chaos to reach some kind of clarity. He was an artist trying to plumb the depths of his imagination. And so I think in a sense, "Close Encounters" is maybe the most, at least, certainly the most personal film I made up to that point. Because, it was also about the dissolution of a family.
- Self - Segment "Close Encounters of the Third Kind": In a way, he had lived with "Close Encounters" since he was a child. And he had a vision in a real palpable sense of what this movie should feel like when you experience the movie. Steven doesn't want to make little personal movies. He wants to make - big personal movies.
- Steven Spielberg: [on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"] I had first thought mathematics would be the common language between intergalactic species, but, I thought it would be much more emotional if music was how we spoke to one another.
- Self - Director: Once you do "Jaws" and then "Close Encounters" - well, where do you go? The bar, as they say, is set at a certain level. Then what do you do? You get yourself into shape and you jump over the bar again.
- Self - Composer: [on "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"] When these extraterrestrials are coming here, we don't know what they can speak, what they can understand, or even what they see. So, Steven had this idea the communication should be a combination of sound and - light.
- Steven Spielberg: I think all of my movies that have dealt with young people and their stories are about the importance of empowering these children to take control of the story or at least take control of their lives
- Self - Segment "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial": When Steven works with children, he bring a kind of 'let's play' feeling. It's not like somebody talking baby-talk to kids. It's just he's really communicating to them. And it's sort of like direct transmission.
- Steven Spielberg: "E.T." was a suburban, American story and suburbia was all I knew growing up. So, the movies I made in the 70s, the 80s, were a reflection of what I knew. My main religion was suburbia.
- Steven Spielberg: I wanted to shoot "E.T." in continuity. It gives the kids a context for the work they're doing that day. Because they know that tomorrow will be tomorrow in the script. And yesterday was yesterday in the script. So, for young kids, it gives them a real confidence that they're living a life - and they're living a story's life.
- Steven Spielberg: Originally, my idea for "E.T." didn't include an extraterrestrial. It was going to be about how a divorce affects childhood and how it really kind of traumatizes children. - So, the overriding theme was going to be about how do you fill the heart of a lonely child? - What extraordinary event would it take to fill Elliot's heart to losing his Dad? It would take something as extraordinary as an extraterrestrial coming into his life.
- Self - Segment "Raiders of the Lost Ark": These movies are clearly made for an audience. They're made for the film goer. They're meant for the pure joy of entertainment. Which doesn't mean that they can't be emotionally involving. Which doesn't mean they can't be smart from time to time. But, they have to be satisfying entertainment. And Steven and George have figured out how you use the *engine* of filmmaking to satisfy an audience in a way not so many directors or producers have.
- Self - Director: [on "Raiders of the Lost Ark"] It was going to be an all out "B" movie. And "B" movies are fun because they don't take themselves that seriously. You do them quick. You do them dirty. You cheat on everything you possibly can to save as much money as you possibly can. And you don't worry about the fact that it's not going to be "Lawrence of Arabia".
- Self - Segment "Raiders of the Lost Ark": Indiana Jones movies were more about movies than anything else. They followed certain film formulas which freed them to do silly stuff.
- Steven Spielberg: I was looking for a different perception of myself. And if I didn't want to consciously make a departure and prove something, not just to myself, but, to everyone else, I might not have chosen "Color Purple" as my next movie. But, it was my first really mature film - which took on substantive, humanistic subject matter. I was turning 40 and I was looking at life, perhaps, less optimistically. And, so, I knew this was going to be a very sobering journey and I was willing to take it on.
- Steven Spielberg: [on "The Color Purple"] I got in trouble with several critics who didn't like that I shied away from the love story between Shug and Celie and the scene where Shug Avery shows Celie with a mirror her vagina. That that did not go into the movie - which would have really changed the entire nature and tone of the film. I just didn't go for the full monty the way the book did. I might have done that had I made the movie 10 years later. I was just timid. I was just a little embarrassed. I was just wasn't the right guy to do that.
- Self - Sister: [on "Schindler's List"] He had the book for over 10 years before he was ready to do it. And he just said "I'll know when it's time." You know, if anybody pushed him, "I'll know when it's time." And then, the time came.