Steven Spielberg Biography Essays - English-language Films, Jaws

Steven Spielberg Biography Rob Martinelle American Literature C Block Research Paper: Final Draft 18 May, 1999 Steven Spielberg: Revolutionary and Visionary Who would have thought that a brilliant career in filmmaking could have originated with a modest jar of Skippy Peanut Butter smeared on a neighbor's window in a tiny Cincinnati suburb? One might not think that such an average boyhood prank could evolve a boy into a man who would become the most financially successful film director in history. Well, that is exactly where Leah Spielberg, Steven Spielberg's mother, would trace her son's initial entry into becoming one of our nation's most creative storytellers. ?His badness was so original,? she recalls (Stein 3). Steven Spielberg, the only child of Leah and Arnold Spielberg, was born on December 18, 1946 at the beginning of the Baby Boom years in Cincinnati, Ohio. It does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see that Steven's film influences were derived from his father's experience as a World War II veteran and computer technician and his mother's past profession as a concert pianist. The love and amount of technology, history, and music within Steven's films can all be traced back to his early life with his family. While many men returning from war never want to reiterate their experiences, Steven's father seemed to be an exception. Steven said of his father, ? he intoxicated me with bedtime stories about the war. His stories were like the war movies I was watching on television, all worthy of cameo appearances by John Wayne? (Stein 1). It is no wonder that at the age of twelve Steven's first film, Fighter Squad, was filmed on a WWII fighter plane (Corliss 79). However, when Steven was unable to find certain props or realistic backdrops, he simulated dogfights and plane crashes by editing in footage from a WWII documentary. Only a year later, in 1960, he featured the war family Jeep in his second film, Escape to Nowhere, which was an action picture in which GIs invaded a Nazi hideout in the Libyan Desert. Since his family had moved to Arizona in 1960, the Arizona desert near his house would easily replicate the simulation of the Libyan Desert. It is clear that Steven's love and knowledge of vis ual effects began many years before his creation of a mechanical great white shark in 1975. There have been many incidents throughout Steven's childhood that have made it into his films. At the age of six, Steven's father awoke him to witness a meteor shower in the middle of the night (Stein 2). In time this event would also find its way into his 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The grin of a clown, a deadly tree outside a window, and being afraid at night, all out of 1982's Poltergeist, were all born out of Steven's real childhood phobias (5). Influence for films such as 1993's Academy Award winning drama/documentary Schindler's List could be attributed Steven growing up in a Jewish family. Steven has recalled that during his days in school he felt discriminated from others for being apart of the only Jewish family within the whole community (Graham 530). During the Christmas season, he would be embarrassed that his family's house would be the only one without lights or decorations. When his father offered to place a menorah in the window, Steven responded, ?No!?People will think we're Jewish? (Graham 528). Steven has claimed to have learned his numbers as a toddler with the help of a concentration camp survivor who pointed out the numerals tattooed on his arm. However, it was at high school, where he was first exposed to anti-Semitic behavior. He would suffer verbal and sometimes physical abuse from other students. Making movies was definitely an escape for Steven who told the New York Post, ?I enjoy the sense of being transported and no longer thinking anyone is in the audience? (529). ?Nearly three years after finishing Escape to Nowhere, he made his first feature-length film Firelight. It was a two-and-a-half-hour science fiction epic about an investigation of mysterious lights in the sky. However, it was also a look at a rocky marriage. Could the couple within the film have been Arnold and Leah who