Previous Next Latest

Steven Spielberg: The Private Horrors of Hollywood’s Blockbuster King

4/26/07, 5:18 pm EST

Steven Spielberg, interviewed by Rolling Stone for its fortieth anniversary issueFor our fortieth anniversary, the editors of Rolling Stone have interviewed twenty artists and leaders who helped shape our time. Over the next four weeks, every day, we’ll be debuting exclusive audio clips from the Q&As, giving you unparalleled access to some of the most important personalities in history.

Today we present the man who helped reshape Hollywood forever, and one of the most influential visual artists of the past three decades: Steven Spielberg. Throughout his two-time Best Director Oscar-winning career, Spielberg has made sharks scarier than serial killers, aliens adorable and the Holocaust an entertaining cinematic experience. Plus, Indiana Jones kicks ass. To salute he who keeps us eating the popcorn, we feature four audio excerpts of Steven Spielberg talking to our own man of the movies, Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, about the next generation of filmmakers, growing up with a camera’s eye and not meeting Alfred Hitchcock. To read the complete interview, be sure to pick up your own copy of our fortieth anniversary issue, on stands now.

  • Spielberg, who helped revolutionize Hollywood, talks about the next wave of revolutionaries — the YouTube generation: “This whole thing about reality television to me is really indicative of America saying we’re not satisfied just watching television, we want to star in our own TV shows. We want you to discover us and put us in your own TV show and we want television to be about us finally…”
  • Every time you watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you’re sharing Spielberg’s pain: “I was a scared kid…I think I was born a nervous wreck, and I think movies were one way to find a way transferring my own private horrors to everyone else’s lives. It was less of an escape and more of an exorcism…”
  • Spielberg discusses the youthful aesthetics that went into making his early films: “My films reflected how much fun I was having being a movie director. I wasn’t taking myself seriously…”
  • Evidently, Alfred Hitchcock prefers thrillers about psychos and birds to that of sharks: “I was only on two Hitchcock sets. Ironically, I was thrown off both of them. And they were a decade apart…”

Check back tomorrow for the next installment of our twenty-part audio interviews, featuring some of the most iconic and influential pop culture figures of the last 40 years. Want a hint at tomorrow’s interviewee? He told us this:

The trouble with rock music is that it tends to trivialize things unless you’re very careful. I find it’s much easier to write love songs than it is to write about the times we live in.


Previous Next Latest

Comments

THX-1138 | 4/26/2007, 6:50 pm EST

I agree with the introduction, but I wouldn’t exactly refer to Schindler’s List as “entertaining.” That would be more along the lines of a painful, but necessary catharsis. Great interview though. I never knew anyone still used the term “gentile.”

www.cafepress.com/lecc25 | 4/26/2007, 10:22 pm EST

Oh, it’s that Grey old man with a beard and a red sport car, one of those roadsters. he’s david Wats younger brother?

http://www.cafepress.co m/lecc25

www.cafepress.com/lecc25 | 4/26/2007, 10:22 pm EST

cafepress.com/lecc25

Jarrod | 4/26/2007, 10:28 pm EST

It’s don’t like how Spielberg has fallen in step with the common critical narrative of his body of work. “Before Schindler’s List Spielberg was just a kid playing in a sandbox, and then he finally made something incredible.”

I mean, he may not believe he was taking himself seriously, but I believe the Indiana Jones films, Jaws and Close Encounters are better than Schindler’s List. Also Empire of the Sun for that matter.

Short Movie Anyone? | 4/26/2007, 11:42 pm EST

no!
it’s nose-a-dead or nosea-dead? same with “c” and “d”. Then there’s the rishi series. rishi-7, movies. anyway, must go, nothing works on this thing because it cuts the addresses in bits.
see you all next week. Don’t forget May Day.

E.T | 4/27/2007, 8:59 am EST

ELLIOT!!!!
OUCH!!!!
OOOOOOOO OOOOOHHHHH

Darth Pop-Tart | 4/27/2007, 12:29 pm EST

Speilberg is a power-house filmmaker plain and simple.

Just_saw_JAWS_for_1st_time | 4/28/2007, 3:30 pm EST

I was born in 1983 and I just saw JAWS on DVD. I’ve refused to see it for such a long time because I only had a vague childhood memory of the movie scaring the crap out of me. And to this day, watching any under water footage makes me nervous. But, I saw JAWS today. And it was scary and fun. I found myself flinching and cussing out loud at the same time during those “boo!” moments in the film. Can’t wait till Indy 4 and the Lincoln movie. And despite what Spielberg said about the Y generation wanting to multi-task, etc. I think watching a feature film on an iPod is retarded. Nothing could replace the dark and silent cavern that is the movie theater. Reality TV bites. Long live the cinema!

LKK | 5/7/2007, 10:30 am EST

spielberg is one of the all time greats with endless talent .. however i was sad to hear a rumor from very credible sources that he actually stole the idea for ET from Indian Oscar winning giant Satyajit Ray ……. who knows?

hgg | 5/13/2007, 6:51 pm EST

rtggfddd

zizo | 7/30/2007, 5:19 am EST

emerald rings and gold rings http://www.emeraldring.fora.pl

kilka | 7/31/2007, 1:32 am EST

kilka | 7/31/2007, 1:32 am EST

shelly | 12/18/2007, 2:00 pm EST

I consider Spielberg a superb film maker on par with the alltime bests. With a career spanning over 30 years covering blockbusters such as Jaws, Indy films, Close Encounters, ET, etc…plus Oscar winners Schindler’s List (my fav film), Saving Private Ryan, Oscar nom Munich. NO one can top his legacy. He seems very accessable, terrific story teller (from what I’ve seen on TV). I just want to thank him for all he has given us, the movie loving public.

skzntjeaq xwacbui | 6/4/2008, 4:23 pm EST

ezksitond zmiunq mxhyiqbza qpxands gzphl aoic lxadt

Post A Comment

Caution: Off-topic comments will be deleted

Name:

Comments:



Advertisement

Advertisement