SPIELBERG, STEVEN

born Dec. 18, 1947, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. American motion-picture director and producer whose highly entertaining and escapist films enjoyed unprecedented popularity. An amateur filmmaker even before he entered high school, Spielberg attracted the attention of Universal Pictures with a short film he made about the time of his graduation from California State College, Long Beach (1970). For Universal he directed television episodes and television films, including the thriller Duel (1971), whose success enabled Spielberg to begin making theatrically released motion pictures. The first of these, The Sugarland Express (1974), was followed in 1975 by Jaws, a highly praised thriller that became one of the highest-grossing films ever and established many of the touchstones of Spielberg's work. In the typical Spielberg film, an ordinary but sympathetic main character has his conceptions enlarged through a confrontation with some extraordinary being or force that gradually reveals itself as the narrative unfolds. Among these antagonists are a homicidal truck driver in Duel, a great white shark in Jaws, extraterrestrial aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Nazi artifact hunters in quest of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a whimsical alien in E.T.the Extraterrestrial (1982), and dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993). Spielberg used rich colour cinematography, brisk editing, a memorable musical soundtrack, and inventive special effects to create a cinematic experience that was typically light yet highly suspenseful. Though Spielberg enjoyed tremendous popular success with these films, his skill at broad storytelling and audience manipulation hampered his attempts at more complex and adult filmmaking. While generally well received, The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987), in the view of many critics, lacked emotional depth or insight. Schindler's List (1993), the true story of a group of Polish Jews who avoided extermination by the Nazis through the heroic actions of a German industrialist, quieted many of Spielberg's critics. Shot in black and white and with unflinching detail, it won Academy Awards for best picture and best director in 1994. The aggressive commercialism and childlike simplicity of Spielberg's films became the prevailing style in Hollywood in the 1980s. His pervasive influence was recognized in 1987 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which honoured him with the Irving G. Thalberg Award. Spielberg was also the executive producer of films by such directors as Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante, and Martin Scorsese. In 1994 Spielberg joined with studio executives Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form DreamWorks SKG, an entertainment company created to produce films, animation, and television programs. Additional reading Philip M. Taylor, Steven Spielberg: The Man, His Movies, and Their Meaning, new expanded ed. (1994).