Spielberg Reading Guide by Jewish Lives

READING GUIDE By David Kaufman

CONTENTS

Timeline

Discussion Questions

For Further Reading

About Jewish Lives

TIMELINE 1881–1921

Some two million East European Jewish immigrants arrive in the United States— including three of Steven Spielberg’s grandparents.

1890s

First public demonstrations of Thomas Alva Edison’s inventions of the Kinetoscope (in 1891), and the Vitascope (in 1896), prototypes of the motion picture camera and projector—and the movie industry is born.

1910s/ 20s

A group of entrepreneurial Jewish immigrants—men such as Samuel Goldwyn, William Fox, Carl Laemmle, Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers—expand the American film industry, creating the studio system and moving the location of their new business to Hollywood, CA.

1920s/ 30s

Auteurs such as Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, John Ford, Orson Welles (and a bit later, Alfred Hitchcock) establish the importance of the director in Hollywood filmmaking.

1930s/ 40s

A group of Jewish directors first emerges in Hollywood, all refugees from Nazi Germany, including Ernst Lubitsch, Josef von Sternberg, Max Ophuls, Michael Curtiz, Otto Preminger, and Billy Wilder.

Dec 18, 1946

Steven Spielberg is born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to parents Arnold and Leah (née Posner). Born just after World War II, Steven is both a “baby boomer” and a third generation American Jew.

1950s

The Spielberg family moves to suburban neighborhoods in New Jersey and Arizona.

1962

Sixteen-year-old Steven’s life is changed forever when he sees David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia.

1964

In his last year of high school, the amateur director premiers his first feature film, Firelight, and in the same year, begins work as an intern at Universal Studios.

1967

Impressed by Amblin’, an early directorial effort, studio head Sid Sheinberg signs the twenty-one-year-old to a seven-year deal in television. Over the next several years, during the height of the Sixties counterculture, Spielberg is a straight-laced workaholic, honing his craft as a journeyman TV director. 3

TIMELINE 1950s/ 60s

The first generation of American Jewish directors comes of age, including: Sidney Lumet, Paul Mazursky, Stanley Kramer, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Ritt, John Frankenheimer, and Mike Nichols.

1970s

A group of rebellious young film directors inaugurates the “New Hollywood” era. Prominent among them are three Italians (Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorcese), two WASPs (Robert Altman and George Lucas), and one Jew: Steven Spielberg.

1974

THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS, Spielberg’s first theatrical feature film, which critic Pauline Kael called “one of the most phenomenal debut films in the history of movies.”

1975

JAWS, the young director’s first major success and the original Hollywood summer blockbuster.

1977

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, competing that year with pal George Lucas’ Star Wars.

1981

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, “one of the highest-grossing films ever made,” it would spawn three sequels.

1982

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL, “so successful that it moved Spielberg from celebrity director to household name.”

1985

Spielberg marries actress Amy Irving, and has his first child, son Max.

1986

AN AMERICAN TAIL (Exec. Producer & Writer), an animated tale of an immigrant Jewish mouse named Feivel, the same name as Steven Spielberg’s own immigrant grandfather.

1990

Spielberg divorces from Irving and has child with actress Kate Capshaw, a daughter named Sasha. Around the same time, Capshaw converts to Judaism. They will soon marry and together raise seven children.

TIMELINE 1993

SCHINDLER’S LIST, “crowned by many as a masterpiece, . . . was nominated for twelve Oscars and won seven, including Best Picture and Best Director (Spielberg’s first).” With the proceeds from the film, Spielberg would create the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation (later, the USC Shoah Foundation). In the same year as the film, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is opened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Together, they mark the highpoint of Holocaust memory in America.

1994

Forms DreamWorks studio with fellow Jewish moguls Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

1998

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, for the 2nd time, a Spielberg film wins Best Picture and Best Director.

2001

A. I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, a posthumous collaboration with idol Stanley Kubrick (director of the 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey).

2002

MINORITY REPORT and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, have Spielberg working with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Leonardo DiCaprio. It will be Hanks’s second of four films made with his close friend (Saving Private Ryan, The Terminal, and Bridge of Spies are the others).

2005

MUNICH, an examination of the Arab-Israeli conflict, collaborating with playwright Tony Kushner.

2012

LINCOLN, the third of his films on the history of slavery and race relations in America (following 1985’s The Color Purple and 1997’s Amistad), again collaborating with Kushner to write the script.

2015

Spielberg is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

2017

Yale University Press publishes a new biography of Spielberg, and a new HBO documentary film entitled “Spielberg” comes out, as the by-now universally acclaimed “great American director” turns seventy.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS TO OPEN THE CONVERSATION, BEGIN BY ASKING: 1. What is your favorite Steven Spielberg movie, and why? 2. What was your impression of Spielberg before reading this book? Now? 3. Were you aware of his Jewish background prior to reading this book? What did it mean to you? How has this biography informed your thoughts on the Jewishness of Steven Spielberg? Which of his films is most compelling to his Jewish audience, and why—and what might that reveal about American Jews? 4. Finally, note that none of his films portray American Jews and the American Jewish experience (the only possible exception being an animated feature that he produced but did not direct). Given that fellow Jewish directors such as Woody Allen, Barry Levinson, the Coen Brothers, and Noah Baumbach regularly feature Jewish characters and themes in their films, what does this say about Spielberg? Is it fair to criticize him for this, and is it reasonable to expect something along these lines in the future?

INTRODUCING THE BOOK, STEVEN SPIELBERG: A LIFE IN FILMS: 1. The editors have chosen an interesting and even enigmatic photo of Spielberg for the cover. What were the editors trying to convey through this image? What does it say to you? 2. Yale University Press also made an interesting choice in selecting Molly Haskell as their author. Haskell is a New York-based film critic whose career has more or less coincided with Spielberg’s, and is a non-Jewish woman as well. On one hand she has great affinity with her subject; while on the other, she must observe him from a distance, as an “other.” What do you think of the editors’ choice?

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER 1. “Beginnings and the Lost Ark” – In chapter one, Haskell tells us of Spielberg’s family background. As with every other figure profiled in this Jewish Lives series, the implication is that one’s Jewish origin has some bearing on the adult life. In Spielberg’s case, the suggestion is that his films are refractions of his childhood experience, especially the feeling of being “alien” as the new kid in school, as an unathletic nerd, and as a Jew. Where do we see this in his films? Are you convinced by Haskell’s contention that a childhood memory of being startled by the eternal light over the ark in synagogue found its way into Spielberg’s later obsession with light effects and supernatural arks? What in Spielberg’s early career (that is, prior to his Jewish awakening with Schindler’s List) might we attribute to his Jewish roots? 6

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 2. “Steve Bites His Nails and Hears Voices” – In chapter two, we learn of Steven’s childhood in suburbia, as well of his vexed relationship with his grandfather Feivel. Once again, Haskell emphasizes Steven’s sense of alienation as a Jew, quoting him as saying, “Being a Jew meant that I was not normal. I was not like everybody else. I just wanted to be accepted.” She notes the prevalence of Christmas themes in his films, as well as the use of Hanukkah in An American Tail, the animated feature about an immigrant mouse named Feivel. As Haskell describes it, “Spielberg’s cartoon is founded on the American idea of assimilating and rising, but infused with a certain outsider ambivalence.” This, in a nutshell, is the American Jewish experience: Jews arrive and strive for success, but even as they find acceptance, they continue to feel as if they don’t quite fit in—at some level, they always remain fish out of water. Discuss, as this relates to your own life and identity. 3. “Arcadia: The Best and Worst of Times” – Chapter three relates Spielberg’s early filmmaking experiments as a youngster in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he lived from age nine to sixteen. His first feature, a sci-fi film called Firelight, actually had a theatrical run (premiering on March 24, 1964). His mother called him “Cecil B. DeSpielberg” and Haskell compares him to Steve Jobs. In both cases, a “normal” adolescence was sacrificed in favor of professional ambition, and a creative genius was born. What drove the young Spielberg? Was it merely the love of cinema, or something more? 4. “The Kid with the Briefcase” – Chapter four covers Spielberg’s apprenticeship at Universal Studios. The first film he made there was Amblin’, followed by Duel and The Sugarland Express. All three were road films, following their protagonists on a suspenseful chase. What is the significance of such movement through space in the life of Steven Spielberg, throughout his film oeuvre, and in the Jewish experience writ large? 5. “Jaws ‘Open Wide’” – Chapter five explores the story of Spielberg’s first blockbuster, his professional breakthrough. Haskell emphasizes the casting of the three main roles, especially the oceanographer Hooper, played by Richard Dreyfuss. “For the director,” she writes, “he represented ‘the underdog in all of us.’” Moreover, he was a natural Spielberg stand-in: “Jewish, smart, hyper, and a rapid-fire talker.” Do you agree? Does the Dreyfuss character read as “Jewish?” Is he the “Spielberg” of the film? If so, what do the other male leads symbolize—the responsible sheriff Brody played by Roy Scheider, and the crusty shark-hunter Quint played by Robert Shaw? Most provocatively, Haskell suggests that the fearsome shark represents “the threat [to men] posed by the women’s movement” of the 1970s, adding, “Like woman, the shark is threatening because she is shadowy and ubiquitous, everywhere and nowhere.” Discuss.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 6. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” – A second film starring Richard Dreyfuss, here he is the working father losing touch with his family, the naïve visionary powerfully attracted to supernatural phenomena. Haskell calls it “a Hollywood film with religious conviction.” Do you agree? Is there some grappling with spirituality on the director’s part? Once again, the complexities of the character suggest a Spielberg stand-in. Discuss the parallel between the key role in Close Encounters and the film’s director, as well as the depiction of fathers in other Spielberg films. Moreover, the climactic scene of the film has a team of scientists communicate with an alien spaceship through the media of sound and light. Rather than depend on the written or spoken word, the ultimate “close encounter” employs the visual and aural tools of cinema instead. How might this relate to director Spielberg’s point of view? How might it relate to religious experience? 7. “1941 and Raiders of the Lost Ark” – Covering a flop and yet another major success, this chapter also discusses Spielberg’s relationship with actress Amy Irving, which ended just before he shot Raiders. The romantic relationship in the film between Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and Marion (Karen Allen), might be said to reflect his own recent break-up. Haskell describes “Karen Allen as Indy’s on-again-off-again love interest and sometime ally, [who] is another deglamorized Spielberg woman, a cartoonish gin-slinging tomboy who will soon be wearing dresses and screaming for help.” Discuss Spielberg’s treatment of women in his films. 8. “E.T., Poltergeist, and Twilight Zone” – For many moviegoers, E.T. is the Spielberg film that most enchanted them at a young age. As Haskell writes: “The movie touched millions and showed just how deeply in tune with his audience Spielberg was.” Discuss your own response to the film, and consider why it achieved that rarest of encomia, a ‘”timeless classic.” 9. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and The Color Purple – The Color Purple, Spielberg’s first “prestige film” based on Alice Walker’s award winning novel of black life in the deep South, was criticized for among other things being inappropriately directed by a white man. Do you agree with this assessment? 10. “Empire of the Sun” – “Another Spielberg movie centered on a child.” Discuss the treatment of children in Spielberg films. 11. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Always, and Hook – Hook, an update on the children’s classic Peter Pan, can be interpreted in many ways. In the context of Spielberg’s career, consider how the “child in the adult” is a positive attribute, related to aspects of the human experience such as creativity and joy. 12. “Schindler’s List, Jurassic Park, and the Shoah Foundation” – Schindler’s List is often considered Spielberg’s masterpiece and was undoubtedly a major monument in the production of Holocaust memory. What are your own memories of seeing the film? What did you learn from it about the Holocaust? Do you agree with its “masterpiece” status, and why? As Haskell relates, not everyone was unequivocally positive about the film. In your view, which of the critiques might be valid? How, for example, does the film

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS treat the question of the motivation of the Nazi perpetrators—do either the history or ideology of AntiSemitism appear in the film? Second, how does it speak to the critical question of bystander behavior— that is, how many of the millions of European bystanders became Oskar Schindlers? And last, how does it portray Jews—as faceless and passive victims, or as fully dimensional human beings who resisted in myriad ways? 13. Amistad and The Lost World: Jurassic Park – Amistad, a second film about Black history, was “a critical and commercial failure.” Yet Haskell reviews the film quite positively, as a courageous and pathbreaking “direct confrontation with slavery.” But what, after all, do Jews know about slavery? Do they, as often asserted, have an affinity with African-Americans due to parallel histories of enslavement? Discuss. 14. “Saving Private Ryan and A.I.” – From a Jewish perspective, Saving Private Ryan is more than a classic WWII action film. It is also a film by the Jewish director of Schindler’s List about the American wartime opposition to and ultimate defeat of the Nazis, the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Discuss this subtext of the film, paying close attention to the scenes in the military cemetery, and to the explicitly Jewish character, one of the G.I.s sent to save Ryan—Private Stanley Mellish, played by Adam Goldberg. 15. “Minority Report and Catch Me if You Can” – Both these films include a touching—and touchy— relationship between an older and younger man, surrogate fathers-sons. What was Spielberg’s relationship to his own father, and how did it evolve over time? How was it expressed in his films? 16. “The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich” – Munich was an extremely brave foray into the morass of Middle East politics. Without rehearsing all of the arguments raised by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how does Spielberg (and scriptwriter Tony Kushner) choose to deal with the subject? As an attempt to offer some form of reconciliation between conflicting worldviews, how does it succeed? 17. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Adventures of Tintin, and War Horse” – A short four-page chapter, does this perhaps reflect the trajectory of Spielberg? In his sixties, a grandfather, has he perhaps outgrown the kind of popular entertainments that made his career in the first place? 18. “Lincoln and Bridge of Spies” – His two most recent successes may provide an answer. Both period pieces about American politics, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies represent the triumph of two key principles in Spielberg’s film career. The first is the critical importance of history and historical memory, whether of the individual or of society on the whole. The second is the central value of democracy, equality. Hence, in the final analysis, how do we assess the career of this most historical and democratic of filmmakers? How might his emphases on memory and equality be related to his own American Jewish identity? Is there really any meaningful distinction between a great filmmaker and his films?

FOR FURTHER READING Awalt, Steven, Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) Biskind, Peter, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock-’n’-Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (Simon & Schuster, 1999) Brode, Douglas, The Films of Steven Spielberg (Citadel, 1996) Desser, David, and Friedman, Lester, American Jewish Filmmakers (University of Illinois Press, 2003) Friedman, Lester, Citizen Spielberg (University of Illinois Press, 2006); and Notbohm, Brent, eds., Steven Spielberg: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, Conversations with Filmmakers Series, 2000) Gabler, Neil, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (NY: Crown, 1988) Gonshak, Henry, Hollywood and the Holocaust (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) Kendrick, James, Darkness in the Bliss-Out: A Reconsideration of the Films of Steven Spielberg (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014) LaPorte, Nicole, The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010) Loshitzky, Yosefa, ed., Spielberg’s Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler’s List (Indiana University Press, 2000) McBride, Joseph, Steven Spielberg: A Biography (University Press of Mississippi, 2010) Phillips, Julia, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again (NY: Random House, 1991) Quirke, Antonia, Jaws (London: British Film Institute, 2002) Rice, Julian, Kubrick’s Story, Spielberg’s Film: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017) Rubel, David, and Bouzereau, Laurent, Lincoln, A Steven Spielberg Film: A Cinematic and Historical Companion (Disney Editions Deluxe, 2013) Schickel, Richard, Steven Spielberg: A Retrospective (Sterling, 2012) Shone, Tom, Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer (NY: Free Press, 2004) Silet, Charles, ed., The Films of Steven Spielberg: Critical Essays (Scarecrow Press, 2002) 10

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