Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors in the filmmaking history. He did not graduate from a university, did not take any film classes. Spielberg is a self-taught director whose films totaled 2 billion dollars in domestic market only. He contributed to the modern movie industry a lot. He created his first movie in 1969.
However it was his next film that truly cemented Spielberg's reputation as a rising star. Jaws came out in 1975, andproved to be a tremendous success. It quickly established Spielberg's reputation and fame, also heralding a new era of blockbuster films with large gross revenues. When Jaws was released not even Spielberg himself could have imagined the impact it would have on contemporary cinema. The release of Jaws and shortly after George Lucas' Star Wars was a move towards big budget blockbusters and as many called it 'New Hollywood.'
Hollywood itself was in the midst of an aesthetic, cultural, and industrial reorientation, which wa s signalled most dramatically by the unprecedented box office successes of Jaws and Star Wars.
Spielberg's follow up, 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was another staggering success, employing state of the art special effects to document its story of contact with alien life. In 1981 Spielberg's teamed up with Producer George Lucas and actor Harrison Ford and introduced the world to Indiana Jones, an archaeologist and intrepid adventurer that became the most popular screen hero since James Bond. The film Raiders of the Lost Ark went on to be one of the biggest hits of the decade and later sequels The Temple of Dome (1984) and The Last Crusade (1989) were launched, as well as a short-lived television series. Shortly after Raiders of the Last Ark, Spielberg released ET - The Extra Terrestrial in 1982. This science fiction classic about a boy, who befriends an alien, is often regarded as his Spielberg's greatest artistic achievement. ET became one of the most comm ercially successful movies of all time and at the time of its release was the highest-grossing film ever made
After 1984's Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg directed a film called The Color Purple. It was an adaptation of Alice Walker's much honoured novel exploring the lives and struggles of a group of African-American women during the Depression years. The film went on to gross over 100 million dollars at the box office, later securing 11 Academy Award nominations.
A 1987 dramatisation of J.G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun was Spielberg's next picture, and was one of his few box-office disappointments, but Spielberg returned to form with 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Hook (1991) was Spielberg's long-awaited return to fantasy material. It was a lavish yet quirky update of the Peter Pan story starring Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, and Julia Roberts. Budgeted at over $60 million, the film received mi xed reviews and although doing better than original thought at the box office, Spielberg fell victim to a lot of criticism.
However in 1993 Spielberg returned with a vengeance with Jurassic Park, a $70 million adaptation of Michael Crichton's dinosaur disaster novel, represented a return to the kind of muscular adventure that had served him well in the past. This film consisted of superb special effects, which ranked among the most aggressively marketed films of all time. The result was a global blockbuster, with receipts coming in at over one billion dollars.
In the same year as Jurassic Park, Spielberg released Schindler's List. For once, he went against his instincts and made an impressively restrained black-and-white epic docudrama set during the Holocaust. The film achieved widespread critical praise and won two Academy Awards for best director and best picture. This was Spielberg's first Academy Award for best director, although the Academy of Motion Pictur e Arts and Sciences had honoured him with the Irving Thalberg Award in 1987. The film also collected Best Picture honours from the major critics organisations, in addition to seven British Academy Awards, including two for Spielberg. He also won the Golden Globe Award and was honoured by his peers with his second Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award, the first having come for The Color Purple. In February 1997, Schindler's List was seen by a television audience of 65 million people in NBC's unprecedented airing of the film in its entirety, without commercial interruption.
In 1994, Spielberg announced the formation of the new studio DreamWorks SKG, the first new film studio in nearly 50 years, in partnership with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Amistad (1997) was the first film directed by Spielberg under the new studio banner.
Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced eight of the top grossing films of all time. In 1997 he had back-to-back bl ockbuster hits with The Lost World: Jurassic Park which he directed, and Men in Black, which he executive produced.
Continuing to challenge himself artistically, Spielberg turned to World War II for another based on fact story, Saving Private Ryan (1998), about a team of soldiers selected to rescue a paratrooper, the only surviving member of a family of four who had served in the same unit.
Apart from the re-release of ET Spielberg's most recent Spielberg film was Artificial Intelligence staring
As well as directing all these films mentioned and many more Spielberg's has also served his own production company, Amblin as producer or executive producer on more than a dozen films. These films include such successes as Gremlins, The Goonies, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Flintstones and Casper.
As you can see Spielberg has help make some of all time most popular and most successful f ilms and has made a massive contribution to contemporary cinema. Considered one of the world's most famous living filmmakers, as a producer and director, Spielberg has become a household word and brand name. Many of Spielberg's films as a director are among the highest grossing in film history. What he has accomplished is perfecting the successful combination of the intimacy of a personal vision with the epic requirements of the modern commercial blockbuster.
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