Spielberg Page #4

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( music playing )

Brolin:

I had wanted to direct,

and Steven walks in,

and he's a kid!

And I'm envious as hell

right away.

Scorsese:

Steven's able

to walk into a room,

look for a second or two,

say, "Here. Here.

Move that here.

Give me a 25mm here.

Put it this way.

Face forward.

Move it.

Silhouette here.

Two takes, three takes.

That's enough. Thanks.

Let's move on."

It was amazing.

Steven Bochco:

Steven had a gear

in his brain

that automatically translated

words into pictures

almost without it being

a conscious process for him.

There was a unique

visual voice there

that you had to not only

pay attention to,

but you had to give

somewhat of a free rein to.

( music playing )

Spielberg:

My early themes always had

the underdog being pursued

by indomitable forces

of both nature

and natural enemies,

and that person has to rise

to the occasion to survive.

And a lot of that

comes just from

the insecurities

I felt as a kid

and how that bled over

into the work.

I was always the kid

with the big bully,

and "Duel" was my life

in the schoolyard.

The truck was the bully,

and the car was me.

( horn honks )

George Lucas:
I was over

at Francis Coppola's,

and "Duel"

was gonna be shown

that night,

so I sort of snuck away

from the party

and said,

"I wanna see this film.

I wanna see what this kid did."

I was sort of on the fence

about Steven.

I said,

"Knows what he's doing,

nice, but a little

too Hollywoody for my taste."

I saw "Amblin',"

and I thought "Amblin'"

was nice,

but it wasn't-- you know,

it was very, very flashy.

It was very,

very professional.

And for the rest of us,

we were all rough-edged,

crazy guys that were doing

much more dirty work.

So, I thought,

"Well, I'll watch

the first half hour

and just see

what he's up to."

And I ended up watching

the whole thing.

And I came down to Francis,

I said, "This guy's amazing.

You really gotta look

at this film."

( cash register dings )

Edelstein:

Right off the bat,

it was clear

that no one moved the camera

like Steven Spielberg.

- ( bell rings )

- ( billiard balls clack )

Edelstein:

Other directors had

a fantastic sense of space.

Orson Welles,

you name it,

people who understood

composition.

But the way

that Spielberg's camera

moved through a shot

and then ended up somewhere

that completely shifted

or intensified the emotion

of the scene,

that was just

a natural gift he had.

Who knows

where that came from.

Who-- but it was

his own technique.

Francis Ford Coppola:

"Duel" was a composition

that had a very elusive

and interesting theme.

You know,

this unknown menace.

Everyone's been on a road

and some idiot has crossed

in front of you,

and, you know, you're tempted

to rev up fast

and go do something

nasty to him.

And here he took this

and made it into a parable.

( horn honking )

Spielberg:

When ABC saw "Duel,"

they were very excited

by what they were seeing.

But at the very, very end

when the truck did not explode

in a pyrotechnics display,

George Eckstein

called me and said,

"Network's really upset

that the truck didn't blow up,

so they're ordering us

to go back to that cliff

and blow the truck up."

And I said,

"I'm not gonna do it."

The death of the truck

is so agonizing.

I said, "I made

that truck die slowly."

The oil, like blood, dripping

off the steering wheel.

The wheel slowly rolling

to a stop.

The fan still going,

but the truck's dying.

I mean, it's the death

of the truck.

That's what the audience

wants to see.

This criminal element

paying--

you know, paying the price

for what it did to this man.

I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't blow up the truck.

Bochco:

For Steven, the little screen

was an interesting canvas,

and obviously he painted

on it very well,

but he knew

that this screen

simply wasn't

a large enough canvas.

( music playing )

Vilmos Zsigmond:

He's a director who know

how important

cinematography is,

and the way Steven directed

"Sugarland Express"

was so fresh,

you know,

because everything

was on location.

And half of the movie

was inside of a police car.

And that was

difficult thing to--

to keep that alive

all the time.

You know, the angles

and all that.

I see lights,

a whole bunch.

Spielberg:

For me, directing

is camerawork,

and so I'm very

on the front line of that.

I've gotta set up the shot,

I've gotta block the actors,

choreograph the movement

of the scene,

bring the camera

into the choreography,

figure out

when the camera stops,

how it moves,

how far it moves,

what the composition is,

so I've always got

my eye on the lens,

and that's what I do.

I even pick the lens

I want.

( music playing )

Scorsese:

His strength

is really the ability

to be able to tell a story

in pictures instinctively.

I sometimes watch

his pictures on TV

without the sound

just to see the pictures.

( music playing )

Edelstein:
Pauline Kael,

one of the most influential

film critics of all time,

wrote in "The New Yorker"

that Steven Spielberg had made

one of the most

phenomenal debuts

in the history of film.

She compared him

to Howard Hawks

in terms of how natural

his feel for the medium was.

What Kael

saw in Spielberg

was someone

with a real movie sense,

but she also said

she wasn't necessarily sure

there was great depth

to go with it.

She didn't see a sign

of an emerging film artist

like Martin Scorsese.

What she saw instead

was the birth

of a new generation

Hollywood hand.

( music playing )

Spielberg:

Martin Scorsese,

filmmaker of "Mean Streets."

This is Brian De Palma,

loud as ever.

( chatter )

- George and Marcia Lucas.

- Hi!

And this is Steven.

Get the camera arranged.

Great.

Time has come today

Young hearts

can go their way...

Scorsese:

In the mid to late '60s,

there was a major change

in the Hollywood

studio system.

It was a very different world

they had to serve,

and there was

a new freedom, too.

Brian De Palma:

So, suddenly the doors were

open for young directors

with very crazy,

seemingly original ideas.

It's almost like, you know,

crashing a party.

( laughs )

Yeah, people

were on the way out,

and we were going in.

Lucas:

We were absolutely obsessed

with movies,

but we certainly

didn't look at it

as a career.

We didn't think we were ever

gonna make any money at it.

De Palma:

There was George

and Francis,

and then there was

Marty and me,

and then

there was Steven.

We came

from different places,

but needless to say,

we were always very happy

to be together.

When we got together,

it was like a fraternity

of directors.

George, put the camera

on the table, on--

I'm gonna hit a ball

into the lens,

and you pick the camera up

at the last moment.

When I got into the group

of the Movie Brats,

as somebody

once called us,

I never--

it was the first time

I felt like an insider.

- ( music playing )

- ( chatter )

Spielberg:

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