Spielberg Page #9

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You cut me

and I'll kill you.

Spielberg:

I was looking for a different

perception of myself.

And if I didn't want

to consciously

make a departure

and prove something,

not just to myself

but to everyone else,

I might not have chosen

"Color Purple" as my next movie.

But it was my first

really mature film,

which took on, you know,

substantive, humanistic

subject matter.

I was turning 40

and I was looking at life

perhaps less optimistically.

And so, I knew

this was gonna be

a very sobering journey,

and I was willing

to take it on.

All my life

I had to fight.

I had to fight my daddy,

I had to fight my uncles,

I had to fight

my brothers.

A girl child ain't safe

in a family of mens,

but I ain't never thought

I had to fight in my own house!

I loves Harpo.

God knows I do,

but I'll kill him dead

before I let him beat me.

Oprah Winfrey:

For Steven to even

take on this material

was a really big deal,

because you're messing

in some territory

where if you get it wrong,

then you get a lot

of people upset.

He wanted to create not only

an African-American worldview,

but a matriarchal world

in the presence

of patriarchal repression

and violence.

And I truly believe

that he wanted

to stretch himself in a way

that he never had before.

Hoberman:

And he does push himself,

but he's not gonna push

himself too far in advance--

the audience

or maybe his own,

you know,

core inclination.

He don't ever ask me

how I feel.

Just never asked me

nothing about myself.

Just climb on top of me,

do his business.

"Do his business"?

Do his bu--

why, Miss Celie,

you sound like

he going to the toilet

on you.

That's what it feel like.

Spielberg:

I got in trouble

with several critics

who didn't like

that I shied away

from the love story

between Shug and Celie.

And the scene

where Shug Avery shows Celie,

with a mirror, her vagina,

that that did not

go into the movie,

which would've

really changed

the entire nature and tone

of the film.

I just didn't go

for the full monty

the way the book did.

I might've done that

had I made the movie

10 years later.

I was just timid.

I was just a little embarrassed.

I just wasn't

the right guy to do that.

Kennedy:

Steven was telling

the story that Alice wrote,

and he was trying

to access that

from his personal

point of view.

He could never go

where Alice went

with that book.

( music playing )

Maslin:

That book was appreciated

for its grit and its realism,

and neither of those

were qualities that

he was known for.

He was just asking for it

by even going anywhere

near that.

Edelstein:

Nobody really wanted

Steven Spielberg

to be a gritty filmmaker.

That wasn't

his sensibility.

But with

"The Color Purple,"

colors are exact,

the settings have been built

from the ground up

according

to his specifications.

There's something so false

and so Disney storyboard-like

about that movie.

Geffen:

You know, he wanted

to make a prettier picture

than was intended

in the text.

That's Steven.

He wants to make

everything like that.

He wants to make

life like that.

I have a baby

on the way,

and the child is going

to change my life.

- It already has, in a way.

- Shalit:
Are you nervous

about it or what?

I'm not nervous

about it at all, no.

I just think

it's the best thing

that's ever happened

to me and to Amy.

We really can't wait

for this.

Spielberg:

I think the destiny

of Amy and I

was to bring Max

into the world,

which was such

a beautiful thing.

Before that,

I'm not sure I knew

what a personal life was.

I thought life began

with, you know,

"Action!"

And then, "Cut!"

After my mom and dad

broke up,

I always thought

that I would do my best

that if I ever decided

someday to get married,

I wouldn't get divorced.

And then,

of course, I did.

( music playing )

Divorce in any situation

is painful.

And it's especially

painful for me

because I am a child

of divorce

and I know

what it felt like.

And so, you know,

I felt terrible for Max,

that he had

to endure that.

- ( music playing )

- ( people shouting )

- Jamie:
My plane.

- Jamie! Jamie!

Mom?

- Mom?

- Frank Marshall:

"Empire of the Sun"

was about this young boy

growing up in Shanghai

who gets separated

from his parents

during

the Japanese invasion.

Mommy!

- Jamie!

- Mommy!

And he goes through

a tremendous transformation

and growing-up process.

Spielberg:

It was playing on

what I knew were my strengths,

being able

to take the dark,

grim reality of war

and put it

with a child's approach

in the way

this particular special child

saw that war.

( crowd clamoring )

Spielberg:

It was based

on the experiences

that J.G. Ballard had

in a Japanese

internment camp.

Jim was a lost boy

trying to figure out

where he belongs

in this world.

It's a movie about

growing up too quickly

and abandoning everything

that you once used

to keep yourself safe.

When you have nothing

to keep yourself safe,

you become a survivor

like all the rest,

and you grow up

awfully quickly.

Christian Bale:

It's an extraordinary story

of the resilience

of children,

this incredible survivor

who manages to have

more fortitude to him

than, really,

any of the adults

around him.

Scorsese:

It's in the great tradition

of epic filmmaking.

That sports stadium

at the end when all the goods,

all the stuff

that had been stolen

is there,

the surrealism of that

and what it makes you feel

at that time and place,

the sense of what

the world was like,

how it had fallen apart,

all of civilization.

( music playing )

Scorsese:

And then, something even

more disturbingly beautiful,

and that is the glow

from the atom bomb.

It's like

a soul transcending

into another life.

Mrs. Victor.

This is very poetic

and... mystical.

- ( man speaks Japanese )

- ( boy singing in Welsh )

Stoppard:

This was war

and it was death

and real horror.

And it was like

an end of innocence

for the Spielberg child.

( children's choir

singing in Welsh )

Stoppard:

I think it was

a truly great film,

but, for me,

it ultimately shaded

into an unnecessary softness

or sentimentality.

I don't know

where it comes from,

but he likes

and enjoys sentiment.

It's part of him.

Scott:

At the time, he was not

dismissed, exactly,

by a lot of critics,

but sort of looked at

a little skeptically.

"Oh, he wants

to be serious now.

Oh, he's trying to make

serious movies.

Oh, now he wants it"--

which, I mean--

it's such

a kind of nasty thing

to say about any artist.

Kennedy:

It definitely hurt

his feelings.

I don't think anybody

as an artist

wants to feel like

they're being pigeonholed

in a way that other people

are determining who they are.

And when Steven

began to explore

other kinds

of more serious stories,

they were very reluctant

to let him do that.

That was like,

"How dare you,

Steven Spielberg?

We've determined that you make

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