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It's a great responsibility. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamas. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the story. Wildfires continue to be a threat.
With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For NBC News, NBC News, NBC News, I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night.
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We've done your homework. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star. and the American people, coming to you from where the West begins. In Fort Worth, Texas. Steven Spielberg has been wholeheartedly embraced by both mainstream audiences and critics alike throughout his long and prolific career.
He is universally regarded by both his peers and film historians. It's one of the greatest American filmmakers. in history. Here's his story. Stephen Allen Spielberg was born on December 18, 1946 in Ohio.
World War II was over. and the country was finally getting back to normal. Stephen grew up in suburbia with his three sisters. His Jewish parents, Leah and Arnold, were the children of immigrants. Arnold, a World War II vet, loved science and machines.
After finishing his studies in electrical engineering, he quickly found work in the brand new field of computer science. Here's Steven Spielberg. He was on the team that engineered the first commercial data processor at RCA in the early 50s. And my mom is a concert penis, so they got my attention in two different directions. It was difficult to find a place where the family could put down roots because Arnold was such an outstanding engineer.
He was always being offered new and better jobs. which meant that the Spielbergs moved a lot. Going from one school to another was hard for Stephen. He was always the new boy in class. His refuge was a cluttered bedroom.
and he wrote stories instead of doing his homework. Stephen often longed for a friend who was different like he was.
Sometimes he thought that a small kindly alien would be ideal. When he was required to read A Tale of Two Cities, Stephen's doodles opened up his future.
So, what I did was, I just made little stick figures in the dog-eared sections of the book, you know, anime. one frame at a time different positions and it was like a flipbook and I just did flip books and and saw these images come to life. And that was the first time I actually was able to create an image that moved. on the pages of that classic. In 1957, Stephen's life changed when his father Arnold received a movie camera as a Father's Day gift from his wife.
The 11-year-old Stephen couldn't wait to use it. At first, he staged film crashes with his Lionel Trains and watched the films over and over. He thought they were great. His dad's movies, on the other hand, were blurry and boring. Stephen had lots of suggestions for improving them, but his father had a better idea.
He simply gave Stephen the camera.
So I took over the camera and I began to make little stories. My three sisters, younger sisters, sold tickets to these little eight millimeter movies I was making. They go door to door to door to door selling tickets. In 1958, he became a Boy Scout and made a nine-minute film titled The Last Gunfight. to earn his merit badge in photography.
Spielberg cast his fellow scouts as cowboys, and when he screened it for them, the troop went wild, shouting, whistling, and cheering. In that moment, Stephen later said, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. He was twelve years old. Here's Spielberg on how it all started. I was infatuated.
with the control. that movies gave me in creating a sequence of events or a feeling or a train wreck with two linel trains That I could then repeat and see over and over and over again. And I think it was just the realization that. I could change the way I perceive life. through another medium.
to make it come out better for me. And when I realized I could make life better for me through this little 8mm rinky-dink medium, I felt really good about my life, myself, and possibly bringing some other people into this amazing medium to enjoy what I was putting together. Young Spielberg didn't play sports and could barely run a mile. He was practically invisible to girls. He was short and skinny.
And He was Jewish. Living in Phoenix, a city with very few Jewish families, made him. A little different. But with a camera. He was less lonely and less of an outsider.
While making these films, he found out that giving his classmates acting parts was like inviting them to a really great party. and they all wanted to come. In high school, he attained the rank of Eagle Scout before finding out that his family were moving again. This time, it was to Saratoga, California, where his dad would be working for IBM. For Stephen, Far worse than the move was the news that his parents were separating.
It was the unhappiest time in his life. Yet The move brought him much closer to the center of the film industry. The chance came the summer before his senior year of high school. while visiting cousins in Los Angeles. Stephen took a tour of Universal Studios.
They gave everybody a bathroom break about midday and I got off to go to the bathroom. and I hid in the stall. And I waited until it was really quiet in the bathroom, assuming everybody had left and gotten back on the bus and left again. And I came out a half an hour later. I was free.
I was on the Universal Studios lot. but uh spent the whole afternoon just Walking in and out of doors, basically sound stages and cutting rooms, and took my own tour and had an amazing time. At the end of the day, I went to borrow a telephone. To call my cousin to come pick me up and I fortuitously borrowed the telephone of the Universal Studios film librarian, a man named Chuck Silvers. who asked me what I was doing there.
I told him the story I just told you. And he laughed and thought that had a lot of chutzpah and showed ambition and showed that I really wanted to be a director, or at least I wanted to break into the business in some way. And he gave me a three-day pass on his own name. And I did that. And then I came back on the end of the third day.
And so I took a shot. At maybe the guard would recognize me without having to show him my papers. And so on the fourth day, I Same clothes. walked onto the lot and waved at Scotty, the guard, Remember, Scotty? Scotty waved back.
The next two and a half months during summer vacation, I was on the lot five days a week, every day for two and a half months until school began. And you've been listening to Greg Hengler and to Steven Spielberg himself telling the story of his early life. And at twelve, discovering that he was infatuated with the control movies gave him. and gave him a direction that would allow him to make a better life for himself. when we come back more of the life of Steven Spielberg here on our American stories.
Lee Habib here again, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every story we air here is uploaded there daily, and your support goes a long way to keeping the great stories you love from this show. Coming. Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast at the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Full disclosures at public.com/slash disclosures. Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75-year-old broadcast. It's a great responsibility. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamas.
You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the store. Wildfires continue to be a threat. With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth.
For NBC News, NBC News. I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas, evenings on NBC. Yeah.
Hold up, we got one play. Everything we work for comes down to this. Quick question. Speaking of workouts, how would you rate your athletic program? Bro, we're in the middle of the state championship.
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Greenlight.com slash iHeart. And we continue with our American stories and the life of Steven Spielberg. Let's return to Greg Henry. Stephen roamed the sound stages taking notes. One day he found an empty office on the lot.
So he called the switchboard and had the office's phone hooked up. Then, with his fake office as a base, he spent his days hanging around sets, talking with directors, editors, and actors, and learned everything he could about the business. It was the education of his dreams. Even getting kicked off an Alfred Hitchcock set was a thrill. Returning to high school for his senior year was quite a letdown.
Zoe was getting rejected by the film schools at the University of Southern California, USC, and the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA, because of his poor grades. The only school that would take him was California State at Long Beach. and it didn't even have a film department. Stephen didn't want to go, but his parents felt differently.
So he enrolled as an English major, went to as few classes as possible, and spent most of his time at Universal Studios as an unpaid intern. In order to get a paying job at Universal Studios, Stephen had to persuade people to take a look at his films.
So Spielberg wrote and shot a short love story and showed it to the execs at Universal. They loved it and offered him a seven-year contract to direct television. Spielberg confessed later. I quit college so fast, I didn't even clean out my locker. I think when I came back on the lot this time professionally, the first thing I realized when I moved into my official office, not my illegal office, but my legal office, was I knew where all the sound stages were, I knew where post-production was, I knew where the back lot was, I knew where all the bathrooms were, especially the one I hid in when I first got off the bus.
And I felt like I had come home. I felt like Universal Studios had always been my home, was ordained to be my home for the rest of my life. And I felt very, very much at home. Spielberg's first job at Universal was directing an early episode of Night Gallery, a series of spooky half-hour shows with twisty surprise endings.
Now, I was doing my first television show starring Joan Crawford, no less. And the average age of the crew was 50. And I realized that, oh my God, this was the crew that made my favorite movies of all time. This was the generation that had produced the golden age of Hollywood. And when I showed up with my...
acne and my long hair and the viewfinder pretentiously around my neck like some kind of a a talisman that would protect me from all evil. Um I think they took one look at me and they said, This kid better prove himself quickly or he's out of here. Because I remember being greeted by tremendous hostility from the crew, from the motion picture crew. And the only friends I had on that first television show were my actors. Surprisingly, maybe not so surprisingly, Barry Sullivan, Tom Bosley, Joan Crawford.
They were the people that backed me. But the rank and file of the crew were just sending daggers my way, working as slowly as they could. Not to get themselves fired, maybe to get me pushed off the show because I wound up four days behind schedule on my first professional job. But I learned so much from doing that show.
Next, Spielberg directed an episode of Columbo starring Peter Falk. which earned him the rights to direct two action films. Dual and the Sugarland Express. And then There was the shark. It was decades before modern CGI, so a real mechanical shark was made for a movie they were calling Jaws.
Weighing 12 tons with a body the size of a stretched limo, Spielberg named the shark Bruce. after his lawyer. But while shooting the opening scene of the movie, Bruce sank to the bottom of the ocean. and the crew started calling the movie Flaws. Here's Spielberg on how he handled this setback.
And the next morning we got the word that they were going to be down maybe three to four weeks with a shark. That's when I realized, okay, plan B.
Now I never planned for a plan B. But that Monday I suddenly had to improvise a plan B, which was basically to make the film as scary as I possibly could by suggesting the shark without having to show the shark. And that became my motif for the rest of the picture. Jolly, take my word for it. Don't rock!
Swam, Charlie! Swam! I promise you that if the shark had been working that first day and Chrissy Watkins had been taken in that first scene, And the way my storyboards had, I had a fin in that shot, I had a conical nose coming out of the water. Never seen the whole shark, I had a tail. Had there been any evidence of the shark, even on the scene where the pier is pulled out and comes back again and chases the swimmer back in, the fisherman, I promise you the audience wouldn't have leapt three feet out of their seats and thrown their popcorn into the air when the shark came out when Roycehoddy was chumming.
You wouldn't have had that shock. had the shark been used too often and too clearly before that. The shark not working when we needed it to work. probably added $175 million to the box office. Jaws was a spectacular hit.
The first ever summer blockbuster. earning a whopping $260 million. It also became the top-grossing film in history. Already planning another film, Bielberg knew one thing for sure. My next picture will be made on dry land, he said.
When Spielberg wrote Close Encounters of the Third Kind, He decided that there would be no bad guys in it. But looking back today, There is one thing he would have done differently. The difference in when I wrote the story in my 20s and what I would have done today. is I don't think today with being a dad of seven kids I would have let my Richard Dreyfus character actually get on the mothership. and abandon his family to this alien obsession and leave the planet.
But in my 20s, it was something that was absolutely would have been my choice. Spielberg's close friend, George Lucas, just wrapped Star Wars and came to this set of close encounters to see how things were progressing. Red 5 standing by. Here again is Spielberg. Look.
Trust your feelings. George came back from Star Wars. A nervous wreck. He didn't feel Star Wars came up to the vision that he had initially had. He felt he had just made this little kids movie and he came to Mobile, Alabama, where I was shooting on this humongous set.
And George hung out with me for a couple of days and looked around and said, Oh my god, your movie's gonna be so much more successful than Star Wars. This is gonna be the biggest hit of all time. I can't believe this set, and I can't believe what you're getting. And oh my goodness. He said, I'll tell you what, I'll trade points with you.
You wanna trade some points? He said, I'll tell you what, I'll give you. 2.5% of Star Wars, if you give me 2.5% of close encounters.
So I said, sure, I'll gamble with that. Great. And I think I came out on top of that bet. Yeah. did a lot better than George.
Both of our movies were wildly profitable. Close Encounters made so much money, rescued Columbia from bankruptcy, and the most money I had ever made on a movie before was from Close Encounters. Close Encounters was just a meager success story, and Star Wars was a phenomenon. And of course, I was the happy beneficiary of a couple of net points of that movie, which I am still seeing money on today. Close Encounters brought Spielberg his first Oscar nomination for best director.
and Star Wars Past Jaws as the top-grossing film in history. It was time for these two mega directors to team up. The two put a screenplay together and hired actor Harrison Ford, who had just played Hans Solo for Lucas in Star Wars. Lucas named Harrison Ford's character Indiana Smith. and the movie would be called Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Spielberg liked everything but the hero's name.
Well How about Indiana Jones? Spielberg suggested. George Lucas produced, Steven Spielberg directed. And you've been listening to Greg Hengler and Steven Spielberg telling the life of Steven Spielberg, and we learn how he got to where he got. And it wasn't the usual way.
Rejected from UCLA and USC's film schools. Ultimately, his film school was the back lots of Universal. and then he got his chance. A seven-year contract to direct TV And his first real shot, a night gallery episode, one of the best ever, starring the great Joan Crawford. And the actors, thank goodness, had his back because the technicians Most surely didn't.
Then came Columbo, then came a few movies, and then came Jaws. And the rest was history. And if it weren't for Bruce, the mechanical shark, Not working, Spielberg noted. The movie would have made a hundred and seventy million less dollars and John Williams soundtrack. Would have been meaningless.
And when we come back more of the life of Steven Spielberg, Here on Our American Stories. This July 4th, celebrate freedom from spills, stains, and overpriced furniture with Anibay, the only machine-washable sofa inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly pricing.
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Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less. Paid for by Public Investing Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com/slash disclosures. Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75-year-old broadcast.
It's a great responsibility. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamis. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the story. Wildfires continue to be a threat.
With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For NBC News, for NBC News. I'm Tom Yamas.
That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas, evenings on NBC. With comprehensive reports on local schools you won't find anywhere else, Homes.com is the only place to find the in-depth info home shoppers want. Very in-depth info. Curious about where a school ranks in the state?
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And we continue with our American stories and the story of Steven Spielberg. Let's return to our own Greg Hengler. Despite blistering heat, A scene with 7,000 live snakes, including 5 deadly cobras, and another scene with hundreds of tarantulas. Spielberg finished. almost two weeks early.
When Raiders opened a few months later, it was a Smash, the most successful film of 1981. Spielberg became a household name. During one of the nights on location for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg began writing a story of a little alien. What if I were ten years old again? he wondered.
And he needed me. as much as I needed him. When I first came up with the idea of ET, I came up with the actual idea probably when I was a little little kid feeling very lost and alienated. being this Jewish kid in always all Gentile neighborhoods. But then later in life, when my parents were divorced, feeling very much lost and alone.
And I remember on the set of close encounters when I had Richard Dreyfus and E.T. returning to the mothership. It's where it gets swollen up into the light. And I had this kind of amazing epiphany at that moment while the cameras were rolling. And I thought, I wonder if I should change the ending of this movie.
Not another movie, but Close Encounters. What if E.T. is an exch foreign exchange student? What if that extraterrestrial who we called Puck Stayed behind. with Truffaut and Dreyfus goes And they take that ET back to Langley or Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and start to study him and communicate with him and really try to figure out what their race is like and how we can further our relationship.
Wouldn't that be a great movie? Then I said, no, no, no, I'll save that for another movie. But I was haunted by this idea of an ET that gets trapped on Earth and doesn't go back into the mothership.
So, in a sense, When I wrote the story of E.T., That was the progression of epiphanies that led up to the actual story of a alien who's lost and alone and three million miles from home. He doesn't go AWOL. He's curious. His curiosity gets the better of him. And maybe the other aliens were, the botanists were too busy.
Categorizing and finding plants on earth to put in their little greenhouse. But E.T. was interested in the big redwood trees, and he was walking away. 600-year-old E.T. is probably the most lost of all the kids I've ever had in a film.
but he's no less lost than Elliott. Lost in a divorce, no real friends in his life. And that was the bonding of E.T. and Elliott. The alien and the alienated.
The Atu souls, lost souls, Coop. Absolutely, require each other for a very short amount of time so they can both survive. in a spiritual way. I mean, for me, T is the most spiritual movie I've ever made. And that was not an accident.
I mean, it was something that I always deeply felt. And what Spielberg movie would be complete without the music of composer John Williams? John Williams has made the most remarkable contribution to all of my movies and they reach the heart universally. in every country. On every continent of the planet, John Williams speaks to people.
and John rewrites my movies musically. And I think with ET especially at the end, I lemon I can make those bicycles lift off and get off the ground. We can do that. but John Williams is the only one who can make them truly airborne. because the audience lifts off the ground on John Williams' violins.
and the audience is carried across the moon or the sun with John Williams' string section and his horns later on when they land. And I think the last 15 minutes of ET is as close to an opera. because of John Williams' contributions to that movie. than anything I've ever done before in my life. I'll be right.
Here. Here's a clip of Spielberg and Williams collaborating on the music for E.T. Spielberg operates the film projector while Williams sits in front of the piano. If it would be convenient to go into the call Dun done, yeah. I like that.
It seems like a very natural transition, huh? into the loneliness and out of the uh the tenderness. Let's see if we can do it.
Okay. The thing is, where do we shift from the call to the theme? Is it on his smile? Is it when he touches the face? That's a wonderful question, and your choices are.
as many frames long as a sequence. Oh my god Anybody hurt you? We can grow up together, E.T. That's certainly the call. Yes, that's the call.
That's the call. And this is the loneliness. This is Elliot's love. This is his heartbreaking. Does he look up again?
He looks up a second time. But the call has to be there. Oh, yeah, I think you're right. Let's get that. Absolutely.
Close. No, that's all. I always get that confused. Mm-hmm. Bun dun dun.
Sometime I'll go.
Sometimes. Does it ever go up once in the movie yet? It hasn't gone up yet. At the end, I'll save it for the last three. E.T.
was Spielberg's biggest hit yet. It made more money than any other movie in history. stopping Jaws, and even Star Wars. Then There's Jurassic Park. Welcome to Jurassic Park.
I'd want to make a dinosaur picture all my life. because I'm a huge fan of Ray Harry Halzen, but I could never find a realistic way to do dinosaurs. Until Michael Crichton figured out a science that would make it almost allowable. Which is, hey, if a mosquito bites a dinosaur 150 million years ago, it gets trapped in amber. And it's preserved in amber, and you extract the DNA from the blood inside the mosquito of the Tyrannosaurus rex, can we not bring back the T-Rex?
And it was enough. credible science that I went that is one of the most genius uh uh combinations of science and imagination I had ever witnessed, anybody come up with and that was all Michael Crichton. There were a lot of risks involved in an art form that had never been perfected. A main character, digital dinosaur. had never been done before for the movies.
So in a way, Jurassic Park was the first movie That ever made its made characters, where the entire success or failure of the story was dependent on these digital characters. That was the first time that was ever done, and that was the risk I think all of us took. When you have something which is so unfamiliar to us. in our time, which is a Tyrannosaurus Rex. 34 feet standing upright.
Something that menacing It's not as interesting for me. to have people running through a jungle being menaced by a T-Rex because the people are in a prehistoric terra firma. But it's much more interesting for an audience, I think. To put a T-Rex next to a modern car or put Raptors inside a modern industrial kitchen or inside a laboratory with computers everywhere. Jurassic Park was a landmark in visual effects and earned an unprecedented $914 million worldwide.
And you've been listening to Greg Hengler tell the story of Steven Spielberg. And we heard about Raiders of the Lost Ark, a huge hit. Then came E.T., an even bigger hit. E. T.
and Eliot, Spielberg noted, were the alien and the alienated. They required each other to survive in a spiritual way. Quote, It was the most spiritual movie I ever made. ⁇ And the last 15 minutes of ET. Spielberg would go on to note.
was the closest thing to an opera than anything I've ever done in my life, and that of course was thanks to the music. of John Williams. And then of course came Jurassic Park. And that was the first movie Spielberg noted in which the movie is dependent on digital characters. When we come back, more of the remarkable story.
of Steven Spielberg here. on Our American Stories. This July 4th, celebrate freedom from spills, stains, and overpriced furniture with Anibay, the only machine-washable sofa inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly pricing.
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Now, through July 4th, get up to 60% off site-wide at washablesofas.com. Every order comes with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. If you're not in love, send it back for a full refund. No return shipping, no restocking fees, every penny back. Declare independence from dirty, outdated furniture.
Shop now at washable sofas.com. Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. You know what's great about your investment account with the big guys? It's actually a time machine. Log in and Zoom.
Welcome back to $19.99. It's time for an upgrade. At public.com, you can invest in almost everything. Stocks, bonds, options, and more. You could even put your cash to work at an industry-leading 4.1% APY.
Leave your clunky, outdated platform behind at public.com. Go to public.com and fund your account in five minutes or less. Paid for by Public Investing Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Full disclosures at public.com/slash disclosures. Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75-year-old broadcast.
It's a great responsibility. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamas. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the store. Wildfires continue to be a threat.
With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For NBC News, NBC News. I'm Tom Yamas.
That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas, evenings on NBC. Yeah. Hold up, we got one play. Everything we work for comes down to this.
Quick question. Speaking of workouts, how would you rate your athletic program? Bro, we're in the middle of the state championship. Oh, so like a B plus then? Dude, get out of our huddle.
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Let's pick up where we last left off. with Greg Hengler and Spielberg himself. The tremendous success of what Spielberg dubbed his popcorn movies gave him more creative freedom. Freedom to create. Schindler's List Schindler's list relates a period in the life of Oscar Schindler.
A Nazi German businessman who saved the lives of more than 1,300 mostly Polish Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them. in his factories during World War II. Spielberg did post-production work on Jurassic Park at night in Poland. and film Schindler's list. during the day.
Here's Spielberg sharing with us the story of casting real Germans to play the Nazi SS soldiers and why people should see Schindler's list. Many of the German actors who interviewed for Schindler's List, and I saw many of their interviews on tape, many of them actually knowing I was watching the tape or would be watching the tape apologized. uh for the generation preceding theirs. When I got there, And I began to to work on Schindler's list. once those same German actors put on the uniforms of the Waffen-SS.
Um My attitude changed and I couldn't talk to them. I couldn't, and in between shots they would be schmoozing with me, trying to ask me questions about E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Dark, questions that someone who liked those movies would ask the director. And I didn't really want to make small talk. I couldn't get past the uniform, and then my prejudice began to come out, and I began to look at it, and I began to say, my goodness, you know.
How can I be blaming? You know, the sins of the fathers onto the sons and daughters. And then one day, an amazing thing happened, very early in the schedule, thank goodness. We had Passover. There's a rabbi there and a lot of my crew and cast came in.
And then in walks all the German actors, and they put on yarmulkis, and they sat next to the Israeli actors, and the Israelis opened up the Haggadahs, the prayer books, and began to show the German actors. what Passover is all about. And I cried because I saw something beautiful. that was Essentially, an entire generation of young German Actors. that are not culpable and should never be blamed.
and should never have any fingers pointed at them. for something that they weren't around to stop. And that was the message I wanted people to hear. That Generations were saved by Oscar Schindler. 1300 people.
Spawn 6,000. descendants. compared to the 4,000. descendants that are alive and Poland today, down from three million Jews. before 1939.
One of the reasons Spielberg made Schindler's list was that he wanted his children to understand this terrible time in Jewish history. It was the first time my children ever saw me cry. He said. When Schindler's list opened, audiences cried too. though it was sad and sometimes shocking.
It also showed courage and decency overcoming terrible evil. The film won the Oscar for Best Pitcher in 1993, and Spielberg won his first Oscar for Best Director. In 1994, Spielberg's friends, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, approached him about starting a film studio together. It was a daring idea. Nobody had launched a new studio in decades because it was so difficult and expensive.
Yet Katzenberg Had produced a string of animated mega hits for Disney, including The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast. and the Lion King. David Geffen, whose work in the music business had made him a billionaire, was one of entertainment's most powerful deal makers. Spielberg was now considered the world's most successful director.
If anybody could launch a new studio, It was these three. In October 1994, DreamWorks Studios opened for business. It was under the DreamWorks label that Spielberg shot saving Private Ryan. Here's Spielberg. What motivated me to do Private Ryan was this was a tribute to my dad.
This was 100% for my dad. When I got the Oscar for Ryan, I said, dad, this is for you. This is yours. I mean, I told my dad many, many years ago that I was going to make a World War II movie for him. The only thing that disappointed my dad was it was about Europe, not Asia.
And my dad said, but Steve, you didn't tell my story. What about the 490th Bomb Squadron, you know? What about those who flew the hump, my friends who were lost flying the hump? You know, I said, No, dad, you're right. I didn't tell that story, but this is for your generation.
I remember having the first industry screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And I had two director friends of mine who I really respect saying, Wow. The greatest sequence of this movie is the first 15 minutes for that rolling ball and the spiders on the guy's back and And I kept thinking, oh my god, I topped myself in Raiders and the movie never recovered. And I felt I was about to do the same thing. When I shot Saving Private Ryan, I didn't quite know what that opening sequence was going to be because I shot the whole movie in continuity.
And I also certainly shot the whole first sequence in continuity. The first shot of the movie is Tom Hank's hand shaking. uh his canteen to his face reveal his captain's bar. And show us Tom Hanks and pull the camera back in the Higgins boat. That was the first shot of the movie.
I went right through to the end of the picture in continuity, which meant That I was making up the entire opening attack of Omaha Beach, the landings, when I say made it up, I didn't make up things that didn't actually happen, that that Stephen Ambrose hadn't written about or other veterans hadn't informed me of. But I did the whole thing stream of consciousness. I had no storyboards, no pre-visualization on the computer. Did the whole thing... from actually up here in a weird way, because the whole thing was being improvised.
In a very safe, rational, controlled way, but improvised nonetheless. And I think if anything gave that scene its impact, it's first person. In your face impact. It was because I didn't know what was going to happen next, just like real combat. Spielberg knew that, like Schindler's List, saving Private Ryan could be painful to watch.
and he was prepared for his audiences to stay away. This particular movie, we felt like we were We were making a contribution. We were actually thinking, you know, without patting ourselves on the back, that this movie was going to come out and I thought nobody would go to see this picture. They might see a few people go the first weekend because Tom Hanks is the star, but they're going to be so turned off by the violence, they're not going to come back the second weekend. And I thought this would be a one-weekend wonder, but I thought the film was going to add something.
to inform audiences what soldiers have to really go through when they're in the hellfire of combat. It's honoring all the dads who were part of the greatest generation by having an old man going to the American Cemetery in Normandy. and visiting that actual site. Every time I go I cry. I think the book ends, place it in a much larger historical context and show audience today that this really is about the old men now who were the boys then.
who allowed us to have a life. today the way we live our lives and to have the relative freedoms that we now enjoy. Saving Private Ryan was far from a one-weekend wonder. It was the most successful film of 1998. He was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won Spielberg his second Oscar for Best Director.
In closing, Here's Spielberg on the secret to his success. My job is to put the audience inside the movie. My job is to... Reduce the aesthetic distance between the audience and the experience. I don't say, okay, now I just have to make light audience popcorn movies to give them.
relief from whatever my you know, subconscious. demons are that have Pushing me into more historical, darker subjects. I don't think that way. And I think my intuition has been about 75% right on and 25%. not write on.
And so I'm going with the odds. I'm just square with the odds. Steven Spielberg has 159 credits as a producer. and 56 as a director. A few more of those include Poltergeist, the color purple, Hook.
Catch me if you can. Munich and Lincoln. His films have set and broken box office records for decades. They often show how acts of personal courage can change history. They have made people Millions and millions of people.
Laugh, think, and cry. Nobody, not even Walt Disney, has been so completely wired in to what the public wants to see in the cinema. and as a result, his personal wealth is now so vast People have given up trying to estimate it. And it all started in 1957. when he borrowed his father's movie camera.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And we'd like to thank the John Williams Fan Network. NDTV The times of Israel. and the Federal News for the interview footage we used in the storytelling. We learn in this last segment why Spielberg was doing those popcorn movies.
Because in the end, he wanted the creative freedom. the freedom to make Schindler's list. which would win him an Oscar for Best Picture in 1997. and his first Oscar as best director. And of course, soon thereafter, Trump.
Dreamwork starts and a new studio hadn't been launched in decades. And here were Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen. Starting it up and their first film, Saving Private Ryan, What he says in the end about what films are about and what he tries to accomplish is putting the audience inside the movie. No market researchers, just one man's instinct and creative talent. The story of Steven Spielberg here on Our American Stories.
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