Spielberg

Steven Spielberg: I started making movies when I was a young kid,

but I remember the time I almost gave up my dream of being a movie director.

I must have been 16.

A movie came into town called "Lawrence of Arabia,"

and everybody was talking about it.

I never sat in a fancy theater seat before.

Premium ticket price, 70mm projection,

stereophonic sound.

And when the film was over,

I wanted to not be a director anymore

because the bar was too high.

There was a scene where he looked at himself in that sword/knife,

when he was first given the robes

and he thought he was alone.

And he walked around laughing

and looking at his shadow where the diaphanous robe

he was holding out was actually imprinted

on the sand in shadow.

It was a great moment.

And then later, when they route the retreating Turks,

you see him again covered in gore.

And he's got the knife in the same position he had it

in his pristine days, in his glory days.

And he's looking at himself, who he's become.

It was the first time, seeing a movie,

I realized that there are themes that aren't narrative story themes.

There are themes that are character themes, that are personal themes.

That David Lean created a portraiture,

surrounded the portrait with a mural

of scope and epic action,

but at the heart and core of "Lawrence of Arabia"

is "Who am I"?

I had such a profound reaction to the filmmaking,

and I went back and saw the film a week later.

I saw the film a week after that.

And I saw the film a week after that.

And I realized that there was no going back,

that this was going to be what I was gonna do

or I was gonna die trying.

But this was going to be the rest of my life.

And then trying to get-- it felt lined up.

- The camera just gotta go right. - Just a little bit lower.

That's good right there. That's perfect.

Yeah, camera has to go right a bit, please.

Go right.

- Right, right, right, right. - Can you get there?

Right there would be good.

Every time I start a new scene, I'm nervous.

And it's like going to school, having to take a test.

I never heard the lines spoken before.

I don't know what I'm gonna think of hearing the lines,

I don't know what I'm gonna tell the actors,

I don't know where I'm gonna put the camera.

And every single time, it's the same.

But I tell you, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

I'll tell you why it's a good feeling.

The more I'm feeling confident

and secure about something,

the less I'm gonna put out.

The more I'm feeling, "Uh-oh, this could be a major problem

in getting the story told,"

I'm gonna work overtime to meet the challenge

and get the job done.

All right, that's done. I don't know if it's worth it.

And so, I hate the feeling of being nervous,

but I need to feel in this moment

I'm really not sure what I'm doing.

And when that verges on panic, I get great ideas.

The more I feel backed into a corner,

the more rewarding it becomes

when I figure my way out of the corner.

I love it. Next shot.

Good.

- Did you see that? - Yes.

Martin Scorsese: I remember when Steven was in production on "Jaws,"

the word around town and in the "LA Times"

was that it was folly and that it was gonna be a disaster.

Richard Dreyfuss: "Jaws" started filming on May 2nd.

I was hired, I think, on May 3rd,

and they had no shark, no script, and no cast

when they first started, so...

The script was never locked.

We were rewriting the script

12 hours before we were shooting what we just wrote.

You know, it's scary for a director to not know

if he's gonna be able to hand pages to his cast the next morning.

Guys, we can't shoot right now.

- Hold on. - Hold on.

This is my second day at sea

and I have 54 more days to go.

And if I survive this,

I'll have learned a lot, because right now all I can tell you is

it's twice as slow shooting at sea as it is shooting on land.

Bill Butler: Well, the studio had never shot a film on the ocean before.

They would do it on the back lake.

They would do it in a studio tank.

They would make miniature boats.

They would-- everything would be so easy

that you would never get cold or wet.

But Steven said, "I'm gonna shoot in the open ocean."

Roll sound.

This was supposed to be a thriller

based on people like you and me that are out of our element

and having to fight something we have no comprehension how to deal with.

That needs a level of authenticity

that I thought shooting it in the back lot

at Universal in North Hollywood would not give it.

So, to me, there was no going back.

It had to be shot in the ocean.

I thought it was gonna be a cakewalk,

but I didn't know anything about tides or currents.

I didn't know about how the wind affects the water,

how the color of the sky changes the color of the water,

or how you can't get anything to match.

It was one nightmare, worst-case scenario after the other.

I didn't think we'd ever finish.

I had just assumed I'd be fired off the picture.

We were isolated in the middle of the ocean, 12 miles offshore,

and it was technology over art every single day.

We'd get a shot, art was there,

but you couldn't recognize the art from the effort.

Just trying to hold a whole movie story in my head

is a very lonely thing, because nobody can really help me with that.

I have to see it before I film it.

And that's why it was so scary on "Jaws"--

when I couldn't see it until I finally did.

Just before I went off to make "Jaws," I got to meet Henry Hathaway.

He was kind of a tough-guy director, and he said,

"There's gonna be moments where you're gonna get to the set

and you're not gonna know what the hell you're doing.

It happens to all of us.

You've gotta guard that secret with your life.

Let no one see when you're unsure of yourself.

Hide that from everybody,

or you'll lose the respect of everyone."

Marker.

- Good blood. - And... ready?

- And action, Roy. - Slow ahead.

I can go slow ahead.

You ought to come down and ladle some of this shit.

And down.

Absolutely everything was falling apart.

The first time we tested the shark, it sunk.

It would come up out of the water and go...

Like that.

I knew that it's gonna take

three or four weeks to rebuild the shark,

and so we'd have to make up something else

that didn't exactly show the shark

but gave the sense the shark was near.

Bring it around after him!

The barrels were a godsend,

because I didn't need to show the shark as long as those barrels were around.

What you don't see is generally scarier than what you do see,

and the script was filled with "shark."

Shark here, shark there, shark everywhere.

The movie doesn't have very much shark in it.

John Williams: If the shark had been available visually,

it might have changed the whole psychology

of the experience.

Williams: When you hear, "boom-boom, boom-boom,"

you've already been conditioned to think that's when the shark is present.

When the shark is far away, it's very faint.

When the shark is just about to attack, it's very close and it's very loud.

Williams: We can advertise the shark's presence or his attitude

by how we manage these notes,

just very few notes.

Dreyfuss: You are in a state of anxiety without seeing a shark.

It just scares the crap out of you.

Charlie, take my word for it!

Don't look back! Swim, Charlie!

Swim! Come on, Charlie!

Dun-dun. Dun-dun, dun-dun.

Dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom, bom.

Come on, a little more, Charlie. Attaboy.

Come here, Charlie. Attaboy. Attaboy.

David Edelstein: It is a perfect exercise in suspense

with technique that any other filmmaker would kill for.

I knew I was using an electric cattle prod on the audience

every time there was some kind of a pop-up surprise.

Michael Phillips: Like Hitchcock, he knows how to get you

on the edge of your seat.

He doesn't show you what you want to see,

and then he delivers it when he wants to deliver it.

J. Hoberman: He certainly likes torturing the audience.

Has he ever been in analysis?

1, 1,000; 2, 1,000;

3, 1,000; 4, 1,000...

Everything scared me when I was a kid.

Everything.

1, 1,000; 2, 1,000; 3, one...

I had a tree out my window that was terrifying.

It was just terrifying.

1, 1,000; 2, 1,000...

I was filled with so much fear

that I needed to exorcise some of that.

And what better audience to exorcise myself of my demons

than my three sisters.

He would lock us in the closet with a skull,

which he had dripped different colors of wax all over.