Steven Spielberg’s childhood seems to have had a massive influence on his career. He was an Orthodox Jew and suffered from anti-Semitic abuse and has been described as “A Jewish kid who felt like an alien while growing up”, later on in life in 2002 he was even a target of a white supremacist plot. His parents divorced when he was young and he lived with his father, who was often away from home. He was a fairly unremarkable boy, with nothing to distinguish him positively and it has been suggested that this could have pushed him towards the film industry:
“making movies as a way of finding the social acceptance he craved”
This can be viewed as a Freudian concept, his id craving acceptance and his ego providing a socially appropriate way of allowing this.
His Jewish background may well explain his huge interest in the holocaust and WW2 based films and documentaries, which he has both directed and produced, including: Schindler’s List, Band of Brothers, Broken Silence, Eyes of the Holocaust and Flags of our Fathers. These works show his emotional attachment to the genre due to his religious upbringing and past experiences. He has even founded an organisation which aims to record the experiences of holocaust survivors.
Other aspects arising from his childhood can also be seen in his work. Several of his films show children in danger, families with divorced parents or an absent father, which may well be a reflection of the way he felt when he was growing up.
His films also often show unremarkable people doing or discovering remarkable things, such as
Sources:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2002/07/26/Jury-convicts-white-supremacists/UPI-67151027718854/ (accessed March 2011)
Jury convicts white supremacists
Published: July 26, 2002
By Dave Haskel
Steven Spielberg
By Joseph McBride
1997
Published in the
by Grahame Hill
2001
http://dornsife.usc.edu/vhi/aboutus/
(highlighted quotes to be put on the powerpoint)
Feedback would be awesome guys :) do I need to make it longer/shorter? anything else you want to be included? Let me know ASAP :)
This is the sort of stuff I was going to write about too
ReplyDelete1) early life as a child
2) his mother as a main influence
3) His first ever film-Firelight(1964)
4)films reflecting his blifs, background and chilhood like the shindler's list, ET,an American Tale(immigrant background)
Should I keep on doing research on the rest of his films or should I just stick to the first 3?
ahhhh crap....
ReplyDeleteerm i'm not sure...this is pretty much the only direction I can go in with this psycho-analysey stuff....but I don't wanna cut short on anything you've found or want to talk about!!
damn...I'm not really sure what to do tbh :/
I tell you what, I'll wait for some feedback from the other two, see what they say and then I'll text you about it tomorrow? I'm sure we can come up with something...
ReplyDeleteHey guys,
ReplyDeletereading this chronologically it is starting to gel together... Andriana I like your intro, remember to start by introducing us and who we will be presenting then carry on with what you got... maybe a little more info on Firelight (I have info to bulk it out).. this leads on nicely to psychoanalyzing him as boy.... then we can hop back in the time machine to look at Jo's info on directors that influenced him, Hitchcock, Kubrick etc, Directors he has influenced leading on to my stuff and conclusion... If anyone thinks they are struggling for time we can insert filmography, he has done ssssooooo much it is unbelievable!!
Remember to include images!!! Our feedback from the last one stated we needed more to soak up the information... Have a look at my scribd presentation, this format really helped me last time...
Starting to come together... Jo how you getting on with yours?
Just to let you know I'm averaging my speech at just under 3 minutes so if anyone feels like they're a bit short don't worry...
ReplyDelete