There are movies that we remember seeing and shaping our lives from a young age. And for many of us, we can look to one man: Steven Spielberg. Whether it’s E.T. flying past the moon or Indiana Jones being chased by the boulder or the shark popping out of the water in Jaws, Spielberg has created some of the most seminal works in cinema history. Yet, we have wondered if we take him for granted, that we just expect him to churn out memorable images that will shape our and future generations.
Steven Soderbergh recently sat down to chat with Deadline on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Jaws. And while Jaws obviously marked the coming out party for Spielberg, Soderbergh says Spielberg would have hit the scene in a huge way one way or another. “He’s a singular talent…He was unstoppable. A born filmmaker, and everybody that interacted with him knew it. The weird thing is, despite being the most successful director in history, I still think he’s taken for granted. He has generated so much astonishing material, and some doesn’t get its due because he’s prolific and unpretentious in the way that he works and the things that he makes and the way that he talks about his work.”
Of course, the film that put Steven Spielberg on the map was 1975’s Jaws and we can’t deny its impact – although we’ll spare you with box office numbers (we all know there were lines around the block and what it did for – and against – cinema at the time). On that film in particular, Soderbergh shared a similar sentiment to Quentin Tarantino, who once called Jaws the greatest movie ever…while also not giving it the credit of being the greatest. “It was probably the moviest movie I’d ever seen at that point, this incredibly combustible combination of super-high concept and bravura filmmaking. But the thing that I think separates it from most movies before or since is the character work…When you look at how the narrative of the movie is built, what each scene or sequence is accomplishing, it’s just a model of movie storytelling, combined with what was, at the time, unprecedented hype and expectation. And then, that expectation is not only met, it’s exceeded, and he makes an instant classic, which nobody was anticipating.”
In an interesting parallel, Spielberg and Soderbergh would have two of the best years ever for a director: 1993 for Spielberg with Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List and 2000 for Soderbergh with Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Each would win Best Director for their respective latter.
Steven Soderbergh is such a massive fan of the images and work of Steven Spielberg that he once re-edited Raiders of the Lost Ark so it was in black and white and used an electronic score instead of John Williams’.
What do you think? Is Steven Spielberg’s Jaws the most movie movie ever?
