Steven Spielberg caught the film-making bug as a 12-year-old boy and half a century on, he still goes “crazy” when he doesn’t have a story to tell, he admitted to fans packing a masterclass in Paris.
“I’m a storyteller,” the 65-year-old told the film-making masterclass between screenings of his new film War Horse. “For a long time movies were everything in my life — and if I don’t have a story to tell, I go crazy.”
“Ask my wife and my kids what’s it’s like to have me without a movie in my immediate future to direct,” he quipped. “I mope, I walk around the house in a terrible state, I’m miserable.”
Introduced to film buffs with the 1971 car chase thriller Duel, then moving to the mainstream with Jaws in 1975, Spielberg has shot more than 30 feature films as well as a string of productions for television, from episodes of “Columbo” to the hit series “Band of Brothers” in 2001. “I got starting making movies as a kid because I couldn’t think of anything more fun to do,” Spielberg recalled. “When I was 13, there was absolutely nothing that interested me more than to take a movie camera and tell a three, four minute story.”
“And when I make a movie today, I get that same energy, the same excitement,” he said.
The director has been something of a work horse of late, directing the 3D blockbuster Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, which hit screens in late 2011, before launching straight into War Horse.
When asked by the event host to offer a tip to aspiring film-makers, Spielberg said casting was key. “Once you have casted, listen to the people you casted: what do they have to bring? Let them do their work, read the books,” he said.
Spielberg said the best piece of advice he received as a young film-maker was from the French New Wave director Francois Truffaut. “He said: ‘You must work with kids,’” Spielberg recalled.
When asked to pin down the secret of his success, he said; “I never drifted away from that kid — and maybe that is my secret: childhood, to be like a child.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ