Spielberg: The First Ten Years by Laurent Bouzerau provides an inside view of Steven Spielberg's first decade as a filmmaker, years when he revolutionized the possibilities of commercial cinema. A coffee table size volume, the book is loaded with rare photographs and inserts including marketing material and production notes. Each chapter includes an interview with Spielberg. The author Bouzerau had a long association with Spielberg, the director of many making of documentaries, notably for Jaws, Close Encounters, and 1941.
The portrait of Spielberg at the start of his career is that of a focused and meticulous young man, at ease with working within the studio system when many of his peers were not. His status as a Wunderkind was an image he self-consciously fashioned as a teenager when he made full length amateur films that were covered by the local press. His 1968 short film Amblin earned him a contract with Universal to direct episodic television, which he skillfully used as a training ground to direct features.
Duel was Spielberg's breakthrough, a made for TV film that aired in 1971, based on a Richard Matheson short story about a man being menaced by a truck driver. The highway thriller proved to be the ideal project for Spielberg to show off his skills. Working on a tight schedule that required complicated action sequences, the film in its original form was a 70-minute tour de force of action for the small screen. The book includes a foldout of the detailed story boards Spielberg used as a guide during the shoot. Duel earned high ratings and Spielberg was allowed to shoot extra scenes for a theatrical release in Europe to critical acclaim.
Spielberg's first feature, The Sugarland Express, remains an outlier in his filmography. Loosely based on a true story, the film is set in Texas and follows two fugitives who kidnap a highway patrolman in a quixotic quest to prevent their son from going into foster care. A more complex road movie than Duel and in keeping with the popularity of "lovers on the run" movies of the era, Sugarland allowed Spielberg to further develop his technical skills on a wider canvas, while crafting a kinetic narrative both character and action driven. Some found the tonal shifts disjointed, from the light comedy of the early scenes to the satiric and ultimately tragic climax. A modest success that garnered high praise from influential critics like Pauline Kael, it earned him the right make a pure potboiler - Jaws.
So much has been written about and discussed about Jaws, yet new insights are always being made about it. Spielberg has never written a memoir nor recorded any commentary tracks for his films, so his interviews are the closest insight we get into his creative process. In retrospect, there's simply no film quite like Jaws and I suspect interest in it will never dissipate. Spielberg managed to balance character and spectacle to perfection. All the right elements came together from the casting, the script, and the John Williams score, but Spielberg's determination to see it through and balance all the elements of comedy, horror, suspense, political allegory, and family drama that continues to amaze audiences.
His follow up to Jaws, Close Encounter of the Third Kind may not have aged as well as Jaws with it's late '70s New Age/Post-Watergate vibe that may be lost on younger viewers. The success of Jaws allowed Spielberg to pursue his passion project on UFOs, loosely based on his full length feature he made as a teenager entitled Firelight. Even more so than Jaws, CE3K became the definitive Spielberg experience with its themes of suburban angst, wondrous visions, and enduring sense of hope. Technically, it proved another breakthrough for Spielberg, which in addition to Star Wars released in the same year, changed cinema forever.
Richard Dreyfuss served as Spielberg's avatar in Close Encounters, playing the child-like protagonist Roy Neary, while the rest of the cast perfectly inhabited their roles: Francois Truffaut as the compassionate scientist, Bob Balaban as the translator, Teri Garr in the thankless role of Roy's put upon wife, Melinda Dillon as the prototypical Spielberg mom, and Cary Guffey as the young boy Barry. In its weaving between domestic drama and special effect light show culminating in a meeting of cosmic importance, audiences once again proved receptive.
I found the most interesting chapter to be on Spielberg's first flop 1941. Written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale who would go on to write the Back to the Future movies, 1941 was conceived as an absurdist dark comedy about paranoia on the West Coast following the attack on Pearl Harbor. With a big budget and a large cast, Spielberg admits he let the project go off the rails. Loud and irreverent, it exemplifies the excess of late '70s Hollywood. But it's aged well, with an eclectic cast including John Belushi, Toshiro Mifune, and Christopher Lee, the incredible set pieces are a testament to the analog era of moviemaking.
Raiders of the Lost Ark marked Spielberg's first collaboration with George Lucas. Made as a course correction after his first flop, Spielberg made the film under budget and ahead of schedule. As a period flavored action film with supernatural elements, Raiders became an instant blockbuster, and Spielberg recalls it as one of his favorite experiences as a director.
Bouzerau concludes the book with E.T. The Extraterrestrial, a film which marked a turning point in Spielberg's career, is a culmination of sorts. A more intimate version of Close Encounters, with a visitor from space arriving who heals a broken family. All the Spielberg themes of family struggles, returning home, and coming of age are expressed in the most universal way possible. A life changing experience in terms of his career and personal life.
Spielberg: The First Ten Years adds depth and insight to the early years of Spielberg, an in-depth look at creativity and inventiveness.
