It always seems the biggest success stories one hears about come from people who did not have the most successful upbringing or pathway. This is also true for the world-renowned director, Steven Spielberg.
After watching the Biography Channel’s Steven Spielberg, my initial thoughts were mainly on the man himself and how fascinating his story was instead of trying to analyze the actually documentary about the man. But then I realized having thoughts about how fascinating his story was means the documentary did its job.
The documentary begins talking about the childhood and upbringing of Spielberg, which is a lot harder to do than they made it look. Talking about someone’s otherwise boring childhood is no easy task. I think they made it work because they used a lot of still photos from the points in his life that the narrator was talking about. For example, when Spielberg was a teen, he made a movie that required his mother throw a bucket of cherry juice all over the kitchen. When they were describing this event, they had a picture of either Spielberg or one of his siblings covered in the red goo. Showing pictures like that allows the viewer to feel like they are a part of his childhood as well.
The documentary also did a good job of describing the struggle Spielberg faced while growing up as an aspiring filmmaker. Using interviews from his parents and siblings was the best path to take because those were the people who were around him the most during that time.
When they started getting into his actual movie career, they do a great job of narrating what his mentality was like while making his early movies and what the actors who were in his movies thought about him. They also show what was going on in his mind, and then show a scene from one of his films to prove to the viewer that is what Spielberg was thinking at the time. If the viewer can have both audio and video confirmation, it is the best way to make something memorable.
Lastly when they get into the making of Jaws, they take out a lot of time in the documentary for this one moment in Spielberg’s career, and for good reason. It was his first big hit and skyrocketed his name into stardom. They use narration from many of the actors in the film, show behind the scenes footage of the struggles they had while making it, and interviews with his family members who Spielberg confided with in the tough time.
The thing that makes this documentary so good is the amount of research that went in to making it. They chose a plethora of actors and family members to interview and had several photos and video clips to bring the viewer closer to Spielberg.
