The director Steven Spielberg told Denzel Washington to steal from: “There are no new shots”
Any aspiring director would love nothing more than to receive words of wisdom from one of the best to ever do it, even if the advice Steven Spielberg passed on to Denzel Washington effectively amounted to imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
As the single highest-grossing auteur in the history of the moving image and the only person to have helmed a $10 billion filmography, Washington would have been a fool not to listen. He might be one of cinema’s greatest-ever actors, but he’s still a comparative rookie on the other side of the camera.
He didn’t make his feature-length debut until 2002’s biographical drama Antwone Fisher, and he’s only taken the reins on another three productions since. While Washington’s work as a filmmaker has been solid and accomplished, he’s never been viewed as a particularly stylish or vibrant auteur.
Of course, as Clint Eastwood’s directorial side-line has spent half a century repeatedly underlining, being efficient and workmanlike is no bad thing. Antwone Fisher was greeted with a warm reception, as was The Great Debaters, while Fences received four Academy Award nominations, including ‘Best Picture’.
Romantic drama A Journal for Jordan is the only ironclad misfire on his secondary career, having bombed at the box office in the face of a largely apathetic response, with Washington’s only foray into small screen directing coming when he randomly helped a 2016 episode of never-ending medical series Grey’s Anatomy.
Being an A-lister gave him the privilege of picking the brains of many top-level auteurs, but as it turned out, Spielberg wasn’t of the mind to suggest he try anything too daring. “You know, it was Spielberg who told me, ‘Steal from the best’. So I steal from Spielberg, too,” he confessed, per Deadline.
There was one above all he was instructed to pilfer, though, which makes sense when they were also one of Spielberg’s biggest influences. “He said, ‘We all steal from Kurosawa, Denzel’. He said, ‘There are no new shots,'” the two-time Oscar winner continued. “There’s only so many ways to skin the cast, and the key is that it doesn’t come off like, ‘Hey, look at me, the director!'”
Cinema has always been a business where current and future generations look towards the past for guidance, and Spielberg is evidently a huge proponent of paying it forward. Akira Kurosawa has influenced everyone from George Lucas and Martin Scorsese to James Cameron and Stanely Kubrick, so Washington was only following a proud tradition that had been ongoing for decades.
If Steven Seagal thinks he’s got what it takes to emulate the legendary Japanese filmmaker, then Washington is obligated to follow suit. Obviously, one of them stands a much better chance than the other, even if the latter hasn’t been too interested in becoming a prolific director.
