The movie scene Steven Spielberg called “the scariest thing I’d ever experienced in my entire life”
Without a doubt, the cinematic medium would not be half what it is today without the brilliant works of Steven Spielberg. A true master of the directing profession, Spielberg has consistently proven his excellence throughout his career in a wide range of genres, including science fiction and war drama.
The list of films of genuine quality with Spielberg’s name on is seemingly endless, but just a handful of his most acclaimed and memorable movies include E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws,Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, showing the kind of calibre the Ohio-born director has delivered time and time again.
It might be easy to think of Spielberg as always being wrapped up in the cinematic medium in one way or another, but just like anybody else, he had his first experience that left a lasting impression on him. The first time we notice the brilliance of cinema is often the moment that we first establish our lifelong love for it, and even the greatest directors are no different.
For Spielberg, that moment came during the very first movie he ever saw, which was Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 drama film The Greatest Show on Earth, starring Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde and two trapeze artists who compete with one another for the centre ring, while Charlton Heston plays the circus manager and James Stewart a strange clown who never takes off his makeup.
Speaking with CBS, Spielberg once noted how going to the cinema for the first time in his life changed his worldview of art and simultaneously scared him. “I didn’t know what a movie was, and my mom and dad took me to the movies in a theatre,” the director began. “It was a movie about the circus.”
“After a while, I got very involved in the story,” Spielberg added. “There’s a train crash in the middle of the movie, and all I remember is that it was the scariest thing I’d ever experienced in my entire life.” In fact, the train crash scene from The Greatest Show on Earth left such an impression on the young Spielberg that his first short films, including one shot on a Super 8 camera using his toy trainset, all attempted to recreate it.
When Spielberg made his semi-autobiographical movie The Fabelmans, the director included a scene in which his childhood stand-in, Sammy, goes to watch The Greatest Show on Earth at the cinema and witnesses the power of the medium for the first time, providing a direct link back to the filmmaker’s own childhood.
The train crash scene of DeMille’s 1952 drama is enough to make any child quiver in fear, but the most important thing about The Greatest Showman for Spielberg was that it inspired him to pick up the camera for the first time and attempt to recreate its most striking and memorable moment.
The Greatest Show on Earth won two Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Story’ as well as several other nominations. Beyond its personal recognition, though, perhaps DeMille’s film possesses even more importance in the fact that it brought the world some of the best movies, ones that came from the hands and mind of Steven Spielberg, films that continue to inspire new generations of filmmakers today.
