The one director Steven Spielberg said was out of his league: “It still makes me feel puny”
After more than 50 years of unprecedented success, during which he’s shattered countless records and made history several times over, there are now multiple generations of filmmakers who’ve grown up dreaming of becoming the next Steven Spielberg, and with good reason.
He’s the only director to amass a $10 billion filmography at the box office, he’s the only director to have helmed the highest-grossing release in cinema history on three separate occasions, he’s helped instigate several seismic shifts in the industry, and he’s won three Academy Awards from 22 nominations.
The world ‘Spielbergian’ entered the filmic lexicon a long time ago, and as often as it’s been applied to names like Robert Zemeckis, Chris Columbus, JJ Abrams, Brad Bird, M Night Shyamalan, or any of the rest, none of them have managed to lace his boots in terms of legacy, longevity at the summit of the business, or ongoing impact on Hollywood.
That should be more than enough to give Spielberg an ironclad sense of self-confidence, but he’s always been painfully modest. His accolades speak for themselves, and there aren’t many people who would argue against him being one of the all-time greats, but there’s still one inimitable auteur that will always make him feel like an amateur.
If anything, he’s become a glutton for punishment. After all, despite everything he’s achieved, he still feels a sense of complete and utter inadequacy whenever he watches his favourite movie of all time, which features his favourite scene of all time, and is also the film he’s seen more than any other, and one that he revisits every time he’s about to start work on a production of his own.
Only one director can give someone of Spielberg’s standing those overriding feelings of inadequacy, and it’s David Lean. When the legendary director was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, shortly before his death in April 1991 at the age of 83, the Jurassic Park and Jaws steward confessed that he couldn’t dream of reaching the same cinematic heights.
“It made me feel puny,” he said, referring to the first time he saw Lawrence of Arabia, not to mention every time he’s seen it since. “It still makes me feel puny.” The word ‘Spielbergian’ wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the combination of Lean, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa, Walt Disney, and Stanley Kubrick, but he holds the former in a class of his own.
Spielberg once suggested that Michael Cimino could become the reincarnation of Lean, although Michael Caine feels it’s a label more aptly prescribed to Christopher Nolan. It’s always been a tag he wouldn’t dare hang around his own neck, though, such is the overwhelming sense of inferiority he feels every time he rewatches one of the maestro’s masterworks.
The closest he came to going toe-to-toe with Lean was when he snatched Empire of the Sun away from his idol, and it’s enough to make you wonder if his towering shadow looming over Spielberg’s shoulder played a part in the literary adaptation failing to match its undoubted ambitions.
