How Steven Spielberg managed to make ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Schindler’s List’ in the same year
While ensuring a prolific creative output doesn’t always result in success, it has certainly been the case for Steven Spielberg. The creative visionary behind countless gems like Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg’s filmography is as extensive as it is decorated with some of the most prestigious accolades available. In addition, he has established himself as one of the most commercially successful filmmakers in history.
A key part of that success has been Spielberg’s ability to operate at the highest level for extended stretches throughout his career. This has been evident in his recent projects as well, including The Fabelmans, which earned multiple nominations at the Oscars. Based on his own filmmaking aspirations and childhood experiences, Spielberg’s latest feature is proof that he is still capable of producing genuine movie magic.
However, the peaks of the American auteur’s career neatly correspond with his greatest triumphs, and one can argue that it never got better than 1993. That was the year Spielberg made two of his finest achievements one after the other, wrapping up his work on Jurassic Park to immediately delve into the harrowing subject of the Holocaust with Schindler’s List. In doing so, he expanded the boundaries of what a director can achieve in a year.
During a conversation with Stephen Colbert, Spielberg explained: “I was making Jurassic Park, and I had just finished shooting, and I had cut the film together when Steve Zaillian finally finished his draft, and he gave it to me to read. I read it with my wife. We passed pages to each other, and I knew, when we got to Page 167 that I had to make the movie now. I had to make the movie because I didn’t want to miss the winter in Poland. I didn’t want to wait a whole year because it had to be shot in the snow.”
He added: “So I basically called the producer, my co-producer on Jurassic, Cathy Kennedy, and said, ‘I gotta jump ship. I gotta make Schindler’s List, and don’t ask me why. I have to make it right now…’ I had edited the whole film, and all that was left was mixing colour correction and sound effects editing… Cathy took over the production, and I asked George Lucas if he would supervise the dub and George came in and dubbed the picture for me.”
While Jurassic Park took sci-fi entertainment to a whole new level, Schindler’s List was a very different kind of project that required Spielberg to operate in some psychologically demanding creative spaces. Earning widespread critical acclaim and commercial success, it is now regarded as the pinnacle of his filmmaking journey.
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