Steven Spielberg names his only movie “opera”
There are only a select few filmmakers who have been able to enrapture the world of popular culture. Along with such modern filmmakers as Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, and Wes Anderson, the iconic American director Steven Spielberg is perhaps the most successful cinematic creative of all time, creating some of cinema’s most celebrated releases, including Jaws, Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan.
Emerging in the industry back in the 1970s, Spielberg worked primarily in TV before he became the biggest and most successful filmmaker of all time. As well as working on Night Gallery and The Name of the Game, Spielberg reached acclaim with the release of the TV movie Duel in 1971, a simple film following a driver who is stalked and tormented by a lorry who violently tries to shunt him off the road.
The film kicked off a remarkable decade for Spielberg, making a trio of classics, The Sugarland Express, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, to establish himself as a formidable industry talent. Yet, unbeknownst to audiences at the time, this was nothing compared to what would come next, with the filmmaker thriving in the 1980s with multiple cinematic classics.
It kicked off with Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, an adventure flick that captured the imaginations of adults and children alike across the world. Immediately after, Spielberg released E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, a four-time Oscar-winning movie and ‘Best Picture’ that followed the friendship between a lonely boy and a lost alien who was left stranded on earth, lightyears away from his family.
A key fixture of his early career was the music of John Williams, the iconic composer who had worked on the large majority of Spielberg movies at the time. “John Williams has made the most remarkable contribution to all of my movies,” the director said of the composer in an interview with the DGA, “He’s made contributions that you can’t quantify because they reach the heart before they ever go anywhere near the brain”.
Speaking specifically about Williams’ Oscar-winning score for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the director adds: “With E.T., especially, at the end, ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] and I can make those bicycles lift off and get off the ground, but John Williams is the only one who can make them truly airborne, because the audience lifts off the ground on his violins. And the audience is carried across the moon or the sun with his string section and his horns later on when they land”.
Praising the conclusion of the film in particular, Spielberg reflects, “I think the last 15 minutes of E.T. is as close to an opera, because of John Williams’ contributions, as anything I’ve ever done before in my life”.
Take a look at the iconic bike scene from E.T. below.
