The director Steven Spielberg compared to a cinematic “chameleon”
When you speak about versatile filmmakers, the iconic American auteur Steven Spielberg surely tops the list. Known as the most commercially popular director of contemporary cinema, Spielberg has mastered almost each and every genre there is, making a hit horror thriller in the form of 1975’s Jaws, several sci-fi classics, like 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and even a movie musical, helming the remake of West Side Story in 2021.
The inspiration for countless modern filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, Ari Aster, Paul Thomas Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos, among many others, Spielberg’s cinematic reach knows no bounds. But what about the directors that Spielberg aspired to replicate? Who were the filmmakers that the mind behind some of the greatest movies of all time turned to?
Not afraid to voice his cinematic inspirations, Spielberg has previously discussed his favourite movies of all time, naming the likes of Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and even Christopher Nolan’s modern superhero classic The Dark Knight. In addition, Spielberg has long been vocal about his love for such icons as John Ford, Orson Welles, Walt Disney and François Truffaut.
But, Spielberg reserves his adoration for one true filmmaking “chameleon”, who was capable of working in different genres and different styles, much like Spielberg himself.
Stanley Kubrick is well-known as a maestro of the cinematic form, making such iconic classics as 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1980’s The Shining and 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, inspiring countless other filmmakers to enter the industry at the very same time. Making only 13 films during his time in the industry, every one of Kubrick’s movies contains an innovative cinematic or narrative decision.
“He had a very specific way of telling a story,” Spielberg stated about Kubrick in an old interview, adding: “It’s not that he wanted to show off, ‘I’m so different than you’, but he said ‘Why does every story have to be told the same way’. He would tell me the last couple years of his life, and we were talking about the form, he kept saying, ‘I want to change the form, I want to make a movie that changes the form’, and I said, ‘Well didn’t you do that with 2001?’. He said, ‘Just a little bit, but not enough; I really want to change the form, so he kept looking for different ways to tell stories”.
Gushing over the influence of the filmmaker, Spielberg adds: “Well, I think the first thing that makes Stanley Kubrick so special was he was a chameleon, he never made the same picture twice. Every single picture is a different genre, a different period, a different story, a different risk. The only thing that bonded all of his films was the incredible virtuoso that he was with craft and with editing, performance, camera placement and composition. But every single story was different, and every single story somehow was so mysterious in the way the story was told… [it] kept you guessing ‘How’s this going to turn out? What’s going to happen next?'”.
Take a look at the interview with Steven Spielberg below.
