Steven Spielberg names the three most difficult movies of his career: “In that order”
For one of the most influential directors working today, you might imagine that the business of film production would run like a well-oiled machine, but rather comically, this has not been the case for Steven Spielberg. Despite being labelled as the creator of the blockbuster and endlessly praised for his vastly eclectic filmography, the filmmaker is no stranger to creative turmoil, with countless experiences in which he has struggled against nearly every possible hurdle.
From the creation of the iconic Indiana Jones series, Jurassic Park or tear-jerking classics such as Schindler’s List and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the director has had an indelible impact on cinema, pioneering a new style of filmmaking that appeals to universal audiences. But while these films have been met with high acclaim, it doesn’t eliminate the challenge of bringing them to life, with the director naming the three most difficult films of his career.
During the ‘New Hollywood’ movement, directors such as Peter Bogdanovich, Francis Ford Coppola, and Roman Polanski forged reputations based not only on their films but also on the conditions surrounding the creation of their work. A documentary was made about the chaotic production of Apocalypse Now and the bitter feud between Faye Dunaway and Polanski while shooting Chinatown.
For a while, some argued that conflict was essential to creativity itself; that a truly great film was made through sweat, blood and tears, leading to notoriously strained shoots in which directors were excused of their questionable behaviour because it led to good results. However, this was not the case for Spielberg, as the director was haunted by disaster instead of actively creating it.
When discussing his 2018 film Ready Player One, the director revealed it to be one of the most demanding experiences of his career thus far, saying, “I just saw how hard this was going to be. This is the third-hardest movie I’ve ever made behind Jaws and Saving Private Ryan, in that order.”
The enormity of the projects seemed to dwarf the legacy of Spielberg: “I was exhausted thinking about what was ahead of me if I committed to it, and I thought, ‘Well, maybe a director in their 20s wouldn’t be as intimidated because they would have no experience to intimidate them.’ Yet I was so enthralled by the possibilities that I just said, ‘Well, if I get into trouble, I’ll just go to one of my younger director partners and have them come help me.’”
The behind-the-scenes stories from Jaws are almost as infamous as the film itself, with tales of the broken sea creature, unruly crew and ballooning production costs becoming something of a Hollywood legend, with the director defying all the odds by somehow coming out the other end with a hit blockbuster on his hands.
While Saving Private Ryan was less disastrous during production, it was emotionally conflicting given the harrowing subject matter of the film and the complexities of executing the more technically demanding action sequences. Ready Player One was a surprising addition to his body of work, which undoubtedly added a personal strain for Spielberg as audiences intensely speculated over how he would execute such a left-field project.
