I love to watch the Directors Guild channel on YouTube. Lots of excellent in depth interviews of the best directors in the industry as well as every year before the Oscars the have a group interview of the best director nominees. Super inciteful. They also on occasion honor their legends and there is no bigger legend than Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg is to us what Hitchcock was to Hollywood in the Golden Era. He is El Director. History will look back and agree that he is the Jordan of filmmaking, the Jesus of cinema, the Mozart of movies. Younger and future audiences will probably never really understand what makes him great as they will assume the post-millennium directors are the groundbreakers when almost all directors of today borrow from Spielberg. Those that don’t are actually borrowing it from someone who borrowed it from Spielberg.
While watching the DGA Archive: a celebration of DGA Lifetime Achievement recipient and three-time DGA Award Winner Steven Spielberg from 2011, James Cameron (a prolific modern day director himself) asks of Spielberg in regards of his ability to capture instances visually and how his shots are intricately constructed, “How do find the balance between the magic of the moment and the architecture that’s taken so much planning?”
An incredible question to ask a master, that is followed by an incredible answer.
Spielberg first recognizes that when Cameron speaks of him he is also speaking of himself, which is a great gentleman’s tip of the cap everyone should learn to do as he comments on Cameron’s mastery of framing, composition and telling of a story within that frame. He then goes on to comment on how he doesn’t always write his screenplays like Cameron who is a well known writer/director/artist, and a multifaceted creative that excels on multiple talents.
“My writing, I do it with the camera.” Spielberg says. “That’s how I make a rewrite, sort of contribution to what’s put on paper by really smart, talented people.”
Cameron then chimes in with another question, “Do you rehearse a lot?”
In the split second before he answers, I was like, of course he does, I imagine Steven Spielberg is maniacal with rehearsals and then the bomb drop.
“No. I never rehearse at all. I’d rather get the take on take six, [rather] than five takes in rehearsals, because sometimes the first take, we all know magic happens, you get an incredible moment that you couldn’t possibly rehearse and capture that lightning in a bottle and hope to do it a second time, so I don’t rehearse at all. I’ve had actors very frustrated, because they come from theater and need to rehearse and I’ve always said that’s what we have trailers for. You go to the bathroom, eat, nap and you rehearse [in your trailer].”
Not only does Spielberg reveal he does not rehearse, but also does very little read throughs and table reads as he has almost quit some films after the read throughs. Quite an amazing reveal.
To some people things just come naturally and we’ve always known Spielberg was as natural a filmmaker as it gets but I’ve always assumed that meant having a strict process to adhere to and always follow. I thought you HAD TO rehearse. It was a mistake I thought I made on my first short film. I had friends play the roles and just winged it. It came out alright but I had always wondered or I guess assumed it would’ve been better if we practiced it a few times. Even listening to the many director commentaries you always hear directors like Coppola talk about doing rehearsals and it always seems like a thing you always did and was part of the filmmaking process.
To hear out of all people Spielberg says he detracts from this and then gives a really common sense reason makes me feel like we wannabe filmmakers tend to put too much weight on our shoulders rather than just going with the flow. There’s too much structure and thinking that independent filmmaking techniques disappear once you become a studio professional but I guess that doesn’t have to happen especially when the man who represents the pinnacle of filmmaking still happens to keep a free-flowing style.
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