Photograph from Newscom.com
Steven Spielberg has been working in film for over five decades, as a director, writer, producer, and virtual seismic force in Hollywood cinema and multimedia entertainment. His filmography is a practically a checklist of adored and award-showered American films, and includes such landmarks as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Munich. Spielberg recently talked with Look/Listen film blogger Andrew Wyatt about the two new films he has coming out this Christmas, War Horse and The Adventures of Tintin. They discussed the challenges of adaptations, the right way to make a family-appropriate war film, and the vital role that local communities play in on-location filmmaking.
AW: Regarding War Horse, I’m somewhat familiar with the original novel by Michael Morpurgo. It’s also been adapted into a stage play that had a phenomenally successful run at the New London Theater, among other venues.
SS: And the Lincoln Center here in New York.
AW: How did the story first come to your attention? Was it the novel, the play, or the screenplay that first crossed your path?
SS: The novel came to my attention almost at the same time I had heard that there was a West End London production of the play. I read the novel, which really caused a great deal of excitement for me. Because the story was a wonderful, wonderful story. Then I flew to London with my wife, and we saw the play. We were very emotionally transported by what those puppeteers and that cast had done with just a little smoke, some lights, and a very abstract, almost Brechtian setting. What really stood out for me was that despite the sparing use of production value on stage, the story kept working. The story worked as a book, and now the story worked as a stage play. That’s when I thought, “Well, maybe the story can work as a motion picture.”
AW: I think that there’s a tendency for filmgoers to assume that a filmmaker of your prolific character has already tackled every possible challenge, but it occurs to me that this is the first Steven Spielberg film to feature animal actors in such a prominent way.
SS: I think it is. In all the movies I’ve done previously, the horse has always been something for Harrison Ford to look good on. The horse was never an end to itself, a character that was worthy of a story. Until War Horse. So this is certainly the first time I was able to look at the horse and not at the rider. This is the first chance I’ve ever had to celebrate the horse, not the rider.
AW: This story of the massive recruitment of horses during the Great War—by purchase or outright confiscation—doesn’t seem to be widely known in America. Do you feel any urgency to tell this tale now, as the Great War is passing from living historical memory?
SS: There’s never an urgency when you’re doing a period piece, because people can discover history a hundred years from now. There’s no real clock ticking on when a story like this should be told. But sometimes the time just happens to be right, and it was certainly right for me to tell this story. It’s the story of a young man and his faith and courage, and a story about a horse and his faith and courage. There’s a lot of emotional connections between man and animal.
It’s also, in the deep background, a story of the paradigm shift that occurred when the horse met his technological match, and ceased to be a necessary leading character in society, and in progress. For hundreds of years horses were used to fight wars and to haul heavy loads and to be the only means of transportation from place to place. The horse had a purpose at the beginning of World War I, but was then suddenly superseded by machines.
AW: It is sort of the swan song of the use of cavalry for military purposes
SS: The cavalry continues to be a very important and yet symbolic force, but the cavalry is not effective against machine guns.
AW: Morpurgo’s novel was written for a young audience, but there is this very adult sentiment that runs through it, a deep anger about the colossal waste of war, that explicitly recalls All Quiet on the Western Front. Is that something that you and the screenwriters sought to preserve in the film adaptation?
SS: Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that every war, any war can be interpreted as a waste of the spirit, whether you believe that certain wars have purpose or don’t have purpose. I happen to believe that World War II is the one war that did have a purpose. It was a war that had to be acquitted in the name of freedom, or we wouldn’t be living the lives we’re living today, anywhere on this planet. But other wars are arguable.
And in that sense, World War I is controversial, in that some people feel it’s a war that could have not been fought, didn’t have to have been waged. And America, France, Germany, and Great Britain were still caught up in it. Young kids went off to that war blithely, went off thinking they’d be home by Christmas, which is exactly what didn’t occur.
For me, in the Morpurgo book, the feeling of anger isn’t what forms the movie. What forms the movie are different values. Courage. The folly of “death before dishonor.” And a real love story about this young boy and his best friend, who was this warm-blooded farm animal sold by his father to the British cavalry. And this boy’s quest to get his horse back. For me, that was my main interest in telling the story.
AW: When people think of the phrase “Steven Spielberg War Film,” their minds likely go to Saving Private Ryan. Given the logistical similarities between the films—shooting on location in the United Kingdom, the large-scale period battle sequences—are there any technical lessons, more than a decade later, that you learned from Ryan that served you during the production of War Horse?
SS: I guess I have a lot of experience with large physical productions. But it didn’t really have any effect on me either way. It just allowed me to focus more on the characters than on the epic scope and drama of warfare. My emphasis was on these close-ups of Joey and Albert and these other characters. The war is a necessary evil and also a backdrop to our story of War Horse. But it’s a PG-13 movie, so I went out of my way to make sure that the same things that put Ryan in your face and directly in your lap weren’t the same images I chose to use for War Horse, because I want the film to be experienced by families.
AW: This film features a host of great British performers in their first collaboration with you: Tom Hiddleston, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, David Thewlis, Eddie Marsan, to name a few. Is there any tension for you as a filmmaker between, on the one hand, the desire to use performers who you know work comfortably and confidently with you, and on the other hand, to seek out new faces, new performance styles?
SS: I always like finding new actors to work with. I mean, that’s what’s fun for me. I have so many actors I’d love to work with again. But every story presents me with a different set of criteria. I’m usually really excited to use Tom Hanks as much as I can, but this particular story doesn’t have a single American in it, nor does it have an American with a British accent. I use Germans to play Germans, Brits to play Brits, and French to play French. I did the same thing with Schindler’s List, going to several different countries to cast these roles.
AW: Is that authenticity important to you, in terms of nationalities of the actors?
SS: Yeah, It’s very important to me. The other thing that’s important to me is getting the right people for those parts. And I’ve always wanted to work with Emily Watson. I’m a fan of her work, and so that was my first choice. I didn’t know Tom Hiddleston, but I met him and I thought he’d be great as Nichols. I was a big fan from the London stage, and also London television, of Benedict Cumberbatch. So there were people that I had in my mind to use, but just couldn’t find the right roles for, over the last several years. War Horse came along, and I suddenly saw this great opportunity to cast people I had already known of and wanted to work with.
AW: You also have another first this year, your first animated feature film, The Adventures of Tintin.
SS: Yeah, the first time I’ve ever done an animated feature!
AW: Was the experience of working in animation a shock, or was it close to what your experience was with live-action?
SS: Well, it was a good shock to my system, because never having done an animated film, I found a very personal connection with the process, through the process. And also because it’s been a film three decades in the making. I first optioned the rights in 1983, dropped the rights and re-optioned in 2003. I got a chance to collaborate with Peter Jackson, and I started making the movie in 2005. So we’re talking five or six years just from the time we started writing the script to the time the movie is coming out. It’s been, probably of all of my films that I’ve ever directed, the longest gestation period I’ve ever experienced.
AW: It’s a passion project?
SS: It’s a real passion, to do Tintin.
AW: You have a lot of affection for the original comics?
SS: I love the original books by Hergé, and I’ve just always wanted to tell these stories.
AW: The particular story that you’ve adapted for your Tintin film, The Secret of the Unicorn, is based on a specific book. It’s sort of a pirate tale, one that focuses pretty centrally on the adventure for its own sake. Is the selection of that particular story something you had in mind early, or did that come later?
SS: In fact, it’s a combination of books. The estate gave us the rights to any one of the books and gave us a very broad right to adapt the book. Not necessarily literally translate Hergé from book to film, but to be able to add things and change things. We had a great deal of leeway, which we were very appreciative of. In this sense, it was three books, it was Red Rackham’s Treasure, it was The Secret of the Unicorn, and it was The Crab with the Golden Claws. So we took elements from all three of the books to tell the first Tintin story.
AW: So there’s so free adaptation there. They allowed you that freedom.
SS: Yes, they had to, because there’s not enough story in any single book to make a movie.
AW: In addition to those two films you have coming out this year, you’ve also contributed a forward to a book from Matt Taylor on the making of Jaws and the close relationship between that film’s production and the community on Martha’s Vineyard [Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard]. Your participation in that book was quite a coup for Taylor, as a first-time author. How did you get involved?
SS: I was sent the galleys of that book through official channels. When I read the galleys, I realized something, which is reflected in my forward. I was so laser-focused on the impossibility of telling that story, with the hubris of working on the actual ocean, and not in a safe Hollywood tank. I was so kind of underwater telling that story, that I neglected to appreciate or even notice the hundreds of locals that helped us make that picture behind the scenes. When I read that book and I saw everybody’s point of view, it was like Kurosawa’s Rashomon. I immediately said I’ve got to thank the people of Martha’s Vineyard for helping make Jaws a success. That’s why I contributed the forward.
AW: Do you still find that you have that sort of tunnel-vision when you’re shooting on location?
SS: No, I think I’ve changed. I mean, I was like 26 when I made Jaws. That’s a lot of time gone by. I think I’m not the same person today that I was when I made Jaws. I’ve got a lot of outreach now in my heart for people who support the making of the movie, from the government to the people who give us support, who have the hotels that we stay in, who have the restaurants that we dine in, who supply transportation for us. I think all of us have much more appreciation now for local community support when we bring a movie, like a circus coming into their town.
AW: That issue of locality reminds me of your first theatrical feature, Sugarland Express, and how essential its Texas locations are to its aesthetic and mood. At this point in your career, can you see yourself tackling a kind of small-scale, on-location drama again, or is that not in the works?
SS: No, everything’s possible. If a story comes along and it overrules everything I’m working on, I’m there. I’m there.
AW: Your wife grew up here in the St. Louis area, correct?
SS: Yes, she grew up in Missouri. She’s there right now as we speak, she went to visit her mother.
AW: The suburban and small-town settings that are familiar and comfortable for so many Midwesterners figure into many of your films, especially your early films that were so formative for the filmgoers of my generation. What is it about those settings that drew you and continues to draw you?
SS: Well it’s what I know. It’s how I was raised, I was raised in suburbia, so they say, “Write what you know.” And a lot of the movies I make, a lot of the values of those films, come from my own upbringing.
AW: Your name often crops up as a contemporary director who is very classical in your approach to action filmmaking. For example, you have a reputation as someone who uses storyboarding extensively. Is that an approach that simply works well for you personally, or do you view storyboarding as essential to good filmmaking?
SS: Well, I’ve done whole movies without storyboarding. Saving Private Ryan didn’t have a single storyboard. Storyboarding for me is when there’s a special effect that needs to be agreed upon by every single department. It’s better to have pictures and visualizations of the scenes, so everybody can contribute what they need to contribute to successfully complete the sequence. But there’s whole movies I’ll never storyboard. Personal films. I never storyboarded Schindler’s List, I never storyboarded Munich. But I will storyboard Indiana Jones because it’s all action. And I did storyboard some of War Horse. Not all of it, but some of it.
AW: What about Tintin? Given that was made in a digital space, it that an instance where you had to use storyboarding?
SS: Yes, Tintin is a storyboard come to life!
AW: Thank you very much for your time. I’m looking forward to Tintin, and to War Horse.
SS: Good! I look forward to you seeing the film. You’re in a great city. It was special talking to you, knowing that my wife and mother-in-law are there.
Steven Spielberg’s new films, The Adventures of Tintin and War Horse open nationwide on December 23 and 25 , respectively. Matt Taylor’s book Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard is available now.
