15 of Steven Spielberg's favorite films to learn how to make films

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The famous director, as a child, began to dream about how he would create his own films, and practiced shooting small videos with a camera donated by his father. His first achievement was the victory in the youth competition for a 40-minute film about the war "Escape to Nowhere." Steven Spielberg was then only 13 years old. He makes amazing films, but he also has his own list of film preferences, which, among others, includes two domestic films.

"The Greatest Show in the World", USA, 1952

Director Cecil B. DeMille filmed a giant traveling circus show. Little Steven Spielberg first saw it at the age of five and remembered not the talented acting, but the magnificent spectacle. The future director was impressed by the elephants and the train wreck so much that a little later he began filming the wreck of toy trains himself. And he was able to get around his father's ban on pushing toys together by learning how to cut and glue the film. Already as an adult, Steven Spielberg was able to appreciate the scale of the filming, and the development of relations between the characters, and the play of talented actors.

"War of the Worlds", USA, 1953

The film by Byron Haskin, watched as a child, made the young Steven Spielberg experience real horror. He did not look up at the screen, almost an hour and a half being in chilling tension. Years later, he saw how progressive and unusual the painting was for its time.

"Godzilla, King of the Monsters!", USA, 1956

Isiro Honda and Terry O. Morse's painting seems to Steven Spielberg to be one of the highest quality monster films. The action taking place on the screen was filmed and staged really masterfully, and therefore looked very convincing for its time.

"A guy named Joe", USA, 1943

Probably only such a master as Victor Fleming was able to make a fantastic film about the events of World War II. It was this picture that became one of the few that made Steven Spielberg shed a mean man's tear. According to the director, "A guy named Joe" inspires and gives strength to new feats and achievements.

Lawrence of Arabia, Great Britain, 1962

The story of David Lean about the English intelligence officer, the hero of the First World War, became for Spielberg the very inspiring force that convinced the director that he should make films. The illusions created with the help of optics interested Steven Spielberg, and he began to seriously study filmmaking, trying to understand how the filmmaker managed to achieve intimacy on such an epic scale.

"Manchurian Candidate", USA, 1962

The film by John Frankenheimer also attracted Steven Spielberg, primarily due to its editing capabilities. After watching a story about American soldiers being encircled in South Korea, Spielberg himself began practicing editing tricks on 8mm film.

2001: A Space Odyssey, USA, 1968

According to Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick has become a benchmark for the current generation of filmmakers. And his "A Space Odyssey" was a real explosion in cinema, inspiring many to create impressive space films.

"The Godfather", USA, 1972

Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece nearly made Steven Spielberg retire from directing. After watching The Godfather, Spielberg realized that he could never film anything more authentic than Coppola.

Citizen Kane, USA, 1941

Orson Welles' film has become a symbol of courage for Steven Spielberg, while courage is not about the plot, but about the approach to film production. After Citizen Kane, Spielberg realized that you can always achieve your goal, even if it seems fantastic.

"It's a Wonderful Life", USA, 1947

Steven Spielberg dreams of filming his "It's a Wonderful Life" someday. According to the director, Frank Capra shot a picture that allows the viewer to identify himself with the screen hero, put himself in his place and speculate about how he himself could act in a given situation.

"Fantasy", USA, 1940

Spielberg watched this cartoon as a child, and after that he was sure that the night looks exactly as he saw on the screen: an amazing woman with blue hair and hands that allow the whole world to envelop in darkness. When it appears over the horizon, the whole world seems to cover with a black and blue dome, and after the explosion, myriads of stars suddenly appear. When the director later filmed his "Alien", he conceived a beginning similar to this scene.

"Psycho", USA, 1960

Spielberg believes that no one has yet succeeded in achieving the highest level of visual storytelling as Hitchcock's. It is incredibly difficult to make a picture in such a way that it does not need explanation in words, be it dialogues or voice-overs.

"American Night", France, Italy, 1973

Steven Spielberg himself considers the director François Truffaut to be the embodiment of cinema. That is why the film about how a movie is made, with all the setbacks, studio difficulties, endless conflicts on the set and the director who has to solve all this, settle and reconcile, became so close to Spielberg.

"Russian Ark", Russia, Germany, Japan, Canada, Finland, Denmark, 2002

The American director calls the film by Alexander Sokurov one of his most beloved. Most of all he was impressed by the fact that the action, which lasts 95 minutes on the screen, was filmed in the Hermitage in one frame with three takes. Spielberg expresses sympathy for the cameraman who had to shoot this, but admits it is a truly unique experience.

"The Cranes Are Flying", USSR, 1957

Spielberg calls the picture of Mikhail Kalatozov one of the most beloved Russian films. He was most impressed by the plot depicting a touching love story against the backdrop of historical events. Steven Spielberg is sincerely surprised by the director's skill, who managed to strike a balance between "intimate and surreal". And he also notes: only Russians can shoot great kisses in films, a small particular, surrounded by space, armies, cranes in the sky.

The box office and high-profile films were borrowed from other iconic works. For example, the movie "Jaws" was based on the novel "Jaws", a number of "Pirates of the Caribbean" moments on the behavior of guitarist Keith Richards, and Terry Gilliam's work on dementia. Some cult works were made on the basis of, to put it mildly, strange sources. Surely, many would not even think that a movie could be made of such a thing.