Steven Spielberg dominated the cinema of the nineties. He is one of the screen's greatest enchanters, with a spellbinding capacity – and a box-office record – matched by very few.
His power now exceeds that of the greatest moguls of Hollywood's golden era, and films like 'Jaws, ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'Jurassic Park' have been seen by billions around the world, and have changed forever the way movies are made. How was it that this 'movie brat', from an unhappy and rootless adolescence on the fringes of American society, became one of the most formidable players on the global entertainment scene?.
From 'Duel', which suggested the innate 'film sense' Spielberg would bring to movie-making, to the Oscar-winning 'Schindler's List 'and beyond...
John Baxter is a film critic, novelist, biographer and broadcaster, whose books on the cinema include ‘The Hollywood Exiles’, ‘The Cinema of John Ford’, and highly praised biographies of Ken Russell, Fellini, Bunuel, ‘Steven Spielberg’ and ‘Stanley Kubrick’. His biography of ‘Woody Allen’ was published by HarperCollins in November 1998.