I think Spielberg is about as good as they come, in terms of movies that are entertaining and satisfying to watch. I have seen probably most of his films, and there isn't a clinker in the bunch.
He gives the people what they want, that's for sure.
en.wikipedia.org
I found this story amusing regarding Hitchcock and Spielberg...
From here:
"I look at him and feel like such a *****”.
faroutmagazine.co.uk
Spielberg tried to organise a meetup of the two cinematic greats, he was never able to, as explained in the audiobook
Tales of Hollywood by Stephen Schochet. In the audiobook, Schochet outlines how Hitchcock was once “upset by an uninvited young man hovering around the movie set” of his last film
Family Plot released in 1976. According to reports, the director behind
Psycho,
The Birdsand many other 20th century classics called to have the trespasser removed, not knowing the man was in fact
Steven Spielberg hoping to meet his idol.
This was merely the first time Spielberg tried to meet Hitchcock however, with the director of
Jaws,
Jurassic Park and
Saving Private Ryan being repeatedly turned down for a meeting. The reason for such a passionate refusal to meet Steven Spielberg was only revealed once American actor Bruce Dern released his autobiography in 2007, where the actor revealed that he tried to convince Hitchcock to meet the
Jaws director.
“I said, ‘You’re his idol. He just [wants] to sit at your feet for five minutes and chat with you’,” Bruce Dern writes, though Hitchcock continued to refuse, stating, “Isn’t that the boy who made the fish movie?… I could never sit down and talk to him… because I look at him and feel like such a *****”.
Confused and bewildered by such a response, Dern asked Hitchcock to elaborate, “I said, ‘Why do you feel Spielberg makes you a *****?’ Hitch said, ‘Because I’m the voice of the
Jaws ride [at Universal Studios]. They paid me a million dollars. And I took it and I did it. I’m such a *****. I can’t sit down and talk to the boy who did the fish movie… I couldn’t even touch his hand”.
Though Steven Spielberg would have, of course, been enamoured by
Alfred Hitchcock, it seems that this was too much for the latter to bear, even if the reasons for such are truly bizarre.
