'STEVEN SPIELBERG: A LIFE IN FILMS (JEWISH LIVES}' REVIEW...THE BOY WONDER'S MATURING JOURNEY

Steven Spielberg: A Life In Films (Jewish Lives) by Molly Haskell  is less a biography and more of a perceptive movie critic's chronological overview of the Spielberg filmography. Starting with Spielberg's teenage 8mm movies and finishing with "Bridge Of Spies", Haskell seasons her critiques of these films with well documented chunks of the filmmaker's life, most of it gleaned from other previous exhaustive biographies. Haskell aims for a step by step reportage, the kind you'd read in one of those coffee table "The Films Of..." books, combined with illustrating her opinions with the ups and downs of Spielberg's life.  So for Spielberg completists and movie buffs in general, you'll want to dive into this one right away.

            You won't find earth-shaking revelations in here.....just a thoughtful application of biographical sub-text to all the films.... in Haskell's view, .even the director's most ultra-commercial mega-budget blockbusters reveal something of the man himself, his long estrangement from his absent father, his rocky, doomed relationship with Amy Irving, the founding of his large extended family with actress Kate Capshaw....and most importantly, the maturing of his worldview.  (As both Haskell and Spielberg point out, only a young bachelor director would create a character like Richard Dreyfuss's Roy Neary in "Close Encounters"....a Dad who abandons his family to hitch a UFO ride to Outer Space....) One tidbit did genuinely take us by surprise regarding "A.I.", that odd, posthumous collaboration with the late Stanley Kubrick..... with Spielberg claiming,contrary to conventional wisdom,  that the film's cold, distant Kubrick-ian scenes were his doing, , while the warm, fuzzy emotional stuff came from Kubrick  Hmmm....fascinating, who'd a thought?

            BQ found it a fast, entertaining tour through the Spielberg canon and personal life.....we couldn't help thinking as we sped through it..... how many of those neophyte Sundance Film Festival auteurs would hold up if they had to face Joan Crawford on their first professional directing gig? 

             We'll tear off four Multiplex tickets **** for this incisive little bio. 4 stars.