The great Steven Spielberg at 70: an important goal he will reach next December 18 (he was born in 1946). "I still feel 100%," the famous director/producer says. "I still love directing and have a fire in my belly and a need for work every single day of the week, and twice on Sunday!"
His last film, the spy-thriller "Bridge of Spies", was nominated this year as best movie at the Academy Awards, another acclaimed work for the two times Oscar winner Spielberg (for "Shindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan"), his 36th feature-length movie since his first, "Duel" in 1971, and his fourth production with his good friend, Tom Hanks.
When we met him, the tireless Spielberg was busy on the post-production of "The Big Friendly Giant" (or "The BFG"), based on Roal Dahl's. Plus he's developing a wide array of projects soon to come (as a director and/or a producer), including a fifth "Indiana Jones", a new "Tintin Adventure", "Gremlins" and "Transformers", supervising the next "Jurassic World" and so on. As always he is very busy with his Shoah Foundation (dedicated to the memory of victims of the Holocaust and their survivors), but mainly Spielberg thinks about the future. His future as an artist, a filmmaker, a technology "user" and a pioneer, with a keen sensibility for history and tradition.
During our meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York last December, Spielberg mused about the new paths and shapes film is taking on today. "I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined," he says with his clear and slightly nasal voice, and his elegant elocution that reminds one of a college professor more than "just" a director. "We're all going be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place, say, in Des Moines. We're all going to lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience."
Is Spielberg pessimistic about the future of theatrical film as we know it? "No, I'm never a pessimist," he retorts. "The older I get, the more I look at movies as a moving miracle. Audiences are harder to please if you're just giving them special effects, but they're easy to please if it's a good story. I myself am [as] guilty as anyone for the creation of the movie as a blockbuster."