Steven Spielberg, one of the most influential film personalities of all time and the highest paid director in modern Hollywood, produced and directed many films about the Holocaust and World War Two. Even though Spielberg was born a few years after World War Two ended, having a strong Jewish background compelled him to make films and T.V. shows such as Schindler's List, Empire of the Sun, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, A Holocaust Szemei, and Saving Private Ryan. Making these films and shows helped Spielberg acquire respect for himself and his Jewish background, which he had lacked during his childhood.Born in 1946, Spielberg grew up a victim of anti-Semitic abuse from other students at school. Children would mutter "Jew" whenever they passed Spielberg in the hallways and they would throw pennies at him, hoping he would pick them up and prove how "miserly" Jews were.
[...] this film has kind of come along with me on this journey from shame to honor. My mother said to me one day, she said, really want to be able to see a movie that you make someday that's sort of about us, and about, you know, who we are.' This is it. This is for her.” Following his realization that being mindful does not always yield the best results in film, Spielberg decided to be intuitive for the very first time in his film career. [...]
[...] I really wanted to challenge myself with something that was not stereotypically a Spielberg movie.” In 1985, Spielberg directed The Color Purple, but it yielded negative reviews because some critics felt that the content of the film was not faithful to Alice Walker's novel, and that it fit Hollywood's standards so much that it left behind the gritty reality of poverty and racial issues, therefore losing the strongest aspect of the story. His subsequent dramatic films, Empire of the Sun and Always were among his least successful efforts. [...]
[...] I didn't change the toolbox; I simply changed the project,” Spielberg told Julie Salamon. this movie, I threw out the toolbox and started from scratch. I think I got rid of most of what I do to make a movie kind of slick; everything that for me might be considered a safety nest. I would have ruined [Schindler's List] if I had made this ten years ago.” Critics reacted to Schindler's List with extremely favorable reviews. They felt that Spielberg's new approach was really efficient in portraying the hard-nosed reality of the Holocaust. [...]
[...] I was embarrassed to invite friends over to the house because he might be in a corner davening [praying], and I wouldn't know how to explain this to my Wasp friends Spielberg also grew up hearing stories about the Holocaust from relatives, who were survivors. He also had claimed to have learned his numbers as a toddler by reading the numerals tattooed on the arm of a concentration camp survivor. He grew up listening to his parents and relatives refer to Nazi as “those murdering sons of bitches” His family had direct ties to the Holocaust, as relatives had died in Poland and Ukraine. [...]
[...] Spielberg in a televised interview called Spielberg on Spielberg said that the Shoah Foundation was, outside of his family, the most important work he had ever done. Roger Ebert commended Spielberg by writing, Goddard or any other director, living or dead, done more than Spielberg with his Holocaust Project, to honor and preserve the memories of the survivors?” During his entire film career, Spielberg had always been partial to making World War Two films, even when he was a teenager. [...]
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