To mark his 60th birthday, we celebrate the genius of Steven Spielberg by counting down (in no particular order) the greatest moments, amazing stories and monumental impact of the world's greatest film director...
WORDS: Ian Freer and Ross Bennett
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That He Waited Ten Years To Make Schindler's List
In 1982, Thomas Keneally's 'Schindler's Ark' won the coveted Booker Prize, drawing the attention of Spielberg's mentor Sid Sheinberg, who immediately sent a glittering New York Times review of the book to his pupil. Spielberg's subsequent interest in Keneally's tale prompted Universal to buy the screen rights, yet the project was to lay dormant for a decade. Having offered the movie to a long line of directors, including Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack and Roman Polanski, Spielberg still felt he wasn't ready to tackle the insurmountable feat of depicting the holocaust on film. He waited. Then, in 1993, the director found himself in Poland about to commence principal photography on the newly named Schindler's List. It took ten years for Spielberg to feel emotionally and artistically mature enough to face the movie, yet his patience paid off, as Schindler's List became not only the most important work in the Spielberg canon, but a universally acclaimed look at the unfathomable horror of the holocaust.
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