It’s safe to say that most of us have fallen in love with Steven Spielberg via his more bombastic or imaginative blockbusters, such as E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, or four of the five Indiana Jones movies, but one would be deathly unwise to overlook his contributions to more grounded drama circles.
Indeed, from Munich to Lincoln, all the way up to his latest triumph in The Fabelmans, there may not be a single cinematic ballpark that Spielberg doesn’t belong in, but it’s this latter one that houses the source of his greatest pride. And if, even by process of elimination, it’s still not clear what that source is by now, you might have some work to do.
Speaking recently to The Hollywood Reporter, in a longform piece entirely dedicated to the film no less, Spielberg named Schindler’s List, his unprecedentedly piercing Holocaust drama and Best Picture winner, as the best movie he believes he’s ever made, while noting that he still has time left in his career to maybe one day dethrone it.
It’s the best movie I’ve ever made. I am not going to say it’s the best movie I ever will make. But currently, it’s the work I’m proudest of.
It is, of course, profoundly difficult to imagine Spielberg ever eclipsing the power of Schindler’s List; he may be able to outplay himself on a technical level and maybe even write a better script, but there’s little to no chance that the filmmaker will find or dream up subject matter anywhere near as deeply cutting and important as that in Schindler’s List.
That said, it sounds like one of the industry’s premier magicians is characteristically determined to give it his best shot anyway, and that’s more than enough to get us hyped for a movie that doesn’t even exist; such is the power of Steven Spielberg.
(featured image: JC Olivera/Getty Images)
