AND FILMMAKER SUSAN LACY TALKS ABOUT SPIELBERG'S PERSONAL ARCHIVE OF 8MM FILMS
The above images are included in the trailer for Susan Lacy's HBO documentary, Spielberg, which hit the web a couple of days ago. On Thursday, PRI's Sam Kim posted a radio interview with Lacy in which they discussed the documentary. Recall that Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow's De Palma doc opened with a clip from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, a film that had a major effect on Brian De Palma early on. Lacy similarly opens Spielberg with a clip from David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia, which kicks of the following bit of conversation between Kim and Lacy:
Spielberg (from film clip): A movie came into town called Lawrence Of Arabia, and everybody was talking about it. And when the film was over, I wanted to not be a director anymore, because the bar was too high.Sam Kim: That was great!
Susan Lacy: Yeah. The minute he told me that story, I knew that I was going to open with that.
SK: Of course.
SL: But I didn’t tell him that. And so when he saw the film for the first time, I think he said something like, “Pretty bold of you, to open a film about a filmmaker with somebody else’s movie!” I said, yeah, and he said, “I love it!” It’s about inspiration, it’s about what he aspired to.
SK: And about what you see when you’re an adolescent, you know, which affects us all. One of the great parts of this film of yours are these—a lot of these 8mm films that he made as a kid…
SL: They’re amazing, aren’t they?
SK: They’re totally amazing! Did he have them all?
SL: Yeah. He keeps a pretty good archive.
SK: I’ll bet!
SL: But, he’s very protective of them.
SK: Right.
SL: All that footage you see in the film of him hanging out with Paul Schrader and De Palma and…
SK: Never seen any of that, either.
SL: Even his own staff hasn’t seen most of it.
SK: That was his…?
SL: All of it was shot by him.
[Film Clip, possibly Spielberg’s voice] This is Martin Scorsese, director of Mean Streets.
[Spielberg’s voice again, but this time closer to the microphone]: This is Brian De Palma, wild as ever!