The world’s most famous director paid a visit to SXSW here in Austin on March 13. Steven Spielberg, 79, gave a wide-ranging talk about aliens and film-making.
Aliens & Close Encounters
“I don’t know any more than any of you do, but I have a very strong sneaking suspicion that we are not alone here on Earth right now — and I made a movie about that,” he deadpanned, referring to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
“No one should ever think that we are the only intelligent civilization in the entire universe. So, I’ve been thinking since I was a kid that we were not alone. So that just goes without saying. The big question is: Are we alone now? And have we been alone over the last 80 years? Have we been alone over the last few thousand years?”
Spielberg lamented his own relationship to aliens.
“I made Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. — I haven’t even had a close encounter or the first or second kind!” he quipped. “Why haven’t I seen anything? Half of my friends have seen UFOS or UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena). Where’s the justice of that? If you’re listening out there …,” he joked to great laughter from the audience.
“Nobody would let me make Close Encounters because it was on the fringes of science and mythology, and so no one really got it. When I said, ‘I want to make a UFO movie,’ everybody thought, ‘You want to make a movie about The National Enquirer?’ You want to make a movie about the crackpot reporting of things that aren’t really occurring? You want to make a completely crazy fantasy film about something that isn’t happening?”
“One of my consultants on Close Encounters was the former head of Project Bluebook, the Air Force investigation into these anomalies in the sky. J. Allen Hynek worked for them until he sensed there was a coverup, so he went into the private sector.” [editor’s note: I met Dr Hynek, at a talk he gave on UFOs. That was in Kitchener, Canada, back in the 1980s]
Spielberg gave a surprising answer when asked by Sean Fennessey about what film he would most like a real alien to see. “If somebody came down to say ‘show me the film that represents the kindness of the human race, and all of the basic, intuitive, good in people, I would show It’s A Wonderful Life by Frank Capra, which is the kindest film I’ve ever seen.”
Disclosure Day & Pres. Obama
Former President Barack Obama’s recently commented that aliens are “real.” Spielberg’s first reaction was, “Oh, my God, this is so great for Disclosure Day! But two days later, Obama stepped it back to say what he believed was in life in the cosmos — which, of course, everybody should believe in.”
Spielberg admitted his in making his first UFO movie in 50 years was “rekindled” by The New York Times 2017 story about a secret government program tracking UFOs, as well as the congressional hearings in recent years featuring government whistleblowers. Documentaries about UFOs “really started to roll out in 2018.”
Universal’s upcoming film (June 12) Disclosure Day is already being thought of as a sequel to Close Encounters. [Photo shows a large billboard for the film, on a downtown Austin street during SXSW] The film is all about a global panic and societal upheaval when humanity receives undeniable proof that aliens exist. But Spielberg was quick to allay the level of upheaval if such a thing were to happen for real.
“I’m not afraid of any aliens,” he added. “I have no fears about that whatsoever. I think our movie does take into consideration that social dislocation that could occur. If it was announced there is interaction [with aliens] that have been going on for decades, it’s going to cause a disruption in a lot of belief systems. But I don’t think it is a lethal disruption at all.”
Storytelling & Chalamet
As everyone knows by now, a remark made in Austin in February has caused an international uproar. Timothée Chalamet – in a line that will haunt him forever – the dubiously-talented actor said “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or you know, things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though it’s like, no one cares about this anymore.” Among the chorus of boos, one came from Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg (who had a major role on Star Trek: The Next Generation): “When you crap on somebody else’s artform, it doesn’t feel good.” Spielberg did not shy away from the controversy either. At the end of this monologue about storytelling in all its forms, the SXSW audience erupted into sustained applause and cheers:
“If we’re just not making the same sequel over and over and over again, and it’s not the same Marvel title over and over and over again, we all get a real chance to experience something which is precious. I look out at this auditorium with everybody here, and we’re all together. We don’t know each other, and we probably agree with each other more than we disagree with each other. But the one thing I know is when we’re all watching something — it could hit us all independently, individually, in different ways — there is a collective impulse from a good story that hits all of us at the same time in exactly the same way. There is something about community and communication and getting along with each other — and that happens in full movie theaters, and not sitting around living rooms watching on television. Netflix is a great company to work with, but the real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark space … It happens in movies. It happens at concerts. And it happens in ballet and opera!”
His worst Nightmare
In a most unusual insight, the world’s foremost director revealed “All my movies come from my nightmares.” He followed up on that theme via an even more unusual route.
“I’ve been telling stories my whole life but my best stories have never been released because I have seven kids and I put them all to bed at night with stories. My kids, not my audiences, have benefitted from my best stories. I can’t envision what it would be like not to do what I do, and that would be the worst nightmare of my life, to not get to do what I’m doing.”