On Filmdom’s A-List of a Lifetime : Steven Spielberg Receives AFI’s Award for Cinematic Achievement

On Thursday night, nearly a year after “Schindler’s List” won him a best picture Oscar and “Jurassic Park” nestled in behind “E.T.” to give him the two highest-grossing films of all time, director Steven Spielberg was awarded the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement award.

At 47, Spielberg is the youngest person to receive the honor.

“If my career is held up against the masters--previous recipients of the award who made movies like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘All About Eve,’ ‘Singin’ in the Rain’--for me, they should have thrown a brunch,” quipped the director.

Spielberg’s 21-year film career has produced 16 movies, four of which are among Hollywood’s top 10 box-office successes. Since October, he has moved into the mogul ranks, partnering with David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg to form the entertainment company DreamWorks SKG.

MCA Inc. president Sidney Sheinberg, who gave Spielberg his first directing assignment, presented the award to a man he called “the premier filmmaker of the 20th Century.” Though commercial success kicked in fast for Spielberg, he suggested, critical respect was longer in coming.

“At one time, there was some concern about whether Steven could do anything but Sunday matinee films,” Sheinberg said. “But after ‘Schindler’s List,’ the world knows he can do anything he sets out to do.”

Tom Hanks, Spielberg’s next-door neighbor, served as the host of the evening. Addressing a packed ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel (“Once again, Steven is surrounded by sharks and dinosaurs”), he praised his friend’s boundless imagination.

“For every idea Steven makes into a movie, there are a thousand more in his head,” Hanks said. “His cranium houses the world’s largest multiplex theater--open 24 hours a day.”

Film clips from Spielberg’s childhood illustrated the point, portraying a scrawny child in Scottsdale, Ariz., with his eyes on the stars. Young Steven turned his house into a movie studio, casting family members in lead roles and creating full-scale productions at the age of 15.

When his family moved to Los Angeles two years later, Spielberg walked through the gates of Universal Studios, briefcase in hand. Putting his name on the front of an empty office, he lived on movie sets for three months. “Amblin,” a 22-minute short, caught Sheinberg’s attention and landed Spielberg a Universal Television contract. At 20, he was directing Joan Crawford in the suspense series “Night Gallery.”

“Sid is like an executive moyel at my career bris,” Spielberg said, referring to the person who performs the rite of circumcision on Jewish baby boys.

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Terming himself a “cinemaniac--scared to death of the dark except in a motion picture theater,” the director discussed his love of the process. “Having an idea and being able to photograph it is a magic potion for me,” he explained. “That’s what let (Akira) Kurosawa make ‘Ran’ when he was 80 years old.”

Facing a sea of Hollywood power players, Dustin Hoffman (“Hook”) took the opportunity to plug “Outbreak,” his upcoming movie (“I love you, Steven, but business is business”) before describing Spielberg’s modus operandi on the set.

“Steven combines an intense, almost unconscious, vision with a fundamental desire to throw up on the first day of work,” he observed. “That’s the sign of a true artist. Watching that footage of Greg Louganis, you realize that--even for the best diver in the world--the difference between hitting your head on the board and getting a ‘10’ is a hair’s-breadth.”

Roy Scheider contrasted the innocence of Spielberg’s vision with the one that permeates Hollywood at large. “For years, elders thought Steven’s magic was too powerful--maybe even dangerous, since he viewed the world like a 3-year-old,” said the star of Spielberg’s first blockbuster, “Jaws.”

Some of the movie magic was born of necessity rather than genius, however. Producer-director George Lucas--with whom, Spielberg says, he’s often confused (“I’ve learned to accept compliments about ‘Star Wars’ graciously”)--recalled a ticklish time on the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” set when drinks of local tap water kept cast and crew running for the hotel. About to shoot a complicated scene in which Indiana Jones faces off with a whip-wielding foe, an uncomfortable Harrison Ford asked whether they could finish up in an hour.

“The scene required two dozen setups,” recalled Lucas, who produced the film. “But Steven was cool. ‘We can, if you pull out a gun and shoot the guy,’ he replied. That joke became an audience favorite.”

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While actors such as Whoopi Goldberg (“The Color Purple”) credited their careers to Spielberg (“I have Oscars, hand- and paw-prints in cement because you walked me through the door”), comedian Jim Carrey--who’s never been hired by Spielberg--threw some playful jabs.

“I went out for ‘E.T.,’ ” Carrey said, crooking his second finger, “but Spielberg opted for the puppet. Well, let me tell you something, Steven: People knew it was a puppet . . . and that hurt the film. Now you have that fancy-pants corporation with two other guys who, frankly, I never heard of, I’m asking again if there are projects I’m right for.”

On a more serious note, Ben Kingsley discussed the shoot of “Schindler’s List,” the true story of a German who saved 1,300 Jews from extinction. “I was afraid that the boundaries between actor and role would collapse--that my colossal grief would make me unable to perform,” he admitted.

“Schindler’s” was a watershed experience for Spielberg. On the personal front, it reinforced his bond with Judaism. (One organization he has since founded channels “Schindler’s” profits to Jewish causes, while another is preserving interviews with Holocaust survivors.) Professionally, the movie marked his emergence as a filmmaker of “consequence,” giving him new direction.

“Most of my films had been the stuff of imagination,” Spielberg said. “For the first time, I felt free to abandon ‘form’ to tell the story of a life.

“For most of my career, my life was wrapped around films,” the director noted. “But, thanks to my wife, Katie (Capshaw), and my five kids, I now know who I am without the script--so the best films are yet to come.”