Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.
Today we discuss one of the greatest film directors to ever live: Steven Spielberg! Our B-Sides are 1941, Hook, Amistad, and The Adventures of Tintin.
Our guest is dear friend and incredible writer Bilge Ebiri! As of this writing, he just published his piece The Raider of a Lost Art, an oral history about Spielberg in conjunction with the release of his new film Disclosure Day. He’s also discussed Spielberg with The Film Stage before!
We chat about Spielberg’s early start and the difficult production of 1941, his stratospheric ‘80s, the successful failure of Hook, and his underrated Amistad. There’s a celebration of Spielberg’s improbable millennium run of films, from Saving Private Ryan through Munich.
The three of us dig into why Bilge loves Hook so much, he speaks on some additional, unpublished gems from his oral history piece, we appreciate the genius of John Milius, and the impossible camera that injects so much energy into The Adventures of Tintin.
Listen below and subscribe here. Be sure to give us a follow on Bluesky at @tfsbside.bsky.social. Enjoy!