NAME: Steven Allan Spielberg

AGE: 57

NATIONALITY: American

CLAIM TO FAME: Hollywood’s top filmmaker honoured with France’s highest award

AS America doesn’t have any knighthood to bestow upon its citizens, it is left up to other nations to do the honour. Ace filmmaker Steven Spielberg just became a knight in the French Legion of Honour when French President Jacques Chirac decorated him with the country’s highest distinction.

The Legion of Honour was established by Napoleon Bonaparte for those, including non-citizens, who have made outstanding contributions to France in military, cultural, social and scientific fields. Spielberg has already received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 2001 for his contributions to cinema and society but it comes without the title of ‘Sir’, something only reserved for British citizens.

The man behind such memorable films as ET, the Indiana Jones trilogy, Jurassic Park, and Jaws was hailed by President Chirac as a great filmmaker committed to fighting hatred and intolerance.

Spielberg’s trip to France had a duel purpose as he was also attending the 30th Deauville film festival, the annual showcase for US cinema in France, where he was one of the guest of honour. Also with him in Deauville was close friend Tom Hanks to attend the French premiere of their latest movie, The Terminal.

Though the two are renowned for serious and dramatic, usually loaded with lots of special effects, this time they have come up with a light comedy about a man trapped in a US airport terminal when there is a coup in his East European country. Based on real-life case of an Iranian refugee who found himself stuck at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988, the movie continues to make waves at the box-office. Only the sleek directions of Speilberg and acting skills of Hanks can pull off a simple plot such as this.

Clearly the most influential filmmaker today, and for the past three decades, the artist and the entertainer come together well in Spielberg. His work possess stylistic craftsmanship which he enhances with the latest developments in special effects, thereby appealing to the masses as no other filmmaker does. His 1975 Jaws was a mega success, heralded general trend toward big-budget blockbusters. Then followed a string of successful movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the movie that truly asserted his position as the era’s most popular filmmaker — 1982’s E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. It is one of the most commercially successful movies of all time.

One of Spielberg’s first serious dramatic ventures was The Colour Purple. The film grossed over $100 million and secured 11 Oscar nominations. However, it won nothing, a shutout widely attributed to the industry’s resentment over Spielberg’s staggering success.

In 1993 came Jurassic Park, a special-effects extravaganza was a global blockbuster of mammoth proportion. That same year, he released Schindler’s List, an epic docudrama set during the Holocaust, and finally this time Spielberg was rewarded for his accomplishments — the picture won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director honours. Among his other movies that have done well at Oscar night is Saving Private Ryan, a World War II epic, which Spielberg both directed and produced, getting a staggering 11 Academy Award nominations and eventually winning five. A.I. and Minority Report showed Spielberg’s fascination with science fiction and fantasy. Most of the filmmaker’s movies have the underlying theme of fascination with the unknown and the identification with a child’s point of view. Probably Spielberg still possess a child’s boundless imagination which makes the artist in him come up with such fascinating work.— Uzma Ejaz