An amateur film maker even before he entered high school, Spielberg was hired at an early age as a television director by Universal Pictures, achieving immediate success in 1971 with his first television feature film, Duel. This opened the way for him to make theatrically-released films and in 1975 he directed Jaws, the now legendary thriller about a great white shark.In 1977, Spielberg directed the first of his "extraterrestrial" films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. His second, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, came out in 1982 and was perhaps his greatest success. With its inventive special effects, whimsical yet touching plot and imaginative outreach, this film had tremendous appeal. In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced the super-archaeologist Indiana Jones, who also appeared in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).
In 1987, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognised Spielberg's importance to the industry by honouring him with the Irving G Thalberg Award.
The vigorous storyline, sharp editing and almost childlike simplicity of Spielberg's films have usually been well received by critics and the general public, but some have complained of a lack of emotional depth, especially in The Color Purple (1985), a version of black writer Alice Walker's novel, and Empire of the Sun (1987), adapted from J G Ballard's autobiographical work about Japanese-occupied China. In 1993, Jurassic Park featured memorable special effects with its sinister dinosaurs and chalked up further records at the box office, but did little to counter the accusation that Spielberg was an intellectual lightweight.
However, Schindler's List, released in the same year, answered many of these criticisms with its true story of the noble work of a German industrialist in rescuing Polish Jews from extermination by the Nazis. Shot in black and white, it won Academy Awards in 1994 for best picture and best director.
His 1998 film about the Normandy landings of World War II, Saving Private Ryan, combined horrifying verisimilitude about the violence of warfare with a somewhat sentimental storyline.
Spielberg has also been highly influential as a co-producer and writer and was involved in the filming of Poltergeist (1982), Back to the Future (1985) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), amongst other films. In 1994, he formed Dreamworks SKG with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to produce films, animation and television programmes.
