Music, Style & Culture

Steven Spielberg - Part 1: The Story Of War Horse

The great director talks about his career and adapting Michael Morpurgo's novel.

On Monday 9th January DIY Film had the greatest honour of all - the company of Steven Spielberg. Okay, so we shared the special moment with a hundred others, but allow us the thrill of being inches from the man who brought us Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.

The Hollywood legend was in town for his latest movie, an epic adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel (and the beloved stage play). Set during the First World War, it follows a young farm boy (Jeremy Irvine) and the fate of his beloved horse Joey, sent to the battlefields after being sold to the British cavalry. Read our glowing review here.

Spielberg was joined at the London press conference by superproducer Kathleen Kennedy, the woman behind all of his films since E.T. and the second-most successful film producer of all time (behind her buddy Steven).

The great bearded one spoke to us for nearly forty minutes, so we've broken it up into two parts. Here, he and Kennedy discuss the origins of the project and Spielberg's career to date.

What is so special about the story of War Horse?
Spielberg: Well, the bones of the story is that it's a love story, and that makes it a little bit universal. It was that way in the book and it was certainly that way on the boards, on the West End. What we really tried to do in our adaptation of War Horse, was to really create a bonding story where Joey [the horse] basically circumvents the emotional globe of the Great War and gets very, not only connected with the people who are caring for Joey, but more importantly Joey has a way of bringing people together, especially people from both sides of that war. That was very evident in the play.

Kathy, you discovered the project - what was so right for Steven about it?
Kennedy: The first thing I thought about was how right it was for the audience. There was such a wide range of people responding - families going to the play. When I told Steven, he responded to the simplicity of the storyline. A boy trying to find his horse immediately conjures up a powerful response.



In your research and the development of the film did you find yourself drawing more from the book or the play?
Spielberg: I took more from Richard Curtis's script. I mean Richard wrote a brilliant screenplay. There's two screenwriters credited; Lee Hall did a wonderful first draft, Richard came in and he was my primary writer throughout the entire process of preproduction, right through the production of the picture. I was very drawn to the way Richard saw the story. Richard did not want Albert to come back into the movie until very late, so we have a hiatus from our central character you know, and we don't even see Albert until the third act. That was something that Richard brought into the equation.

[Question from young Filmclub representative] As a young person this film really moved me and helped me to understand more about the First World War. What do you think it is about film-watching in general that will help to educate and help children learn?
Spielberg: Well, children learn - as we know - exponentially from media today. We feel responsible if we make a movie that even touches on historical fact, that there has to be more than a kernel of truth in the history of - especially - the First World War. So we did a lot of research, beyond what you may perceive to be the story that you saw in War Horse. We did a lot of research, and the thing that really struck me in the research I did were the vast numbers of casualties among the horses. Not just the men who died on the on the American, British, French and German side, but was the fact that this was the death knell of the horse, this was the end of the horse as an instrument of warfare and it was an era, where the machine, the tank, the aeroplane, chemical warfare - it all kind of converged on the First World War. It was almost an experiment that was “the war to end all wars”, or at least that's what they thought.

It's a story of love but also a story of war. Why do you always keep coming back to those?
Spielberg: Well I don't often mix my metaphors so this is what makes this unique as both a story of love and a story of war. But I don't see this really as a war story. This isn't Saving Private Ryan, this isn't Band of Brothers, this isn't, you know, a typical war film. If you really look at the movie there's only about 12-15 minutes of combat in this film, from the cavalry charge to the fighting in the Somme. This is not really that kind of a film. I wanted families to see this picture together; there's hardly any blood in this movie at all, and unlike Saving Private Ryan where I was trying to acquit the actual testimonies of the young men who actually fought in France on D-Day, I was trying to make the movie as brutally authentic as I possibly could. I took a different approach to this story, so for me it's a combination of both.

Do you see this as an American regard for history?
Spielberg: I think my regard for history is more of a European regard for history as I think that Europeans are closer to history than we Americans are. I think that social media has taken over America to such an extent that even to get my own kids to look back a week in their past is a miracle, let alone a hundred years! Europe is closer, I think, to your history, and I think in that sense I have more proximity with the Europeans in that way. I love history - it's the only thing I did well at in school. I'm not ashamed to admit I was not a good student, but I was great at history. My dad fought in World War Two, he's turning 95 this month. He was based in Karachi, which is now Pakistan, he fought in Burma against the Japanese, and he told these stories. My first 8mm movies when I was 13, 14, 15, were all... most of them were war movies, World War Two movies, so I can't shake it. Also war throws characters into chaos and there's no better way to test who a person is than to put him in the middle of a war. That's really going to show you what kind of a character you're telling the story about.



What is your decision process when choosing a script, because your portfolio of movies is so diverse?
Spielberg: They choose me. I mean that sounds glib but it's true - I don't go through a tortuous intellectual process to decide what to direct. I know when I want to direct the second I read something and hear a story, I just know when it grabs me in a certain way that I want to direct it. I then spend the next 4-6 months trying to talk myself out of it!
Kennedy: It's always interesting as he's trying to get out of it, and I'm trying to make it!
Spielberg: Kathy is somebody who spends money to trap me, she entraps me in these productions! She knows I want to make it but then she starts spending the money so I may as well make it! I know it's essentially what and when I want to do next just, it's just an undeniable feeling I get, and it's not the same feeling I get when I wind up producing something as opposed to directing.

As you have so many projects, are you willing to work as late as Manuel de Oliveira, who is 103 and working steadily?
Spielberg: Well I have no plans to quit. I've always said, Clint Eastwood is one of my best friends, and I've known Clint for 40 years and we have a great, almost a jokey relationship about retirement. Clint's like 81 now, and I always say "Clint are you ready to retire this year?" and he says "No, are you?" and I say no. I'm waiting for the phone call when Clint says he's hanging up his spurs. That's never going to happen and if it doesn't happen for Clint, it won't happen for me!

You've had such a wonderful career - could you tell us what the turning point was?
Spielberg: The turning point in my career was Jaws. It was a turning point because I was a director for hire before Jaws and after Jaws was such a big hit, I could do any movie I wanted and Hollywood just wrote me a cheque. I wanted to make this crazy movie about flying saucers, and nobody wanted to make it before Jaws. I tried to get them to make this crazy film about flying saucers and I kept saying "Oh this big mother ship comes down at the end, you're going to love it, and this guy goes and climbs into the mother ship". People thought I was crazy and they wouldn't give me the time of day. And the second Jaws was a hit everybody said "What about that mother ship movie you had, what about that flying saucer movie you had, do you still want to make that?" So Jaws, for me, was the turning point.

The music is a big factor of the film. Can you just give a flavour of the day to day involvement with John Williams the composer?
Spielberg: Well John and I have had a forty year relationship, this year is our 40th anniversary. We started working together in 1972 on Sugarland Express so this is year 40. And we start our next score in thee months - Johnny scores Lincoln and that'll be our... I don't know, a lot. John is the most important collaborator I've ever had in my career; he's made me look good, he's made my work look better. I get a lot of credit but it really should be going to John. But I've kept the people in my career who I feel are my family: Kathy has been with me since 1978, Janusz Kamiński, my cinematographer, has made every movie with me since Schindler's List; Michael Kahn has cut every movie I've made since 1976 when we made Close Encounters together; Rick Carter has done fifteen of my directed films as a production designer. I really believe in the family of collaboration and Johnny is certainly no less or no more important than that group of all of us, but Johnny does make a contribution that goes straight to your heart. A lot of the contributions of my other collaborators are subliminal - you don't really single them out for credit, although without them the films wouldn't have the impact that they have. But John certainly has the most considerable impact because he immediately bypasses the brain and goes right to your heart, and that's how it's always been with him. He's an amazing talent.

You have seven children. How much do you think of them when you're choosing projects?
Spielberg: Yes I have seven children, and my daughter Destry had a lot to do with me directing War Horse, because she's been competitively riding. She's 15 now and she's been competitively riding for I'd say 11 years. And we live with horses - we have 10 horses at home, and we've been living with horses for almost 18 years as my wife rides dressage. That's another reason to qualify me to direct War Horse because I know horses. I don't ride but I certainly know how to muck a stable! When [Destry] heard that Kathy had found this book and this play, and I was about to go to London to see the play for the first time, even before I saw the play and came back to report that it made me cry and that I loved it so much, my daughter said "You have to make War Horse, you have to make it for me". So I did.