Why Do All Steven Spielberg Movies Feel The Same?

That short sequence from 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind is what legendary director

Steven Spielberg himself identified as the single master image that sums up his entire

film career. And if you were watching closely, you saw everything you needed to understand the secret

behind how the most commercially successful director who has ever lived sells wonder

Having an idea and actually being able to photograph it, that's been the magic potion for me ever since

On June 25th, 1975, people packed into theaters to see the much-hyped film adaptation of Peter Benchley's popular horror suspense novel, Jaws

At the time, Steven Spielberg's only exclusively theatrical feature was the 1974 crime drama, The Sugar Land Express

But while it performed well at the box office and earned him recognition from industry folks and critics

there was no real reason the director's name would mean much to audiences, something that would change just a few minutes after Jaws began

The movie being such a phenomenon, which basically gave me what I had always dreamed about

was A, being a movie director, and B, having Final Cut, and Jaws gave me freedom. As depicted in his 2023 quasi-autobiographical film The Fablemans

Spielberg grew up mostly in Phoenix, Arizona, and had already developed an interest in making movies by the age of 12

Particularly influenced by David Lean's 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, young Spielberg decided to pursue filmmaking

and by the age of 17, he had already written, directed, and produced his first independent feature, albeit one that only cost $600

When he was 19, Spielberg's parents divorced. Though his sisters stayed with his mother

Steven followed his father to Los Angeles so he could be closer to the movie business

They tell me you want to be a picture maker Yes sir I do Why It was also around this time that Spielberg first saw 2001 A Space Odyssey directed by his future friend and mentor Stanley Kubrick Spielberg has referred to seeing

the film as a life-altering experience. Never before had a film made him feel such a rush of

fear and burning desire to be a part of what he called the great mystery. After making a well-received

1968 short called Amblin, the namesake of his company Amblin Entertainment, Spielberg took

several directing jobs for television, including helming the first regular episode of the now

classic detective show Columbo and the 1971 television movie Duel. The latter was so well

received it was given a theatrical release in some markets and today regarded as something of

a cult classic. Its success earned Spielberg the chance to direct the Sugarland Express

which, in turn, earned him the chance to do Jaws. And from the first moments of its terrifying opening sequence

Jaws was absolutely electrifying. Now widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time

it ushered in the era of blockbuster filmmaking and altered the landscape of cinema forever

Spielberg, of course, would come to be recognized as one of the greatest to ever work in the medium

and along the way made his name nearly synonymous with the wonder of movies

I'll be right here. And the association makes sense because the experience of wonder itself

is at the heart of so many of Spielberg's most famous films

Wonder is what Spielberg felt seeing 2001, the double-edged sword of excitement and fear we feel when confronted with the unknown

And both Spielberg's characters and his audiences are continually confronted with the unknown

This synchrony comes from a number of qualities in Spielberg's work, starting with his tendency

to tell stories about ordinary people who are a lot like the folks in his audience

Jaws Martin Brody is a blue police chief struggling with a petty local bureaucracy Roy Neary of Close Encounters is an electrical lineman who grown bored and unhappy with his life

Even the swashbuckling Indiana Jones is really just a working stiff with a whip and a cool hat

This focus on ordinary people heightens the drama when extraordinary things start happening to them

But from a filmmaking perspective, it also means that what's wondrous to the characters in the movies

will also likely be wondrous to the people watching the movie. And this goes especially for children, the concerns and point of view of whom Spielberg has always shown a particular interest in

as reflected in films like E.T., Empire of the Sun, Hook, and others

Many of these characters, like Spielberg himself, hail from broken homes or homes that are in the process of breaking

And though the director has been able to employ such themes to a variety of ends at a basic storytelling level

a character still processing the disintegration of their family life is a character who has no choice but to face the future

There's no home to go back to and be safe in when the extraordinary happens

And if there's one thing you can count on in a Spielberg film, it's that something extraordinary is going to happen

The sequence from Close Encounters that he selected as a master image that sums up his

entire film career provides a perfect illustration of how he brings all of these elements together to

that end. The characters in the scene are Jillian Geiler and her three-year-old son Barry

Living on a farm in Muncie, Indiana, they're about as ordinary as people come

And Jillian is a single mom, so they're on their own. Earlier in the movie, a mysterious force or creature lured Barry out of the house

but Jillian was able to catch up to him and bring him back. Now, the intruder has returned

A strange, almost supernatural glow pours through the keyhole, and things become eerily quiet

The extraordinary is literally knocking at the door. A terrified Jillian tries to protect her son by struggling and failing to chain the back door and keep whatever it is outside But Barry overcome with excitement and curiosity reaches for the knob Jillian sees Barry go for the door and knows it too late to stop him

Through Jillian, the ordinary mother fighting to protect her son, the audience is made to feel afraid of the danger

But through Barry, the wide-eyed child, the audience is made to feel astonishment at the promise

in all the seemingly magical things going on. And that combination, fear and astonishment at the same time

creates wonder. That's Spielberg's secret. And once you've identified those elements as the

ingredients of his brand of wonder, you can easily spot how the director combines them in different

ways and different proportions to create the most wondrous moments from his most revered films

For example, the shark in Jaws is a terrifying killing machine, but when Brody says

You're gonna need a bigger boat. We can't help but want to see this massive thing

First comes the fear and then the astonishment. Or in Raiders of the Lost Ark

when Bella calls one of the ghosts beautiful right before it turns horrifying

and starts melting his friends' faces. This time, the astonishment comes first

and the fear follows. Don't look right! Keep your eyes shut! Both elements are also prominent

in Roy Neary's first close encounter. Elliot's initial meetings with E.T., Alan Grant learning that Jurassic Park

had bred a T-Rex, Steven Spielberg just gets why we go to see movies in the first place

Whether it's to see a daring archaeologist find the Holy Grail or a daring newspaper publisher

find the truth regardless of the cost, Spielberg has always understood that people want to

experience something outside the norm. He knows we want to feel the fear and astonishment in facing the unknown and the zen-like wonder

created when both are ignited in us at the same time. We went to gleefully throw open that big door like Little Barry and take a long, hard look at that beautiful and awful light so full of promise and danger