Review by Frank Plowright

Amazing Améziane continues his series of graphic novels running through the careers of his favourite film directors to focus on Steven Spielberg. Does he genuinely admire Spielberg as much as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Sergio Leone? Or does it just make commercial sense to continue the series? The answer’s supplied in an introduction naming Raiders of the Lost Ark as his favourite film, and it’s where the title logo lettering originates.

The earlier books established a viable formula for biographical indulgence and there’s no departing from it here. Spielberg is delivered in the first person with no indication if the dialogue is quoted or paraphrased, and illustrated scenes from movies accompany appropriate moments of reminiscing, an example being the skies from Close Encounters matching an early morning trip with his father.

A love of cinema is apparent from the start, evidenced in anecdotes about the young Spielberg seeing films then recreating scenes with whatever was to hand at home, but we then run into some duplication, as Spielberg’s early productions are entwined with the subjects of previous biographies. The difference between them and Spielberg is that none have made anywhere near the number of films Spielberg has, which requires compromises in the telling. Want to know about The Colour Purple? You’ll not learn much about it here, while other films aren’t even mentioned in passing. The blocks of explanatory text seem greater, and there’s so much information supplied about Raiders that it’s in the form of a typeset essay. It’s a strange decision to reduce mention of so many other movies to a single page when surely there was no preset limit on pages. This is seemingly Améziane focussing on his favourites, and the text appears again in an unnecessary comparison of Spielberg with Stanley Kubrick.

Améziane is good with likenesses, especially Spielberg himself at various points during his career, and loves a panoramic spread. More so than for previous subjects, the book is packed with them, some extraordinarily well composed, but others are less imaginative, and at times the illustration looks rushed. It’s apparent in an otherwise good sequence toward the end when Améziane presents Tarantino’s appraisal of Spielberg’s career in stiffly posed portraits.

Spielberg hits some high notes and has some art to admire, but if you only want the one Spielberg biography, this one’s not as detailed as Améziane’s back catalogue.