Steven Spielberg

Until the first edition ofSteven Spielberg: A Biographywas published in 1997, much about SpielbergÂ's personality and the forces that shaped it had remained enigmatic, in large part because of his tendency to obscure and mythologize his own past. But in this first full-scale, in-depth biography of Spielberg, Joseph McBride reveals hidden dimensions of the filmmakerÂ's personality and shows how deeply personal even his most commercial work has been.This new edition adds four chapters to SpielbergÂ's life story, chronicling his extraordinarily active and creative period from 1997 to the present, a period in which he has balanced his executive duties as one of the partners in the film studio DreamWorks SKG with a remarkable string of films as a director. SpielbergÂ's ambitious recent workÂ--includingAmistad,Saving Private Ryan,A. I. Artifucial Intelligence,Minority Report,The TerminalandMunichÂ--has continually expanded his range both stylistically and in terms of adventurous, often controversial, subject matter.Steven Spielberg: A Biographybrought about a reevaluation of the great filmmakerÂ's life and work by those who viewed him as merely a facile entertainer. This new edition guides readers through the mature artistry of SpielbergÂ's later period in which he manages, against considerable odds, to run a successful studio while maintaining and enlarging his high artistic standards as one of AmericaÂ's most thoughtful, sophisticated, and popular filmmakers.

Joseph McBride is a film historian and associate professor in the Cinema Department at San Francisco State University. His many books include Searching for John Ford and Frank Capra: The Catastrophe of Success (both published by the University Press of Mississippi); Hawks on Hawks; and What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career.