The last-name-title famous-filmmaker bio-documentary has become quite the cottage industry over the past few years, thanks to such engaging portraits as De Palma, Altman, and Milius, and now HBO is entering the sweepstakes with the biggest last name of them all (in length and box office): Spielberg. This profile of the E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jaws director hits the network next month, and here’s a (brief) peek:
This isn’t the first time Mr. Spielberg has been the focus of one of these things; back in 2007, film critic and occasional documentarian Richard Schickel directed the TCM original Spielberg on Spielberg . But Spielberg has made (no exaggeration) eight more movies since that came out, and that one only interviewed its subject, while Spielberg director Susan Lacy also rounded up pretty much everyone who’s ever worked or hung out with him (including J.J. Abrams, Christian Bale, Drew Barrymore, Cate Blanchett, Francis Ford Coppola, Daniel Craig, Daniel Day-Lewis, Brian de Palma, Laura Dern, Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Dreyfuss, Ralph Fiennes, Harrison Ford, David Geffen, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Holly Hunter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Ben Kingsley, Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, Liam Neeson, Martin Scorsese, Oprah Winfrey, and Robert Zemeckis). So yeah, it’ll probably be worth a watch.
Spielberg premieres at the New York Film Festival on October 5, and debuts on HBO two days later.