Srinivas
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I've seen some Hindi movies, loved 3 Idiots: Steven Spielberg
At 66, Steven Spielberg still retains a childlike fascination for the movies. That his mind is sharp becomes immediate apparent but there's also an other-wordly innocence to hima bit like Gandalf and Hobbit, two contrasting characters from Lord of the Rings, rolled into one. In an exclusive interview with TOI's Vikas Singh and Srijana Mitra Das, Spielberg talks about a range of issues.
Straight away, on behalf of all the eager fans out there - when is the next Tintin movie coming out?
"Peter Jackson is directing the next Tintin movie. I directed the first one. I'm going to produce the second one for Peter. We have a script and we're going to start performance capture probably at the end of this year, which means - don't hold me to this - we're hoping the film will come out in 2015. We'll performance capture at the end of this year, then we have to animate all of 2014, so it'll probably come out around Christmas time in 2015."
You've figured out the script - which book is it on?
"I can't share that with you right now - I would love to but I can't. But, ok, we've combined two books which were intended to be combined by Herge."
Hopefully, 'The Blue Lotus' is one of them?
"No. I can tell you right now it won't be, but I'm hoping to do 'The Blue Lotus' as our third film. I can say that!"
Are you going to do another Indiana Jones?
"Yes! I can imagine doing another one. I'm excited and impatient to do one but George Lucas just recently retired - I'm hoping that his retirement will not mean he's retiring the Indiana Jones bull whip and fedora cap. I'm hoping that George will stay active in the Indiana Jones world and come up with a story. I let George do the stories. I supervise the screenplays and I direct them but George always comes up with the basic story - and he has not done that yet. But he keeps promising he's going to, so let's see."
Can you imagine doing one without Harrison Ford?
"I can imagine almost anything - but I can only imagine one film at a time! I can't think that far ahead. I can only imagine the next one being with Harrison. Beyond that, I can't think."
Let's go back in time - we've heard you were looking at some old pictures recently and came across an India connection your father had which you didn't know about?
"I came across a treasure trove of photographic negatives from a 35 mm still camera. My dad was stationed in Karachi during World War Two. He was with the 490th Bombardment Squadron called the Burma Bridge Busters. They bombed Japanese rail-lines and bridges throughout Burma. My dad spent three and a half years in Karachi during World War Two and during his rest and recuperation, he'd come to Bombay, Calcutta and other places in India.
About two years ago, I was going through my dad's things and I found some envelopes that had not been opened. They'd been sealed closed probably since 1946 when I was born. I said to my father - what is this? We were going through my dad's old love letters to my mother. We found three boxes of his love letters to my mom and hers back to my dad while he was in Karachi. They weren't married yet. I set up a video camera and my dad and I went through these. We marked them in continuity by their postmarks and began going through them.
Now, certain letters, my dad wouldn't read out aloud, they were too personal, but other letters he would. I have some of this recorded on video. And at the bottom of one of these boxes, I found three envelopes, about 9 by 4 inches, sealed shut. When I opened them, it was the negatives of 400 still photographs which my father had never gotten developed.
I couldn't tell what they were, so I had a laboratory print each picture 8 by 10. We had piles of these pictures and went through them. It was my father's entire history in Karachi, Bombay, Calcutta and other cities in India during World War Two - that was the first time I was really aware of what my father did in the war."
He hadn't spoken about this?
"He'd spoken about it a lot to me but I didn't have a single visual reference except a couple of pictures of my dad standing next to his B-25 with his flight crew. My dad was a technical sergeant in charge of all the base communications from ground to air. He did some missions but he was mainly on the ground co-ordinating the sorties, making sure everyone came back safely.
I knew about that and a couple of missions he'd flown but I never had any visual clue as to what my dad and that world looked like, combined."
What did it look like?
"It was beautiful. It looked extremely friendly. Every photograph has young kids sitting around these older men in their early 20s - my dad was the oldest, I guess, at 27 - many shots of these little Indian children running around the jeeps and hanging out with these American servicemen, beautiful shots of elephants and cows, people, marketplaces and bazaars - just the day-to-day lifestyle of India was extremely vivid."
Have you seen some Bollywood movies?
"Not a lot. I've seen some - I loved 'Three Idiots', I'm going to meet the director tonight - but I have to admit I haven't seen a lot of Indian pictures. I've seen excerpts from a lot of films but I've seen older movies, like Raj Kapoor movies and Satyajit Ray movies."
I've seen some Hindi movies, loved 3 Idiots: Steven Spielberg - The Times of India
At 66, Steven Spielberg still retains a childlike fascination for the movies. That his mind is sharp becomes immediate apparent but there's also an other-wordly innocence to hima bit like Gandalf and Hobbit, two contrasting characters from Lord of the Rings, rolled into one. In an exclusive interview with TOI's Vikas Singh and Srijana Mitra Das, Spielberg talks about a range of issues.
Straight away, on behalf of all the eager fans out there - when is the next Tintin movie coming out?
"Peter Jackson is directing the next Tintin movie. I directed the first one. I'm going to produce the second one for Peter. We have a script and we're going to start performance capture probably at the end of this year, which means - don't hold me to this - we're hoping the film will come out in 2015. We'll performance capture at the end of this year, then we have to animate all of 2014, so it'll probably come out around Christmas time in 2015."
You've figured out the script - which book is it on?
"I can't share that with you right now - I would love to but I can't. But, ok, we've combined two books which were intended to be combined by Herge."
Hopefully, 'The Blue Lotus' is one of them?
"No. I can tell you right now it won't be, but I'm hoping to do 'The Blue Lotus' as our third film. I can say that!"
Are you going to do another Indiana Jones?
"Yes! I can imagine doing another one. I'm excited and impatient to do one but George Lucas just recently retired - I'm hoping that his retirement will not mean he's retiring the Indiana Jones bull whip and fedora cap. I'm hoping that George will stay active in the Indiana Jones world and come up with a story. I let George do the stories. I supervise the screenplays and I direct them but George always comes up with the basic story - and he has not done that yet. But he keeps promising he's going to, so let's see."
Can you imagine doing one without Harrison Ford?
"I can imagine almost anything - but I can only imagine one film at a time! I can't think that far ahead. I can only imagine the next one being with Harrison. Beyond that, I can't think."
Let's go back in time - we've heard you were looking at some old pictures recently and came across an India connection your father had which you didn't know about?
"I came across a treasure trove of photographic negatives from a 35 mm still camera. My dad was stationed in Karachi during World War Two. He was with the 490th Bombardment Squadron called the Burma Bridge Busters. They bombed Japanese rail-lines and bridges throughout Burma. My dad spent three and a half years in Karachi during World War Two and during his rest and recuperation, he'd come to Bombay, Calcutta and other places in India.
About two years ago, I was going through my dad's things and I found some envelopes that had not been opened. They'd been sealed closed probably since 1946 when I was born. I said to my father - what is this? We were going through my dad's old love letters to my mother. We found three boxes of his love letters to my mom and hers back to my dad while he was in Karachi. They weren't married yet. I set up a video camera and my dad and I went through these. We marked them in continuity by their postmarks and began going through them.
Now, certain letters, my dad wouldn't read out aloud, they were too personal, but other letters he would. I have some of this recorded on video. And at the bottom of one of these boxes, I found three envelopes, about 9 by 4 inches, sealed shut. When I opened them, it was the negatives of 400 still photographs which my father had never gotten developed.
I couldn't tell what they were, so I had a laboratory print each picture 8 by 10. We had piles of these pictures and went through them. It was my father's entire history in Karachi, Bombay, Calcutta and other cities in India during World War Two - that was the first time I was really aware of what my father did in the war."
He hadn't spoken about this?
"He'd spoken about it a lot to me but I didn't have a single visual reference except a couple of pictures of my dad standing next to his B-25 with his flight crew. My dad was a technical sergeant in charge of all the base communications from ground to air. He did some missions but he was mainly on the ground co-ordinating the sorties, making sure everyone came back safely.
I knew about that and a couple of missions he'd flown but I never had any visual clue as to what my dad and that world looked like, combined."
What did it look like?
"It was beautiful. It looked extremely friendly. Every photograph has young kids sitting around these older men in their early 20s - my dad was the oldest, I guess, at 27 - many shots of these little Indian children running around the jeeps and hanging out with these American servicemen, beautiful shots of elephants and cows, people, marketplaces and bazaars - just the day-to-day lifestyle of India was extremely vivid."
Have you seen some Bollywood movies?
"Not a lot. I've seen some - I loved 'Three Idiots', I'm going to meet the director tonight - but I have to admit I haven't seen a lot of Indian pictures. I've seen excerpts from a lot of films but I've seen older movies, like Raj Kapoor movies and Satyajit Ray movies."
I've seen some Hindi movies, loved 3 Idiots: Steven Spielberg - The Times of India
