Steven Spielberg: A Retrospective

Hardcover: 280 pages
Publisher: Sterling (October 2, 2012)

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest living filmmakers of a generation.  He came up at the same time as George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese.

Richard Schickel, a noted film critic, goes back to interviews he has had with Spielberg since 2005.  The excerpts from the interviews along with Schickel's commentary accompany the 400 or so photographs that are spread throughout the book.

It should be noted that this retrospective on Spielberg does not focus on his career as a producer but only the films that he has directed.

Are there films that he feels could have been better?  Yes.  Is he going to disown them?  No.  That's not the kind of filmmaker that he is.

Spielberg has never written a memoir and until now, he has never cooperated with someone wishing to write a book.  This is as close to a memoir as we will likely get for the time being.  If this is what we are left with, it does the job just fine.