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That said, though, he is quick to give a tremendous amount of credit to screenwriter Richard Matheson for the success of Duel, his first feature length film (although it was made for television, it was, I believe, released theatrically in Europe to some critical notice). I'm a big fan of Matheson's, and greatly appreciate Spielberg's endorsement, as I believe Matheson has been one of the greatest, and most unsung, influences on modern popular culture. Remember that when you go to see the third Hollywood incarnation of I Am Legend when it comes out this winter.
Spielberg is also incredibly generous regarding the contributions of John Williams to his movies, especially to E.T., which I think is a fair statement. I read somewhere (at some point, film criticism and commentary blends together, so I apologize to the originator of the thought for not correctly attributing it), that if Mozart or Beethoven were alive today, they'd be writing music for films and not for concert halls. Make no mistake: Williams is a composer of that caliber, and his ability to create music that elevates the images in film rather than simply underlining them may be beyond comparison (although the great Bernard Hermann springs to mind). Is there any score that has entered our collective cultural subconscious the way those two simple chords from Jaws have? People who have never even seen the film still recognize it immediately. But Spielberg deserves some credit for recognizing this and returning to him time and time again.
There is no doubt that Schindler's List is Spielberg's crowing achievement. It may have been best put in, of all places, my copy of TV Guide Film & Video Companion (which contains exceptional caption reviews, by the way): "Director Steven Spielberg has achieved something close to impossible- a morally serious, aesthetically stunning historical epic that is nonetheless readily accessible to a mass audience." For me, this gets at the heart of what makes Spielberg such an exceptional artistic force in the art of filmmaking. It would no good, or at least very little, to let, say, David Lynch make Schindler's List. The film takes a subject of immense historical importance and boils it down just to the point at which an audience can take it in, be moved and even entertained, in a way, by it, without being overwhelmed by the horrors it suggests. I also highly recommend Roger Ebert's essay on the film in his Great Movies book, as I don't have the space to delve too deep here.
I will, however, point to one moment in the film. It is about mid-way through, when Amon Goethe is using Jewish slave labor to construct a building at his camp. A woman that had been an architect approaches him, telling him that there is a problem with the foundation and they will have to tear everything down and start over. Goethe orders her shot, then tells his men to tear it down and start over. But the moment when she is shot- one woman among hundreds killed in the film- moves me to tears every time I see it. I think Sydney Pollack refers to it in the first of the AFI Top 100 Films broadcasts, saying that he's never seen the life go out of a person the way it does when she is shot. They show that very moment in Spielberg on Spielberg, and even with just those few seconds and no context, I couldn't help but choke up. I can't articulate anything Spielberg did in that moment, except to say that every time the images pass before the screen, I am reminded of the difference between a living human being and a lifeless body like no other image has been able to convey.