Best of - Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski: Images of the Imagination

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steven Spielberg hired Janusz Kaminski as the cinematographer for "Schindler's List” twenty-five years ago, and they have worked together, hand-in-glove, ever since. Their collaboration has produced "Saving Private Ryan," "Bridge of Spies," "Lincoln," and many others, including the new, eagerly-awaited "West Side Story," which opens December 10th. In this episode, which originally posted in 2016, both filmmakers tell how they fell in love with the movies and learned to make them. Spielberg talks about his first camera and trusting his instincts, and Kaminski talks about how growing up in 1970's Poland gave him an unusual eye on the world. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2016-2021

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Alice.
0:06.0	West Side Story, the movie would play on television once a year when I was growing up.
0:12.0	That was the only way you could see it. I guess I'm showing
0:15.8	my age here, but I would wait for it to show up in the TV guide, and I never missed it. Watching West Side Story was an event.
0:25.0	I knew every word.
0:27.0	And so when I was working on a recent episode
0:30.0	about choreographer Justin Peck,
0:32.0	and I heard him talk about how
0:34.8	how he had created new dance sequences for a new West Side story.
0:38.8	I got a little unnerved even if Stephen Spielberg was directing it and Tony Kushner was writing the screenplay, I was hesitant to even watch the trailer.
0:50.0	What if I couldn't unsee the new Maria or unhear the new version of tonight?
0:58.0	Maybe even more unnerving.
1:00.0	What if I liked it better?
1:03.0	Well, this Friday, December 10th, I'll find out.
1:06.0	That's when the movie opens 60 years after the original.
1:11.0	Tonight, tonight, tonight. original. where they're be there be the scene by towers the hours
1:28.0	the hours goes so slowly
1:31.0	and still the sky is mine.
1:37.0	Last week we replayed our episode on Stephen Sondheim,
1:41.0	who wrote the lyrics for Westside Story.
1:44.0	May his memory be a blessing.
1:46.1	He was apparently thrilled with this reimagined Spielberg version.
	...

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