Resources for Teachers and Students on Steven Spielberg
Prepare: Time Magazine included movie director Steven
Spielberg in their list of the 100 Most Important People
of the [20th] Century. Their website on "The Time 100"
contains an article
by film critic Roger Ebert that outlines the significance
of Spielberg's accomplishments.
Read:
Steven Spielberg wrote an
original essay for the Architects of Peace Project.
In it, he discusses his motivation for making two films,
Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan.
Explore: While Steven Spielberg was filming Schindler's
List, it occurred to him that no one was collecting visual
testimonies of Holocaust survivors. To remedy this situation,
he founded the Shoah
Foundation, which subsequently recorded audio-visual
testimonies of 52,000 survivors, amassing more than 120,000
hours of film in a video archive. Selections
from this archive, as well as related educational
materials, can be viewed on the internet.
Write: Organizations such as the Shoah Foundation
are dedicated to the mission of ensuring that atrocities
such as the Holocaust never happen again. Is this really
necessary? Hasn't humanity learned its lesson already, and
hasn't civilization evolved to the point where genocide
is a thing of the past? Beginning with the links page of
Webster University's Center
for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights,
research the question of whether genocide is still a problem
within the world community in recent decades. Write a three-to-five
page paper summarizing your research and drawing conclusions
as to whether genocide continues to be a problem of concern
in modern society.
Extend:
In his Architects of Peace essay, Spielberg mentions two
film projects he embarked upon specifically to further the
cause of world peace. These films are Schindler's List and
Saving Private Ryan, both of which are currently available
in DVD and VHS format at video rental outlets and in public
libraries. View one of these films with an eye toward how
the medium can be a tool for peace.
Additional Resource: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
maintains a Jewish
film archive named in Steven Spielberg's honor.
Through a "virtual cinema project," they recently
began making the archive's films available online.
Biography of Steven
Spielberg
