Our friend Trevor Hogg is back at FlickeringMyth with another profile, this one on Steven Spielberg. Here is an excerpt from Part 5:  

Venturing into the realm of science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg produced a cinematic adaptation of Minority Report (2002). In the near future, mutated psychics known as “precogs” are used by law enforcement agencies to predict and prevent crimes. “What first attracted me was that there are two alternative belief systems to this whole Phillip K. Dick idea,” explained the filmmaker. “The one belief system is self-determinism; you are in charge of your destiny. Every move you make is your move and you’re in control of your own life and you can determine the outcome. And the other school of thought is that we are following a map to our destinies that were written by a higher power and we’re just following a script that somebody else wrote. So if Tom Cruise’s character has been fingered to kill somebody, can he change his destiny?”

“Science fiction has always been a first level alert to things to come. It’s easier for an audience to take warnings from sci-fi without feeling that we’re preaching to them,” stated Spielberg. “I tried to set the movie in a current reality… because I wanted it to be relatable to today.” In the movie, the computer that Tom Cruise (Top Gun) uses by waving his hands around was based on a working prototype built at the MIT Media Lab. “I ended up building a system called the Luminous Room that was all about bringing together input and output and letting people attach digital meanings to physical objects,” revealed John Underkoffler, the Chief Scientist at Oblong Industries. “I was just finishing that work in about 1999 when the Minority Report pre-production team visited my lab.” The hardest film set to create was the containment chamber prison. “It was a set that stayed dormant for a long time because Spielberg had a vision of a graveyard with headstones,” recalled production designer Alex McDowell (Fight Club). “And beneath those headstones were all of these people in storage. We went to giant underground locations. We looked around a lot for somewhere that could contain that. But there were a lot of practical issues, and the vision was hard for everyone to get their head around.” Another challenge for McDowell and his team was the construction of the jet-propelled police backpacks. “Most of that design work was done with 3D design and animation. The props in this movie were complex and expensive because they had to work, and they had to look really good close-up.”

“Janusz Kaminski [the movie’s cinematographer] in conversation with Steven and myself made a decision that we, as the audience, needed to take it [the set] for granted,” said Alex McDowell. “If they want to see more, they have to pay attention; it’s not just being presented to them in a way that some other, more stylised films might do. I think it went a long way to breaking the science fiction convention.” In describing the film, Steven Spielberg commented, “Minority Report was 50% character and 50% very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery plotting.” The director found a willing collaborator with his leading man Tom Cruise. “We were always concerned about giving away too much of the plot on Minority Report while we were working together. We were working like writers on a script in our director-actor relationship, making sure that the story has being told well.” As for the scene where Cruise disappears with a pre-cog portrayed by Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown) into a sea of umbrellas, the moviemaker confessed, “I love umbrellas in a movie. Remember Foreign Correspondent [1940]? Everything was original about that, especially the high angle on all the umbrellas. When the shooter escapes, you can only tell the direction he’s running because the umbrellas are being jostled one after the other.”

Minority Report stars the acting talents of Colin Farrell (The Way Back), Max von Sydow (Snow Falling on Cedars), Steve Harris (Bringing Down the House), Neal McDonough (88 Minutes), and Kathryn Morris (Resurrecting the Champ). The Hollywood production cost $102 million to make and earned $358 million worldwide. The science fiction tale received an Oscar nomination for Best Sound Editing as well as one from the BAFTAs for Best Special Visual Effects. The American Cinema Editors nominated the picture for Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic, and the Young Artists Awards handed out nominations for Best Young Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Andrew Sandler) and Best Young Actor Under Ten in a Motion Picture (Dominic Scott Kay). At the César Awards in France, Minority Report contended for Best Foreign Film.

For the rest, go here.

Go here for Part 1.

Go here for Part 2. 

Go here for Part 3.

Go here for Part 4.