Paper Tiger Steven Spielberg: Why My Film About the Power of the Press Is So Timely
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January 7, 2018 THEATRE BOOKS HOT TICKETS INTERVIEW: THE STARS FRANCE’S NEW FROM PINTER TO PICASSO: OF MARY STUART LITERARY SENSATION WE PICK THE MUST-SEES OF 2018 PAPER TIGER STEVEN SPIELBERG: WHY MY FILM ABOUT THE POWER OF THE PRESS IS SO TIMELY CONTENTS 07.01.2018 ARTS ‘In Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 4 invented two kinds Cover story of being — an Steven Spielberg’s new film is about the press-led intelligent robot revolt against the Nixon administration. Yes, he tells and a scientist Bryan Appleyard, he is well who plays God’ aware of the modern parallels Books, page 30 6 Pop ALAMY Which of today’s hits will be tomorrow’s classics? Dan Cairns offers a guide BOOKS 34 The Sunday Times 14 30 Bestsellers Film Lead review Ridley Scott’s movie about the John Carey hails an DIGITAL EXTRAS Getty kidnapping is richly outstanding look at the rewarding, says Tom Shone creation of Frankenstein NICK DELANEY Bulletins 16 32 For the arts week ahead, and Television Fiction recent highlights, sign up for James Norton as a Russian A Freddie Mercury 20 Leila Slimani’s thriller has our Culture Bulletin. For a Jew? Louis Wise is still to be biopic, above, is just Critical list turned her into a French weekly digest of literary news, convinced by McMafia’s hero Our pick of the arts this week celebrity courted by reviews and opinion, there’s one of the year’s President Macron the Books Bulletin. Both can hot prospects. be found at thesundaytimes. 18 24 co.uk/bulletins Theatre We choose the On record 36 The two leads of Mary Stuart The latest essential releases Africa answer questions from David best arts of 2018 How dictators laid waste Jays — on the toss of a coin Hot tickets, the continent after the end Instagram TV & RADIO of colonialism Follow us for the best visuals pages 8-13 from the world of the arts — 22 @sundaytimesculture Books 43 39 Patricia Nicol meets the young TV & Radio Crime fiction Cover Photograph of Steven author of The Mermaid and The best guide to the week’s Joan Smith’s roundup of the Spielberg by Henry Leutwyler/ Mrs Hancock, a thrilling debut programmes month’s most gripping reads Contour by Getty Images THECOVER STORY WHOLE TRUTH In his latest movie, The Post, Steven Spielberg uses the story of the Pentagon Papers to address the era of fake news. ‘I don’t tweet, I shoot,’ he says might want to see that this all began BRYAN with Richard Nixon.” So The Post is an urgent reaction to APPLEYARD Trump’s bellowing about fake news. It’s a movie with a message: all this happened before, but we survived, and teven Spielberg made his latest this is how. Spielberg is once again movie, The Post, in nine being the fi nest cinematic fl owering months, from script to fi nal of the conscience of liberal America. cut. “My wife,” he says, “had “I don’t tweet,” he says pointedly, S four kids, each in nine “I shoot.” months, so she knows what In 1971, a mass of documents — they TAVERNISE NIKO nine months means in the creation of came to be known as the Pentagon a life .” But a nine-month pregnancy Papers — were leaked to The New York Close to the edit Spielberg (centre) on her career and her life, where she had is a long time; a nine -month movie is Times. They revealed lies and a cover- the set of The Post, with Tom Hanks to make a choice that was going to bewilderingly short. “My movies on up about the military’s assessment that (second right) and Meryl Streep determine the success or failure of average take about 14 months from America was losing the Vietnam War. The Washington Post. I thought it was script to screen — that’s the fast ones.” Nixon’s lawyers gagged the NYT, but truth being told , I felt that was just a a pretty signifi cant step forward in a The speed is all the more impressive then The Washington Post got hold of timely story to tell.” story about women in the early 1970s, because he has another fi lm, Ready the papers and published them, as, The Washington Post is the hero of and that it refl ected and brought light Player One, in post-production, and subsequently, did most of the press in this story, a fact that has annoyed some and dignity to what women today are a third, The Kidnapping of Edgardo the land. The papers won. people at the NYT. This is not fair. The going through, in this watershed Mortara, ready to start shooting. In “This was an urgent imperative for part of The New York Times is fully moment that is happening for all of us.” fact, the latter had to be put on hold, 2017, because, fi rst, the irony of the credited, and, in any case, the Post He started the fi lm “way before Spielberg says, because “we couldn’t numbers 1971-2017, you just have to had much the more signifi cant story. women came forward with multiple fi nd a six-year-old to play Edgardo move a few of those numbers around,” It was the underdog paper fi ghting accusations of misconduct by multiple after looking for a year”. So he just Spielberg says. “ The pendulum has for survival. Also, it was owned by a men”. So the Trump-Nixon link was lifted his faithful crew out of Edgardo swung all the way back from the Nixon woman, Katharine Graham, who had to planned; the condition of women at and dropped them into The Post. administration to what’s currently choose between backing down to the work was serendipitous. Why the hurry? “We all felt this happening in our country — and to legal threat or publishing the papers — This is a political thriller, his fi rst, he fi lm was not going to fall on deaf our country. But I also thought just either choice could have destroyed says; he classifi ed Bridge of Spies as a ears, that there was an audience that the story of a newsroom dedicated the Post, and the latter could have had spy thriller. He likes embracing a new had been listening to this kind of to telling the truth and getting the Graham and her editor imprisoned. genre because he gets all his best ideas bully-pulpit discrimination against the truth out, despite every attempt by “I was very taken with the idea of a when he isn’t quite sure what he is free press for long enough that they the Nixon administration to stop the woman fi nally coming to the nexus of doing and there’s an edge of panic. 4 7 January 2018 “I get better ideas when I am stand- before — he censored the conversation. school, and so many of his fi lms — Close concerts together. My sisters and I ing on my heels, not on the fl at of We were talking about Jewishness, and Encounters, ET, even Bridge of Spies — would say, ‘How many kids could say, my soles. It’s because I don’t want to I asked him about Trump’s recognition seem to be about the reconstruction without getting married a second time, fall, and I need to regain my balance... of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. or salvation of a family. Even when it is that they got their mom and dad back When I get into a genre I’ve never done He has strong views, he said, but he not explicit, the theme is there. In The together again ?’” before, it’s scary but healthy.” didn’t want to “derail this interview” so Post, Graham (Meryl Streep) and the His mother, Leah, died in February Anyway, here we are at the Man- that the big story coming out of it was Post’s editor, Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), last year. She was 97. Almost to the end, darin Oriental in snowbound New not his fi lm, but Trump and Jerusalem. act as the confl icted parents of a bunch she kept running her Milky Way kosher York. It’s my third interview with Fair enough. of fractious children, the reporters. restaurant in Los Angeles. His father, him in 15 years, and my three basic One thing that is unavoidable in any Yet the odd thing is that, even in life, Arnold, is now 10 0. The family as a impressions of the man are unchanged: interview with Spielberg is family. His he directed a familial reconstruction. whole seems to be triumphantly intact. he speaks in almost-impossible-to-cut parents divorced while he was still at For, over 25 years, his parents grew He says he has never been in therapy extended paragraphs; his clothes are back together. “It was beautiful. There — why bother talking to a stranger? always casual but very buttoned up, as was a period when they didn’t speak, “I could just as well talk to my family. if he is containing himself (this time, but through a number of diff erent We’re talkers, we don’t hide things a buttoned jacket with a neat scarf things my sisters and I were involved in from each other, we’re very honest to protect against the snow outside); Katharine Graham’s that required my parents to be there... with each other about how we feel and, fi nally, he is probably the nicest my parents grew closer and closer, to we’re being treated, and about how powerful man I have ever interviewed.