Steven Spielberg recently sat down with 60 Minutes as part of the promotion for his upcoming film Lincoln, but the interview morphed into a quasi-psychotherapy session with correspondent Leslie Stahl.
I’m not sure if Stahl knew how huge of a discovery she was about to make when she sat down with Spielberg’s mother and father (they divorced when Steven was 19), but it proved to be a whopper. I won’t tell you what Stahl learned from Spielberg’s parents because it is somewhat of a spoiler alert as far as feature profiles are concerned. What I can reveal, however, is that Steven’s parents kept the true cause of their divorce a secret from him until many years later. The result of this was Spielberg’s already resentful emotions towards his dad quickly turned into feelings of deep rage which festered inside him for many years. The rest of the story is truly inspiring and reveals not only a window into Spielberg’s journey from boyhood to manhood, but also the fascinating mirroring effect that connects nearly every single lead male character in each of his films back to his own father.
Even after watching the entire feature profile, I’m still not entirely certain how conscious Spielberg was that he was doing this all these years. A truly incredible story about a truly amazing man.
Source: 60 Minutes
