From Jaws to E.T.: Steven Spielberg Gets His MoMA Moment

More than half a century ago, the Museum of Modern Art helped introduce a young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg to audiences.

On November 12, Spielberg returns as the man being celebrated. The legendary director will be honoured at MoMA’s annual Film Benefit in New York, presented by Chanel, with the museum also staging a special screening series celebrating a career that changed the possibilities of popular cinema.

And what a career to revisit. Jaws. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The Color Purple. Empire of the Sun. Eight Spielberg films are already preserved in MoMA’s collection, beginning with The Sugarland Express from 1974 and stretching across one of the most extraordinary runs in modern filmmaking.

That 1974 connection gives the honour a neat full-circle quality. “MoMA’s support of Steven Spielberg extends back over a half-century, beginning when we helped introduce him to audiences as part of New Directors/New Films in 1974,” said Rajendra Roy, MoMA’s Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film.

What followed was a career that repeatedly demolished the supposed wall between serious filmmaking and mass entertainment. Spielberg, Roy said, demonstrated that “being an artist and an entertainer can be simultaneous aspirations”, adding that few filmmakers have mastered that combination as successfully.

The numbers underline the scale of the career. Spielberg has won three Academy Awards and earned a record nine Oscar nominations for Best Director. As a producer, he has been nominated 14 times for Best Picture. He is also an EGOT winner and has received honours including the Kennedy Center Honor, the Academy’s Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts.

Yet his relationship with cinema extends beyond making movies. MoMA also highlighted Spielberg’s work in film preservation, describing it as closely aligned with the museum’s mission to protect film history. The tribute comes after the release of his latest film, Disclosure Day, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson and Wyatt Russell.

Spielberg now joins an formidable list of previous MoMA Film Benefit honourees that includes Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Sofia Coppola, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, Penélope Cruz and Samuel L. Jackson. Chanel has sponsored the annual benefit since 2011. Proceeds support MoMA’s film collection, which includes more than 30,000 films and 1.5 million film stills, as well as its screenings, retrospectives, festivals and other programming.

For Spielberg, though, November’s tribute carries an additional resonance. In 1974, MoMA helped audiences discover him. More than 50 years later, it is celebrating everything he became.

(With inputs from ANI)