Spielberg: Mining personal history was very hard

Los Angeles| Filmmaker Steven Spielberg has said that mining his family history to make ‘The Fabelmans’ was a “very daunting experience” that was at times “very, very hard to get through”.

The iconic filmmaker’s latest project world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday night to raves from critics and largely favourable reviews.

The semi-autobiographical movie, which is already being tipped as an Oscar contender, tells the story of Sam Fabelman, a young boy who falls in love with cinema, but finds himself fighting family turmoil to keep his dream alive.

In a so-called press conference, that was effectively a Q&A with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, the ‘Jaws’ director said he thought making the movie “would be a lot easier than it turned out to be because I know the material and I’ve known the characters for my entire life”.

“And yet I found this for me a very daunting experience because I was attempting in a semi-autobiographical way to recreate huge recollections not only in my life but in the lives of my three sisters, my mother and father who are no longer with us,” said Spielberg.

“The responsibility of that began to build.”

“As we started working on this, I realized there was no aesthetic distance between me and this experience; I wasn’t able to put a camera the way Sammy is able to put a camera between himself and the horrible, realistic things that are happening to him,” said Spielberg.

“And I’ve always been able to put a camera between myself and reality to protect myself and I couldn’t do it telling this story. As the cast knows, it was emotionally a very difficult experience. Not all of it. But some of it was very, very hard to get through.”

Kushner added that he “didn’t feel like it was therapy”.

Spielberg and Kushner were joined on stage in a TIFF Bell Lightbox cinema by cast members Seth Rogen, Paul Dano, Gabriel LaBelle and Judd Hirsch.

Michelle Williams, who was at the Saturday evening premiere, was not in attendance, Bailey explained, as she’s nine months pregnant and opted not to take part.