1981–1992: Impresario
Spielberg directed Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), with a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan based on a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. They considered it a homage to the serials of the 1930s and 40s. It starred Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. Filmed in La Rochelle, Hawaii, Tunisia and Elstree Studios, England, the shoot was difficult but Spielberg said it helped him hone his business acumen. The film was a box-office success and won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction (Norman Reynolds, Leslie Dilley and Michael D. Ford); Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn); Best Sound (Bill Varney, Steve Maslow, Gregg Landaker and Roy Charman); Best Sound Editing (Ben Burtt and Richard L. Anderson) and Best Visual Effects (Richard Edlund, Kit West, Bruce Nicholson and Joe Johnston). Roger Ebert wrote: "Raiders of the Lost Ark is an out-of-body experience, a movie of glorious imagination and breakneck speed that grabs you in the first shot, hurtles you through a series of incredible adventures, and deposits you back in reality two hours later–breathless, dizzy, wrung-out, and with a silly grin on your face". Raiders was the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise.
Spielberg returned to science fiction with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It tells the story of Elliot (Henry Thomas), a young boy who befriends an alien who was left behind by his companions and is trying to return home. Spielberg eschewed storyboards so his direction would be more spontaneous and shot roughly in sequence so the actors' performances would be authentic as they bonded with E.T. Richard Corliss wrote, "This was the closing-night attraction at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, a venue not known for blubbering sentiment. At the end, as the little critter bade his farewells and the Jules Verne-like space ship left the ground, the audience similarly levitated. One heard the audience's childlike applause; one felt their spirits lift. This was rapture made audible, palpable ... Spielberg orchestrated the movements of the camera and the puppet spaceman with the feelings of—it has to be called love—expressed in young Henry Thomas' yearning face. E.T. was the first film character to be a finalist in TIME's Man of the Year sweepstakes. It would have been fine with me if the little creature, this lovely film, had won."
A special screening was organized for Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who were emotional by the end. E.T. grossed $700 million worldwide. It won four Academy Awards: Best Original Score (John Williams), Best Sound (Robert Knudson, Robert Glass, Don Digirolamo and Gene Cantamessa), Best Sound Editing (Charles L. Campbell and Ben Burtt) and Best Visual Effects (Carlo Rambaldi, Dennis Muren and Kenneth F. Smith). Kael wrote of E.T., "His voice is ancient and otherworldly but friendly, humorous. And this scaly, wrinkled little man with huge, wide-apart, soulful eyes and a jack-in-the-box neck has been so fully created that he's a friend to us, too; when he speaks of his longing to go home the audience becomes as mournful as Elliot. Spielberg has earned the tears that some people in the audience—and not just children—shed. Genuinely entrancing movies are almost as rare as extraterrestrial visitors." Spielberg co-wrote and produced Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982), released the same summer as E.T. With John Landis, he produced the anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), contributing the "Kick the Can" segment.
His next film was the Raiders prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), shot in the US, Sri Lanka and China. It was darker than its predecessor, and led to the creation of the PG-13 rating because some content was deemed unsuitable for children under 13. Spielberg said he was unhappy with Temple of Doom because it lacked his "personal touches and love". Nonetheless, the film was a blockbuster hit, won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and got good reviews. Kael preferred it to the original, writing, "Spielberg is like a magician whose tricks are so daring they make you laugh. He creates an atmosphere of happy disbelief: the more breathtaking and exhilarating the stunts are the funnier they are. Nobody has ever fused thrills and laughter in quite the way that he does here. He starts off at full charge in the opening sequence and just keeps going". Ebert wrote "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom makes no apologies for being exactly what it is: Exhilarating, manic, wildly imaginative escapism. No apologies are necessary. This is the most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy, romantic adventure movie since Raiders, and it is high praise to say that it’s not so much a sequel as an equal." On the project, Spielberg met his future wife, Kate Capshaw. Spielberg recalled, "It was a good learning exercise for me to really throw myself into a black hole. I came out of the darkness of Temple Of Doom and I entered the light of the woman I was eventually going to marry and raise a family with."
Thomson writes that "At first sight, the Spielberg of the eighties may seem more an impresario—or a studio, even—than a director." Between 1984 and 1990, Spielberg served as producer or executive producer on nineteen films. In the early 1980s, Spielberg befriended Warner Communications CEO Steve Ross, leading Spielberg to make films for Warner Bros. The first was The Color Purple (1985), an adaptation of Alice Walker's novel about a generation of empowered African-American women in the Depression-era South. It was Spielberg's first film on a dramatic subject, and he expressed reservations about tackling the project: "It's the risk of being judged-and accused of not having the sensibility to do character studies." Starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, the film was a box-office hit and critics started to take note of Spielberg's foray into drama. Ebert named it the best film of the year. The film received eleven Academy Award nominations and Spielberg won Best Director from the Directors Guild of America.
As China underwent economic reform and opened up to the American film industry, Spielberg made Empire of the Sun (1987), the first American film shot in Shanghai since the 1930s. It is an adaptation of J. G. Ballard's autobiographical novel about Jamie Graham (Christian Bale), a boy who goes from being the son of a wealthy British family in Shanghai to a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. David Lean was originally set to direct, with Spielberg producing. It was written by Tom Stoppard and co-starred John Malkovich as an American expatriate. Critical reaction was mixed; criticism ranged from the "overwrought" plot to Spielberg's downplaying of "disease and starvation". However, Andrew Sarris named it the best film of the year and one of the best of the decade. He wrote: "The film is a fusion of kinesthetic energy with literary sensibility, pulse-pounding adventure with exquisitely delicate sensitivity.” Corliss wrote that "Spielberg has energized each frame with allusive legerdemain and an intelligent density of images and emotions." It was a disappointment at the box office, possibly because it was released around the same time as John Boorman's similarly themed Hope and Glory. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards,; Ian Alterman, in The New York Times thought it had been overlooked. Spielberg recalled that Empire of the Sun was one of his most enjoyable films to make. Thomson called it "a great work through and through" and "the first clear sign that Spielberg the showman was an artist, too."
Spielberg intended to direct Rain Man but instead made Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) to meet his contractual obligations. A longtime James Bond fan, Spielberg cast Sean Connery as Jones's father, Henry Jones, Sr. Due to complaints about violence in Temple of Doom, Spielberg returned to more family-friendly fare for the third installment. Last Crusade received positive reviews and was a box-office success, earning $474 million; it was his biggest hit since E.T. Joseph McBride called it a comeback for Spielberg, and Spielberg acknowledged how much he has learned from the Indiana Jones films. Ebert wrote that "Raiders of the Lost Ark, now more than ever, seems a turning point in the cinema of escapist entertainment, and there was really no way Spielberg could make it new all over again. What he has done is to take many of the same elements, and apply all of his craft and sense of fun to make them work yet once again. And they do."
That year, he reunited with Richard Dreyfuss for the romantic drama Always, about an aerial firefighter. It is a modern remake of one of Spielberg's favorite childhood films, A Guy Named Joe (1943). He said, "As a child I was very frustrated, and maybe I saw my own parents [in A Guy Named Joe]. I was also short of girlfriends. And it stuck with me." Spielberg had discussed the film with Dreyfuss in 1975, and up to twelve drafts were written before filming commenced. It costarred Holly Hunter and John Goodman and was the final film role for Audrey Hepburn. Janet Maslin wrote that while "Always is filled with big, sentimental moments, it lacks the intimacy to make any of this very moving."
After a brief setback in which he felt "artistically stalled", Spielberg returned with Hook (1991), about a middle-aged Peter Pan (Robin Williams), who returns to Neverland and encounters Tinker Bell (Julia Roberts) and the eponymous Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman). The stars clashed on set, and Spielberg told 60 Minutes that he would never work with Roberts again. The studio enjoyed the film but most critics did not; Desson Howe described it as "too industrially organized". At the box office, it earned more than $300 million worldwide from a $70 million budget.
