Cinema's most successful director is a commercial and cultural force demanding serious consideration. Not just triumphant marketing, this international popularity is partly a function of the movies themselves. Polarised critical attitudes largely overlook this, and evidence either unquestioning adulation or vilification—often vitriolic—for epitomising contemporary Hollywood. Detailed textual analyses reveal that alongside conventional commercial appeal, Spielberg's movies function consistently as a self-reflexive commentary on cinema. Rather than straightforwardly consumed realism or fantasy, they invite divergent readings and self-conscious spectatorship which contradict assumptions about their ideological tendencies. Exercising powerful emotional appeal, their ambiguities are profitably advantageous in maximising audiences and generating media attention.

Nigel Morris is Principal Lecturer in Media Theory and Teacher Fellow in the Department of Media Production, University of Lincoln. His publications include articles and chapters on aspects of American, British, German and Welsh cinema, literary adaptation, and cinematic and literary modernism.

Highly recommended.

A fascinating take on the man's legendary work.