Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Michael Jolls

What inspired you to write “The Films of Steven Spielberg”?

Jolls: Film studies has always been something that I’ve gravitated towards, and of course Spielberg is such a big presence in cinema. Paying attention to a single director’s body of work was something I’ve always been conscious of as far back as middle school when most kids wouldn’t notice that. With regards to Spielberg - I had seen a decent amount of his movies throughout my childhood and teenage years, but I would have to say summer 2005, after seeing War of the Worlds on the big screen, that’s was when I honed my attention on Spielberg. That summer and subsequent fall I started tracking down his films. It was still a couple of years before I had seen each of his movies, but 2005 was when it clicked and I officially became a fan. 

I had read some material throughout college, particularly Lester D. Friedman’s Citizen Spielberg which was the first true “film studies” book I read and really opened my eyes to good, healthy film theory. Meanwhile, over the course of five, six or seven years, I would reverently catch each of Spielberg’s new movies, on opening night most of the time… ergo, the “inspiration” has always been there. 

As for the book itself, I had spent a significant amount of time in 2012, and then in 2016, rolling up my sleeves and really getting into the nitty-gritty of research on an authorship project. The first time on David Fincher (Se7en; The Social Network) and the second time on Sam Mendes (American Beauty; Skyfall), both guys who had been making Hollywood films for just under twenty years or so. Well, that natural itch to do something like that returned, however I wanted to challenge myself in doing a director who had a longer resume. I wanted to fight my urge to research everything and do a more broad study that spanned over a couple decades. I wanted to put a check on my own little self-diagnosed OCD of researching every little thing, and I knew doing a major figure with decades of material would be a way of halting that unhealthy obsession. 

The idea hit me one night and the concept was so compelling that I compulsively took a blank sheet of paper and wrote stream of consciousness for 20 minutes uninterrupted on Martin Scorsese. I stopped, placed the paper aside, grabbed another blank sheet and did the same thing again on Ron Howard. Stopped 20 or 30 minutes into it, put the paper aside, grabbed a new sheet and again stream of conscientious writing about Robert Zemeckis. I was just writing down motifs and themes, with examples of where they were in the various films. 

The idea had been so strongly eating away at me for a couple of days that I asked my business partner, Natalia Samoylova, what she thought. I started rattling off names I was considering and got nothing from her. If Natalia didn’t like an idea of mine, that was almost always enough to kill it for me. For tiny nano-second I was crestfallen that she wasn’t buying the idea. And then I just blurted out “Spielberg,”and that got a facial reaction and she said something along the lines of, “Oh that would be a good one.” That was that. For all the trouble this book would cause me over a year later upon its release, Natalia stood by my integrity to make it happen and encouraged me to keep making it better.

How did you come up with the topics for your main chapters?

Jolls: Originally this book was going to be released through a different publisher; I ended up making an emergency eleventh hour change for a lot of compelling reasons, but the book was initially set-up under the parameters of what the former publishers wanted which was six chapters. Therefore the question became, “What six themes do you pick to articulate Spielberg’s cinema.” 

For example, this is why there isn’t a chapter exclusively dedicated to science-fiction, because although that genre is one Spielberg has been very successful with, examining those five or six movies doesn’t really grant us access to his full authorship. However, when we talk about the issue of fatherhood, then it becomes very easy to incorporate Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. into the conversation because absent fathers are at the heart of those films. 

In addition, because I was reading the majority of the academic writings previously published about Spielberg over the years, I wanted to touch on topics that were omitted in previous writings. This is why John Williams and Spielberg’s later films get privileged in my book because they don’t get their due respect in other works.

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Jolls: Prior to reading it? No. If there is pertinent information the readers need to know with relation to the given book, I always state it in the opening. 

Specifically for The Films of Steven Spielberg I had to declare two things upfront: first was that I was a fan of the director, since a lot of the academic work out there is often hostile. There’s something to be said about the concept of: the larger you are, the more open you become to nonsensical criticism. Since Spielberg is arguably the most successful director in the short history of Hollywood, of course he gets attacked the most. Make no mistake, I have my own criticisms of his work, but my book wasn’t the place to voice them - and that’s what a lot of these academics did. It’s shocking actually. For all the film criticism books I have read, Spielberg seems to be the only one that will get books devoted to him, and the author will spend a significant amount of time complaining. The Films of Steven Spielberg is meant to teach people how to appreciate the subtext of his movies. I could have done a book of the same size on a director I didn’t care much for, and still would have delivered the same “lesson” without voicing my criticisms. 

The other thing I try to point out in the opening of my film books is that I am a film producer by trade, so I have an understanding of the filmmaking process that a lot of these academics don’t have. I do it enough to be reminded that filmmaking is not a simple job, and you listen to some of these critics and it’s clear they haven’t been on a set in years.

Luckily while I was working on the book, HBO released the documentary Spielberg (2017, Susan Lacy) which really dived into that topic, incorporating Spielberg’s father and his sisters. I was able to use the documentary as a way to address the topic based off what was actually said, and move on without saying something false. Obviously that documentary didn’t touch on everything in my book, but it’s an interesting answer to your question. If down the road a couple years from now and another retrospective is done on Spielberg, and someone references my book, that would be the biggest honor possible.

When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?

Jolls: Ugh, I hate this question because my answer is not kosher. I have a giant asterisk to this: the ideas are all lodged in my head but sometimes it’s hard getting it to come out on the page because I’m over-fixing on how I want to say it or can’t get it a starting point. It’s amazing how vodka just disintegrates any blockage between your brain and the words you want on the page. The downside is the editing you need to do the next day because the typos are going to be embarrassing, but it’s there each and every time. I’m very cautious to suggest this since alcoholism and writers can go hand-in-hand, and you end up drinking alone which is not a good habit to get into. 

The other major form of “writer’s block” that I encounter is when I get burned out. The research for film books takes a lot of time and eventually I lose interest. Of course I want to finish the book, but it’s a long process of collecting information and then incorporating it into the text. Generally if I give myself a deadline that’s months off, that usually compels me to stay on target and get it done. 

Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?

Jolls: There are three things I find myself saying over and over to anyone that wants to get into this game: the first is that you need to just do it. Once you start putting words on the page, you are in the right direction. Yes, the road is long but the end is there if you keep up your stamina. 

The second is you need to have control over your career. There is a reason why this book was released in spring 2018, and it wasn’t until spring 2021 that I could finally walk away from it. One of the worst experiences in my professional career was the moment I realized that this book was in route to be a wasted effort, of literally a full year of work about to go down the toilet bowl, and I should have seen it coming months before the drama started hitting. The bottom line being that authors really need to manage their own material. This was something that was hammered into my head in film school, but inevitably you fall into the trap. The biggest key is to not give up because every bad thing leads to something good. Therefore, every terrible thing will lead to something great. Admit that you’ll need help in the start, but you really need to make the effort to manage your own career and be familiar with all the aspects. I find this with people in the music industry as well - make sure you scrutinize every contract you’re ever handed and be prepared for the worse. 

Last, but not least, don’t be afraid to give your book away for free. In fact, I strongly encourage that in nearly any field I’ve worked in. I made two gag books in late 2019 and got a pretty significant amount of retweets and views on videos. I did more press for Make Hollywood Great Again throughout summer 2020 than I did for any project of mine, ever. But you know what? The books where I’ve made a habit of giving copies away, particularly to the target audience, those are the ones that over the course of 2 or 3 years end up selling the best. Why? Because inevitably your target audience will be the ones that will seep the book out to other potential readers. 

Someone pointed this out to me once: Barnes & Noble make a significant amount of their money from selling the classics. The books that everyone knows. How many times in a 365 calendar year is a single Barnes & Noble going to sell copies of To Kill A Mockingbird, The Cat in the Hat, The Hobbit and a variety of Charles Dickensons’ books, you know? You can get all of them at used bookstores and libraries everywhere, but... the more popular it is, people end up buying it. Therefore, I really have no issue of giving away books because I’m feeding a demand. Obviously the likes of Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling or a presidential memoir is a different category, but the idea still applies in some ways. 

As for authors, to date I don’t think I’ve actually read every book that one single author has put out. The one I plan on doing is Ron Chernow but I still got two left, and those are all honker-sized mammoth books. Generally I get fixated on topics so I’ll go through and read as many books as I can regarding that given topic. Right now the documentary I’m working on has a Native American aspect to it so I’m going through and compulsively reading the books about Native American history that keep popping up on my searches.

What are you working on next?

Jolls: Somehow I got myself stuck in the mix of doing four books at once, which is really fun. (Joking of course). I got two film books on Ron Howard and Sam Mendes that I’m working on, another that I ghost wrote for my business partner about his experience being a roadie for death metal bands. Lastly, the documentary I’m in production on, Holy Ground, will have a companion guide/history book that will release in tandem with the film. I don’t have a clue which book will see the light of day first.

Learn More About the Author and The Films of Steven Spielberg here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaeljolls
Instagram: @michael_jolls

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