2.
I think it was Raiders of the Lost Ark that drew me to Spielberg even more than ET because Raiders was two years before. I was aware of Close Encounters but hadn’t seen it because it was a bit grown up for me at 7 or 8 which I was at that age. But when Raiders came out, they advertised it on the TV as being “from the producers of Jaws and Star Wars” so it was off the back of Spielberg and Lucas’ success; they were really pushing it in that respect. And of course, I was then immediately interested in Raiders then because whilst I hadn’t seen Jaws, I had certainly seen Star Wars.
I went to see Raiders with my step-dad and just remember being utterly bowled over by it because it was such an assault on the senses – it was funny, it was incredibly violent and it was very exciting and tense – it had everything. It was a real thrill ride and that was my first real sort of inclination of Steven Spielberg really. With the arrival of VHS in 1983 or whatever it was – the early 1980’s – we got our first video player in 1983 and the first video I owned was Raiders.
