Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films

Am I Lazy or Overstimulated? | Monday Advice

Deep Questions with Cal Newport, 22 June 2026. The book comes up at 49 min 59 sec in.

Cal Newport reports finishing Molly Haskell's academic press biography of Spielberg, which he read before seeing Spielberg's new film. He describes it as structured around Spielberg's films rather than his life chronologically, and contrasts Haskell's feminist psychological lens with the Freudian approach of the only other major Spielberg biography, by Joseph McBride. He notes both existing biographies are psychologically framed and calls for a new one told through an economic or artistic lens.

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