On Jan. 1, something amazing happened. Steven Spielberg, a longtime Angeleno and most people’s dictionary definition of “Hollywood director,” became a New York City resident. On the one hand, this is a significant event. What classic Spielberg location requires a 212 or 718 or 646 to phone home? On the other hand, he has made five of his last six movies in New York State, including his exuberant, ominous reconsideration of “West Side Story.” Plus, for decades, Spielberg has kept a place on the Upper West Side. Five of his seven children live here, and all six of his grandchildren. So yeah: no big whoop. It was simply time. But to a New Yorker, this is a meaningful move: as if Magic Johnson had spent the rest of his career playing at the Garden.
And Spielberg is still playing. He turns 80 in December. The signs of wear and tear of a half-century of moviemaking are discreet. He uses a barely-there hearing aid, and his gait is a tad slower than maybe he’d like. He has become an insole guy. (“I’m on my feet as a director my whole life. My feet have gotten as flat as a pancake.”) The mellower pace of Los Angeles suits his temperament. He’s voluble, yet reserved. In a five-way conversation, he’ll do as much listening as speaking. He wants to hear what’s going on with everybody around him.
But here, in Spielberg’s New York era, his zest for everything has kicked up a notch. Invite him out, he’ll show up — for dinners and openings, for one of the farewell episodes of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Until Colbert, he hadn’t done late-night television since the end of the 1970s. At one point, he brought the house down. “I made a couple of jokes,” he marveled the next day, smiling with the sort of bashfulness that obscures most of his teeth. He has more true friends now than he used to. He would even schlep his Lakers-loving self to a Knicks game, but only “if Spike Lee takes me.”
“Suggestible” might be too mild for where Spielberg is right now. “Open,” “ready” — those seem closer. “Adaptable.” Willing to adjust a plan in order to experience someone else’s preference. One evening at dinner, he was all set to order the salmon when I told him I was having a calf’s liver. His eyes widened behind his glasses. “Fuck the salmon!” He enjoys some funk when he eats. “I kind of like food that reminds me of what I just ate,” he said, with not a little bit of delight. “I want food that reminds me, five minutes later, before I contaminate the taste with something else.” He then ventriloquized the food: “I hope you enjoyed me, because I’m going to linger!”
