Learn English Steven Spielberg Speech Be The Hero Of Your Own Movie Big Subtitles
it’s an honor and a thrill to address
this group of distinguished alumni and
and supportive friends and traveling
parents we’ve all gathered to share in
the joy of this day so please join me in
congratulating Harvard’s class of 2016
[Applause]
I can remember my own college graduation
which is easy since it was only 14 years
ago how many of you took 37 years to
graduate because like most of you I
began college in my teens but sophomore
year I was offered my dream job at
Universal Studios so I dropped out I
told my parents that my movie career
didn’t go well adriaen role it went all
right but eventually I returned for one
big reason most people go to college
from education and some go to go for
their parents but I went for my for my
kids I’m the father of seven and I kept
insisting on the importance of going to
college but I hadn’t walked the walk so
in my 50s I rien rolled at Cal State
Long Beach and I earned my degree
[Applause]
I just have to add and help that they
gave me course credit in paleontology
for the work I did on Jurassic Park that
three units for Jurassic Park thank you
well I love college because I knew
exactly what I wanted to do and some of
you know too but some of you don’t or
maybe you thought you knew but are now
questioning that choice maybe you’re
sitting there trying to figure out how
to tell your parents that you want to be
a doctor and not a comedy writer well
what you choose to do next is what we
call in the movies the character
defining moment now these are moments
you very familiar with like in the last
Star Wars the first force awakens when
ray realizes the force is with her or
Indiana Jones choosing mission over fear
by jumping into a pile of snakes now on
a two-hour movie you get a handful of
character defining moments but in real
life you face them everyday life is one
straw a strong long string of character
defining moments and I was lucky that at
18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do
but I didn’t know who I was I
how could I and how could any of us
because for the first 25 years of our
lives we are trained to listen to voices
that are not our own parents and
professors fill our heads with wisdom
and information and then employers and
mentors take their place and explain how
this world really works and usually
these voices of authority makes sense
but sometimes doubt starts to creep into
our heads and into our hearts and even
when we think that’s not quite how I see
the world it’s kind of easier just to
nod in agreement and go along and for a
while I let that going along to find my
character because I was repressing my
own point of view because like in that
Nilsson song everybody was talking at me
so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my
mine and at first the internal voice I
needed to listen to was hardly audible
and it was hardly noticeable kind of
like me in high school but then I
started paying more attention and my
intuition kicked in and I want to be
clear that your intuition is different
from your conscience they work in tandem
but here’s the distinction your
conscience shouts here’s what you should
do while your intuition whispers here’s
what you could do listen to that voice
that tells you what you could do nothing
will define your character more than
that because once I turned to my
intuition and I tuned into it I certain
projects began to pull me into them and
others I turned away from and up until
the 1980s my movies were mostly I guess
what you could call escapist and I don’t
dismiss any of these movies not even
1941 not even that one and and and many
of these early films reflected the
values that I care deeply about and I
still do but I was in a celluloid bubble
because I’d cut my education short my
worldview was limited to what I could
dream up in my head not what the world
could teach me but then I directed the
color purple and this one film opened my
eyes to experiences that I never could
have imagined and yet we’re all too real
this story was filled with deep pain and
deeper truths like when Suge Avery says
everything wants to be loved my gut
which was my intuition told me that more
people needed to meet these characters
and experience these truths and while
making that film I realized that a movie
could also be a mission I hope all of
you find that sense of mission don’t
turn away from what’s painful examine it
challenge it my job is to create a world
that lasts two hours
your job is to create a world that lasts
forever you are the future innovators
motivators leaders and caretakers and
the way you create a better future is by
studying the past Jurassic Park writer
Michael Crichton who graduated from both
this College in this medical school like
to quote a favorite professor of his who
said that if you didn’t know history you
didn’t know anything you were a leaf
that didn’t know it was part of a tree
so history majors good choice you’re in
great shape not in the job market
but culturally the rest of us have to
make a little effort social media that
were inundated and swarmed with is about
the here and now but I’ve been fighting
and fighting inside my own family to get
all my kids to look behind them to look
at what already has happened because to
understand who they are is to understand
who we were and who their grandparents
were and then what this country was like
when they emigrated here we are a nation
of immigrants at least for now
[Applause]
so to me this means we all have to tell
our own stories we have so many stories
to tell talk to your parents and your
grandparents if you can and ask them
about their stories and I promise you
like I promised my kids you will not be
bored and and that’s why I so often make
movies based on real-life events I look
to history not to be didactic because
that’s just a bonus but I look because
the past is filled with the greatest
stories that have ever been told heroes
and villains are not literary constructs
but there is the heart of all history
and again this is why it’s so important
to listen to your internal whisper it’s
the same one that compelled Abraham
Lincoln and Oskar Schindler to make the
correct moral choices in your defining
moments do not let your morals be swayed
by convenience or expediency sticking to
your character requires a lot of courage
and to be courageous you’re gonna need a
lot of support and if you’re lucky you
have parents like mine I consider my mom
my lucky charm and when I was 12 years
old my father handed me a movie camera
the tool that allowed me to make sense
of this world and I am so grateful to
him for that and I am grateful that he’s
here at Harvard sitting right down there
[Applause]
not mic my dad is 99 years old which
means he’s only one year younger than
Widener Library
but unlike Widener he’s at zero cosmetic
work and dad there’s a lady behind you
also 99 I’ll introduce you after this is
over okay but look if your family is not
always available there’s backup near the
end of it’s a wonderful life you
remember that movie It’s a Wonderful
Life Clarence the angel inscribes a book
with this no man is a failure who has
friends and I hope you hang on to the
friendships you’ve made here at Harvard
and among your friends I hope you find
someone you want to share your life with
I imagine some of you in this yard maybe
a tad cynical but I want to be
unapologetically sentimental I spoke
about the importance of intuition and
how there’s no greater voice to follow
that is until you meet the love of your
life and this is what happened when I
met and married Kate and that became the
greatest character defining moment of my
life love support intuition
all these things are in your heroes
quiver but still a hero needs one more
thing a hero needs a villain to vanquish
and you’re all in luck
this world is full of monsters and
there’s racism homophobia ethnic hatred
class a Trudeau hatred and there’s
religious hatred as a kid I was bullied
for being Jewish
this was upsetting but compared to what
my parents and grandparents had faced it
felt Ain because we truly believed that
anti-semitism was faint fading and we
were wrong over the last two years
nearly 20,000 Jews have left Europe to
find higher ground and earlier this year
I was at the Israeli embassy when
President Obama stated the sad truth he
said we must confront the reality that
around the world anti-semitism is on the
rise we cannot deny it my own desire to
confront that reality compelled me to
start in 1994 the Shoah foundation and
since then we’ve spoken to over 53,000
Holocaust survivors and witnesses in 63
countries and taken all their video
testimonies
[Applause]
and we’re now gathering testimonies from
genocides in Rwanda Cambodia Armenia and
Man King because we must never forget
that the inconceivable doesn’t happen it
happens frequently atrocities are
happening right now and so we wondered
not just when will this hatred end but
but how did it begin now I don’t have to
tell a crowd of Red Sox fans that we are
wired for tribalism
but beyond rooting for the home team
tribalism has a much darker side
instinctively and maybe even genetically
we divide the world into us and them so
the burning question must be how do all
of us together find the we how do we do
that there’s still so much work to be
done and sometimes I feel the work
hasn’t even begun and it’s not just anti
anti-semitism that surging Islamophobia
is on the rise too because there’s no
difference between anyone who is
discriminated against whether it’s the
Muslims or the Jews or minorities on the
border states or the LGBT community it
is all big one hate and
[Applause]
and to me to me and I think to all of
you the only answer to more hate is more
humanity we got a repair we have to
replace fear with curiosity us and then
we’ll find the we by connecting with
each other
and by believing that we’re members of
the same tribe and by feeling empathy
for every soul even yay Lee’s my son
graduated from the elf nu and make sure
this but make sure this empathy isn’t
just something that you feel make it
something you act upon that means vote
peaceably protest speak up for those who
can’t and speak up for those who may be
shouting but aren’t being heard
let your count conscience shout as loud
as at once if you’re using it in the
service of others and as an example of
action and service of others you need to
look no further than this Hollywood
worthy backdrop of a royal church it’s
south wall bears the names of Harvard
alumni like president Faust has already
mentioned students and faculty members
who gave their lives in World War two
all told 697 souls who want to tread the
ground where we stand now were lost and
at a service in this church in late 1945
Harvard President James Conant which
president Foust also mentioned honored
the brave and called upon the community
to reflect the radiance of their deeds
70 years later this message still holds
true because their sacrifice is not a
debt that can be repaid in a single
generation it must be repaid with every
generation just as we must never forget
the atrocities we must never forget
those who fought for freedom so as you
leave this College and head out into the
world continue please to reflect the
radiance to their deeds or as Captain
Miller in Saving Private Ryan would say
earned this and please stay connected
please never lose eye contact this may
not be a lesson you want to hear from a
person who creates media but we are
spending more time looking down at our
devices and then we are looking at each
other’s eyes
[Applause]
so forgive me but let’s start right now
everyone here please find someone’s eyes
to look into students and alumni and
YouTube president fouls all of you turn
to someone you don’t know or don’t know
very well they nippies daddy behind you
or a couple of rows ahead just let your
eyes meet that’s it that emotion you’re
feeling is our shared humanity mixed in
with a little social discomfort but if
you remember nothing else from today I
hope you remember this moment of human
connection and I hope you all had a lot
of that over the past four years because
today you start down the path of
becoming the generation on which the
next generation stands and I’ve imagined
many possible futures in my films but
you will determine the actual future and
I hope that it’s filled with justice and
peace and finally I wish you all a true
Hollywood style happy ending I hope you
outrun the t-rex catch the criminal and
for your parents sake maybe every now
and then just like et go home
[Applause]