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Steven Spielberg is one of the most commercially successful directors ever. He got a lot of attention at home because he was the oldest of four children, and the only boy. It was different at school, though, and he didn’t enjoy it or do well. He started making movies at an early age, by filming family holidays and,
when he was 12, he filmed his first proper movie with actors and a script. Since then he has kept people of all ages entertained with films such as Close Encounters of a Third Kind, Jurassic Park and the Indiana Jones series, and more serious films such as Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and the award-winning Lincoln.
B Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980)
Alfred Hitchcock, one of the most famous
directors of the 20th century, specialised in mysteries and thrillers, and he was known as ‘the master of suspense’. His classic films
included Rear Window and Psycho. As a child, he led a very lonely life and was often punished by his parents. He once told a story about his father sending him to the local police station with a note asking them to put him in prison for ten minutes because he had been badly behaved. He liked to tell interviewers that his mother would make him stand at the end of her bed for hours as a punishment, something which he used in the film Psycho.
C Orson Welles (1915–1985)
As a child, Orson faced many hardships.
His parents separated in 1919, his father became an alcoholic and could no longer work and his mother died when he was only nine. When he was 11, he went to a new school which had an excellent theatre and he spent a lot of time there. He made his first film, all of four minutes’ worth, Heart of Age, at this school. His father died when he was 15 and left his son some money, which he used to buy a ticket to travel to Europe. His first acting job was in Dublin, Ireland, and by the time he was 25 he had become a household name. In 1941 he wrote, directed and starred in his first film, Citizen Kane, for which he is still famous.
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Federico Fellini (1920–1993)
D Federico Fellini is often named as one of
the most influential film-makers of the 20th
century. He didn’t particularly enjoy his school days in a Catholic boarding school. He showed a talent for drawing at school. When he was 12, he ran away from home to join a circus, but the police brought him back. At 17 he moved to Florence, where he worked drawing cartoons until he got his first acting job. He didn’t
enjoy giving interviews once he was famous because he believed that his films told people everything he wanted to say. He once said, ‘All art is autobiographical. The pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.’
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1 was particularly good at art at school?D
2 claimed he used a childhood event in one of his films? B
3 got his first acting job in another country? C
4 wasn’t successful at school? A
5 
disliked being asked about his life? D
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SECTION C: LANGUAGE
