Graham Young meets the all-American film director Steven Spielberg at the launch of his new, very British movie, War Horse.

Steven Spielberg’s films are typically characterised by ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary situations, and then being faced with either a sense of wonder or terror.

Or, as in the case of Jurassic Park, both.

When his regular producer Kathleen Kennedy told him about a play she’d seen in London called War Horse, he knew he just had to go back to source – and turn former primary school teacher Michael Morpurgo’s 30-year-old book into a film.

The deeply personal story, set against an epic backdrop, is about a boy called Albert (Jeremy Irvine) becoming separated from his horse Joey.

As well as offering a rare insight into the terror on the front line during the First World War, it also signals the end of horse power after centuries of brave engagement in combat.

It’s also about the wonder of the relationship of trust between man and beast – and of men from opposite sides of the divide when they meet in No Man’s Land.

But, as Spielberg himself says, this is not a war movie in the way that Saving Private Ryan was.

When his D-Day landings film was released on September 11, 1998 – exactly three years to the day before 9/11 brought an altogether different invasion of terror on to US soil – he was determined to tell the story of the men who gave their lives in the face of overwhelming odds.

The opening sequences were as brutal an introduction to a film that a mainstream Hollywood director had ever attempted because that’s how the ex-servicemen themselves wanted it to be.

War Horse, though featuring battle scenes, is a rather different kind of movie.

“It’s a love story,” says Spielberg, “where Joey (the horse) basically circumvents the emotional flow of The Great War.

“That was very evident in the play, which I’ve seen twice. I don’t often mix my metaphors, but this is no Ryan, which was a typical war film.

“I wanted families to be able to see War Horse together.

“There’s only about 12 minutes of combat, from the cavalry charge to the fighting in the Somme.

“There’s hardly any blood at all, but I wanted to make it as authentic as I possibly could. Albert shows tremendous courage in combat and it’s almost blind fear that makes him race forward.”

Adapted for the screen by Richard Curtis (Blackadder/Love Actually), one of the most interesting aspects of War Horse is how it reflects the end of centuries of equine tradition in battle – and the birth of modern military might.

“This was the death knell of the horse as an implement of warfare,” says Spielberg. “Machines, tanks, aeroplanes and chemical warfare all converged, almost like an experimental war, on what was supposed to be ‘the war to end all wars’.

‘‘Or that’s what they thought.

“Children learn exponentially from the media today so if a movie even touches on historical fact there has to be more than a kernel of truth.

“We did a lot of research beyond what you may perceive the story to be.

“It revealed there was a vast number of horses in the war and that as many horses died as men.”

An immediate post-war baby born in Cincinnati’s Jewish Hospital on December 18, 1946, to mother Leah Posner – an aspiring concert pianist when she met his father Arnold – Spielberg is wearing a black scarf and baseball cap when we meet in London.

In the flesh he’s warm, engaging and passionate.

But war forged what might be called the Spielbergian spirit; that overwhelming desire to succeed no matter how great the obstacles in front of him.

His father, who will be 95 later this month, fought during the Second World in Karachi, Pakistan, and against the Japanese in Burma.

“The only thing I did well in at school was history, and that’s because my dad always used to tell me stories,” he says. “There’s no better way to test who a person is than to throw him into a war.”

Today, the whole world seems to be suffering from some kind of mad economic war, while many countries, including Thailand, New Zealand and Japan have also suffered natural disasters.

Spielberg’s view of adversity, personal or communal, is that you should “never give up on the recovery of your spirit and your hopes for the future.

“Once you give up hope, you give up your soul. If there’s any personal or communal disaster, you must never give up.

“I hated making Jaws because it was on water, but it was a turning point until then I was a director for hire. After that, I could make any movie I wanted. Hollywood would just write me a cheque and I could make a film with flying saucers when they used to turn them away.”

He’s made 26 major feature films to date after the success of his 1971 TV movie Duel and his stellar career makes him easily the highest grossing director at the US box office ahead of Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron.