Austin, Texas - Legendary movie director Steven Spielberg on Friday defended enjoying the arts as a shared live experience, appearing to take aim at Oscar nominee Timothee Chalamet's controversial remarks about ballet and opera.

The man behind Jaws and Saving Private Ryan told a South by Southwest audience in Austin, Texas, that communal artistic experiences – from cinema to the opera house – must be preserved.

Speaking at a keynote panel to promote his upcoming sci-fi film Disclosure Day, the 79-year-old director drew cheers when he invoked the performing arts forms that Chalamet seemed to dismiss in a recent appearance.

"The real experience comes when we can influence a community to congregate in a strange, dark space," Spielberg said.

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"All of us are strangers, and at the end of a really good movie experience, we are all united, with a whole bunch of feelings that we walk into the daylight with, or into the nighttime with, and there is nothing like that."

"I mean, it happens in movies, it happens at concerts, and it happens in ballet and opera. And we want that to be sustained."

Spielberg grinned as the audience broke out into cheers.

The remarks landed as a pointed rejoinder to Chalamet, who sparked a firestorm last month after appearing to question the cultural relevance of classical performance arts.

Speaking at a CNN and Variety town hall event, the Marty Supreme star said he feared cinema could become like ballet or opera – describing them as art forms people feel obliged to champion even as audiences drift away.

He added that he had no interest in working in a field sustained by advocacy rather than genuine demand.

Spielberg, for his part, was careful not to disparage streaming.

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"We make Netflix movies, and I like working with Netflix," he said.

Disclosure Day, Spielberg's return to extraterrestrial science fiction starring Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor, is slated for release in June.

Spielberg, whose E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial remains one of cinema's defining alien stories, told the crowd he had believed since childhood that humanity was not alone in the universe.

He also said he was working on a western, a genre he had never attempted but had long aspired to tackle.

"There will be horses. There will be guns," but "no stereotypes," he promised.