"Lincoln" Bells of joy, light of blessing

A script that took six years to write

Steven Spielberg is an extraordinary workaholic, but he also has the agility to complete projects at extraordinary speed. It is now legendary that he made " Jurassic Park " (1993) and " Schindler's List " (1993) at the same time, but it took less than a year from the planning stage to the theatrical release of " The Post " (2017). Moreover, he created this socially conscious film while working on the post-production of " Ready Player One " (2018). Once the Signs ahead is given, he can complete the project at the speed of light.

On the other hand, there are also cases where a film takes a long time to complete. For example, " The Adventures of Tintin " (2011) took 30 years from 1981, when Spielberg first encountered the original comics, to 2011, when it was finally released. "Lincoln" is also in this lineage. Spielberg spent more than 10 years on this film.

When the project was launched in 2001, John Logan ( Gladiator , The The Aviator ) was hired to write the screenplay, and playwright Paul Webb was hired to revise it. After the publication of a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin titled Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Tony Kushner, who worked with Spielberg on Munich , was brought in to write the film.

"Lincoln" (c)Photofest / Getty Images

It took him six years to write. That's how much Kushner must have been lost in thought as he spun the story of Lincoln. He said, "I didn't know how Lincoln did it, in the same sense that I don't know how William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet or how Mozart wrote Cosi fan tutte." But he still somehow managed to write a 550-page screenplay.

Spielberg had originally thought about telling the Civil War story through the eyes of President Lincoln, planning a biopic about his final three years in the American Civil War, but after reading Kushner's script, he became convinced that focusing the story on the abolition of slavery was the best choice.

"The script was 550 pages long. The most compelling part to me was a 65-page section about the struggle to pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. (...) I stood up and said, 'This is it! This is our story. This is our movie!'" (1)

While " Schindler's List " and " Saving Private Ryan " were mostly shot outdoors, "Lincoln" is an unusual "closed room film" that is mostly set indoors. Spielberg deliberately chose to make a non-action film.

Enveloped in light