Spielberg's LINCOLN

THRILLER Thursday is returning in February! Until then, a couple of rerun blog entries.

From December of 2012...

SIGHT & SOUND Interview With Spielberg On His LINCOLN Movie.

Spielberg: Tony Kushner's screenplay was kind of slow and meticulous, and when we came to the ending I sensed a problem. It wasn't just a complete downer, the hero was also ultra passive. He just sits there in a chair watching a play and gets killed. Not the way a story like this should end.

Sight And Sound: But that's what actually happened.

Speilberg: If the rest of the screenplay had been more exciting and engaging, that ending would have maybe worked. But I felt we needed something more exciting and entertaining, so I brought in David Koepp for a punch up.

Sight And Sound: He wrote "War Of The Worlds" for you?

Spielberg: And "Crystal Skull" and "Jurassic Park" and I've brought him in to punch up other scripts, too. So, I told Dave what I wanted and he wrote the new ending.

Sight And Sound: How extensive was his rewrite?

Spielberg: After Booth shoots, Lincoln draws a gun and returns fire... while Mary Todd looks on from her seat in terror. There's a huge shoot out in the theatre between the two, Lincoln and Booth having to reload several times, and then we have a great roof-top chase sequence where Lincoln chases Booth from Ford's Theatre across the roofs of Washington, ending with a final confrontation between the two which ends with Lincoln using this great catchphrase I came up with for "Crystal Skull" that George vetoed, always wanted to use that line, and then shooting Booth dead.

Sight And Sound: That's unbelievable.

Spielberg: Isn't it great? But it doesn't end there. Lincoln realizes that if he's dead, he's a martyr... so he and Secretary Of State Seward, played by the excelled David Strathairn, cook up a plot to fake his death. There's a really touching scene where Lincoln says goodbye to Mary Todd and Tadpole (his son, played by Gulliver McGrath), I'm sure the audience will cry like the end of my "E.T.", and then Lincoln goes to live the rest of his life in Bolivia.

Sight And Sound: Did Bolivia exist as a country in 1865?

Spielberg: That doesn't really matter, does it? It's one hell of an ending, and a great ending for a hero. Heartbreaking and emotional. I guarantee people will be talking about it when the film comes out on November 16th.

- Bill