“Procedural”

In an interview posted today (9.29), Empire‘s Helen O’Hara quotes Steven Spielberg saying a couple of things about Lincoln, which begins shooting in October. Spielberg begins by explaining that the source material, Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s Team Of Rivals, “is much too big a book to be a movie, so the Lincoln story only takes place in the last few months of his Presidency and life.

“I was interested in how he ended the war through all the efforts of his generals…but more importantly how he passed the 13th Amendment into constitutional law. The Emancipation Proclamation was a war powers act and could have been struck down by any court after the war ended. But what permanently ended slavery was the very close vote in the House of Representatives over the 13th Amendment — that story I’m excited to tell.”

Asked if Lincoln will bear any similarities to Amistad, Spielberg says that his Anthony Hopkins-starring 1997 historical film “is much more visual than Lincoln is going to be. It feels very much like a procedural. It shows Lincoln at work, not just Lincoln standing around posing for the history books…arguably the greatest working President in American history doing some of the greatest work for the world.”

18 thoughts on ““Procedural”

  1. I like the fact that Spielberg is concentrating on a specific period of time within Lincoln’s presidency and that he is talking about making something other than a simple and traditional costume-epic.

    I just hope that his film turns out to be less staid and lethargic than Redford’s The Conspirator, another recent film about Lincoln.

  2. “But what permanently ended slavery was the very close vote in the House of Representatives over the 13th Amendment ”

    No, what permanently ended slavery was when the 27th state ratified the 13th Amendment NINE MONTHS after Lincoln was murdered and no longer PROCEDURING shit.

  3. What ended slavery was the blood of almost 600,000. This framing actually sounds interesting. Showing Lincoln doing work will make the ending more tragic.

    DZ that was actually pretty funny.

  4. When watching the nerdy but brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin I always chuckle when I remember she was portrayed in a feature film by Miro Sorvino.

  5. That’s weird, because “Amistad’ ranks among the least-visual, most straightforwardly procedural movies Spielberg has ever made.

  6. I think the first 1/3 or half of AMISTAD is pretty visual, Bobby, what with the ship voyage and the mutiny. Once it becomes a courtroom drama, I agree it becomes much more like a procedural.

  7. lip – there are plenty of directors for whom the first 1/3 alone would make ‘Amistad’ the most visual movie they’d ever done, but for Spielberg, that 2/3 is why it ranks among the least.

  8. “What ended slavery was the blood of almost 600,000. This framing actually sounds interesting. Showing Lincoln doing work will make the ending more tragic.”

    NO SPOILERS, ASSHOLE!

  9. It makes sense to follow this approach, given that audiences will have already seen much of his earlier life that year in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

  10. Killing Lincoln is the new book from Bill O’Reilly, about the last two weeks of Lincoln’s life. That and Team of Rivals should be read before you see the movie.

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