It's easy to draw parallels to President Obama in Steven Spielberg?s historical Oscar hopeful Lincoln, a portrait of the 16th American President who stood tall, orated well, united a divided nation across color and party lines, and was re-elected to office for a second term. But Spielberg insists he had no specific political agenda in mind when the long-gestating Lincoln came to fruition.
?I would have been very glad to have made Lincoln in the year 2000,? Spielberg explained recently in Los Angeles, ?the year after I met [author Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was adapted by Lincoln scribe Tony Kushner]. It took her a couple years to write the book. It took us more than a couple years to get the screenplay written. So, I wasn?t waiting for a certain time.?
The divided politics of Lincoln?s presidency, as explored at length in Spielberg?s film, find pointed parallels in President Obama?s tenure in the White House: A President with a humanistic streak tasked with bringing war to an end, Lincoln is depicted wrestling with military crises, huge wartime losses of life, moral questions of personal freedoms, Constitutional history-making, all-too eager rivals, and, notably, his own family issues at home. Still, Spielberg says the Obama-Lincoln parallels have nothing to do with it.
?At one point I flirted with coming out on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln?s birth, but we weren?t ready to make the picture then,? said Spielberg, who spent years wooing star Daniel Day-Lewis and had even resigned himself to not making Lincoln without the actor. ?People say ?Oh, you made it because of what?s happening in politics today.? No, we were ready to make it during the Bush administration. It had…
Source: http://www.celebrities.com/celebrities-gossip/spielberg%e2%80%99s-lincoln-obama-and-the-2012-presidential-election-everybody-claims-lincoln-as-their-own/
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