In extended video clips from this weekend’s encore broadcast of Moyers & Company, Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter behind Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, talks about his approach to writing the movie and how it affected his own view of democracy.
First, Kushner talks about the difficulty of starting with “too much material,” and making sure his iconic characters came across more human than historical. “Had we failed to make Lincoln come to life — if he’d just been in the film as a kind of a monument — the film would have failed,” Kushner tells Bill.
In this clip, Kushner cautions against “romanticizing” revolution and the necessity of politics, as demonstrated in Lincoln’s presidency. “Always take to the streets,” Kushner tells Bill. “But always make sure there are people in the halls of power who can listen and say ‘Okay, I get it. I’m going to do something about this.'”
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