Crying in Public, Sylvester Stallone, Daylight Saving Time

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Almost 4 years later, listen to My Life of Crime from 48 hours on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Good morning. I'm Jane Paul. And this is Sunday morning. We cry for all kinds of reasons, grief, joy, pain, a full range of emotions. We all know children cry, grownups cry too, at least on occasion. But not so long ago, cultural norms seem to dictate that real men don't cry.

Jim Axelrod shows us how times and tears are changing. From sports, to movies, to everyday life, human beings have been crying, it seems, for as long as we've been breathing. But why exactly do we shed tears? What is the evolutionary advantage of being able to cry? Tears are one of the most powerful ways in which we bond with one another.

The science of sobbing coming up on Sunday morning. Steven Spielberg is truly one of our generation's greatest storytellers. So it's no wonder that after more than 30 films, he can still surprise us. Leslie Stahl will sit down with a true Hollywood legend. Steven Spielberg is known for making epic movies about aliens, dinosaurs, and war.

But in his latest, The Fablemen's, he's taking on something far more personal. What have I just done? Has this been 40 million dollars of therapy?

Whoever spends 40 million dollars of therapy. I love this. The backstory of director Steven Spielberg ahead on Sunday morning. Sylvester Stallone is famous for all kinds of roles, but even at this point in his career, something new can come along, as Lee Cowan will tell us. I want you to go to council.

Are you serious? If you think you've seen all sides of Sylvester Stallone, well think again. I read somewhere you said that fans of yours are really going to see who you are in this role, as opposed to some of the other ones.

Yeah, you're going to see I'm a demented sadist. How Sly at 76 feels about doing his first ever television series and why he never played cowboy later on Sunday morning. Tracey Smith catches up with Cameron Crow, who's bringing the theatrical version of his movie, Almost Famous, to Broadway. We'll have commentary from author John Meacham, a story from Steve Hartman, David Pogue takes a minute to take on daylight saving time, and more.

It's the first Sunday of a new month, November 6th, 2022, and we'll be right back. Time was, there were those who felt part of being a real man meant never shedding a tear, but as Jim Axelrod explains, the idea there's no crying in baseball, or golf for that matter, is long gone. Professional golfer, Rob LeBritz, this is a game of passion, oh yeah, has paired that passion with a lifetime of practice. Does every one of your days include some time doing what you're doing? Oh yes, putting, chipping, pitching, bunker play, half swings, quarter swings, full swings. Which is why last December, when he finally reached a moment 35 years in the making. Oh man.

Earning a place on the PGA Champions Tour, where the world's best golfers, 50 and over, play for millions of dollars. He was speechless, tears did all his talking. It was just a whirlwind of emotion, of lifelong drive and sacrifice and just practice and never give up.

Thank you brother. Overnight, Rob LeBritz and his emotion went viral. How were those tears received by everyone you came in contact with?

I'll say nine million positives and one made fun of, just one. By attacking me, by attacking my right, he's proved himself to be a gutless coward. A far cry from half a century ago, a good woman, when presidential candidate Ed Muskie's apparent tears after a newspaper's attack on his wife, torpedoed his presidential campaign. You know, if I can't show emotion in that instance, then I guess the conclusion is that I've got to be an iceberg all of the time. For Rob LeBritz, the way his tears were received, reflects not just acceptance, but affirmation. Does it feel to you that kind of reaction reflects some sort of evolution in our culture?

Yeah, I mean, as things evolve, whether they have in the past, what, let's say 50 or 60 years, right? I mean, it's okay to cry. It doesn't mean you're weak by any means, trust me. If Ed Muskie was running today and cried for the same reasons, would it cripple his campaign? No, I think it would have influenced voters to see him as a more human person. Vassar psychology professor Randy Cornelius has made a 45-year scholarly study of crying, coinciding with this cultural shift. From real men don't cry to a 2016 poll in which 89% of Americans think it's acceptable for men to cry. Since Muskie, everyone from politicians to athletes has grown more comfortable shedding tears publicly.

You must feel, since you've been studying this for four decades, a sense that we're moving in the right direction as a culture if we can more readily cry. Yes, I think crying is so important to us as humans, and it's one of the things that distinguishes us as humans. Monkeys, dogs, horses, reptiles, and birds, they all shed tears, but only human tears have been linked conclusively to emotion. Elephants mourn. You know, that whole thing about elephant burial grounds is true. But they don't tear as part of their mourning? No, as far as we know. So, crying, as linked to emotion, is uniquely human?

Yes. For Cornelius, tears have evolved as a way for humans to signal each other and mark behaviors that will help us survive. What is the evolutionary advantage of being able to cry?

I think it perpetuates a species because it helps in that bonding process. Tears are one of the most powerful ways in which we bond with with one another. That tells us that this is a special moment. This is deep.

This is existential, if you will. Hey, Stella! Maybe it's the outgrowth of a change that started with tough guys like Marlon Brando crying on screen in the 50s.

It's lovely me, baby. It's all right to cry. Cry, cry.

That led to football stars like Rosie Greer delivering groovy permission in the 1970s. It might make you feel better. So, I think I've noticed an increase in it probably in the past 10 years or so. Psychologist Lubna Somji has certainly seen an uptick in crying, especially with men. We still sort of buy into the fact that men shouldn't cry. Men should be stoic. Men should be stoic. That being said, what's interesting, at least in my practice, if let's say 80% of women in my practice have cried at some point during therapy, I would say that 80% of my male patients have also cried.

Your characters have lives outside of the scenes in the play in the movie. But acting coach Tim Martin Krauss, who once taught a 13-year-old Claire Danes to cry for a scene in Law and Order, wants to be clear about the limits of tears. So, how does an actor learn to cry on command?

Well, that question sort of treats actors like a trained seal, like, you know, flip a fish and they do their trick. Tears are not some sort of emotional holy grail. For Krauss, they're just one way to show connection to an underlying emotion. I want to know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was. Like how Sally Field cried in Steel Magnolias.

Oh, God, I want to know why. One way, but not the only way. When my father died at the funeral, one of my really good friends said to me, you know, I really thought you loved your father. And I said, uh, I did. They said, you know, you didn't cry.

And I was so flabbergasted that that was their criteria for loving someone. An emotional display. In public. Of a certain type. Right.

And at a certain time. It doesn't mean I loved him less or felt the loss less. There's a lot of ways to express emotions, and tears are certainly one of them, but they are not the end all be all.

Of course, if the way someone does demonstrate their emotion is by crying. Well, that's more okay now than ever. I envision that call a few hundred times. Just ask Rob LaBritz. Yeah.

Other pros, other competitors. Did any of them mention it? A lot of them said I had them in tears too. You know, I mean, I heard that a lot.

I didn't even know you when I'm tearing up, you know, which makes me feel really cool, you know, for just hitting a golf ball. I'm Jordan Klepper, daily show contributor, Trump rally pass holder. And as of today, my most daring title yet podcast host. This is Jordan Klepper fingers, the conspiracy and all new limited series podcast from the daily show.

Did you know that Osama bin Laden is a guy named Tim? Yeah, we're doing a whole episode on that one. JFK junior coming back from the dead.

That's an episode. The deep state that too, we're going way down the rabbit hole. Listen to Jordan Klepper fingers, the conspiracy premiering November 9th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. America's midterms with so much at stake. Count on CBS news live from Times Square. New vote tallies just came in with fair, accurate results in real time. Control of the Senate could come down to any one of these close races, exclusive polling and voter profiles. It's been a lot of time talking to voters. Powerful insights on what matters most. Our voices and our numbers count.

So count on CBS news as America decides Tuesday on CBS and streaming all day. Time is short. So without further ado, here's David Pogue. Here are three fun facts about daylight saving time. First, Benjamin Franklin did not invent it. He did write a letter to the editor in 1784 complaining about people who sleep past sunrise, and he suggested firing cannons in the street to wake them up. It was a joke, people. A joke. He also suggested taxing people who close their shutters in the morning and putting a limit on how many candles you can buy.

A joke. Second fun fact, the actual inventor was a New Zealand entomologist who wanted more daylight for hunting bugs. He suggested a two hour shift every season. Count your blessings. And the third fun fact, it's actually daylight saving time.

No S. It's just like money saving coupons or life saving treatment. Daylight saving time. And yet oddly, we don't use a hyphen in daylight saving time.

Okay, maybe that fact wasn't super fun. Anyway, the idea behind daylight saving time is to shift the time we wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed so that we have more daylight hours at the end of the day. Kids can go outside and play, grownups can shop. Trouble is shifting our schedules like this is a body clock disaster. Study after study shows links to more heart attacks and strokes, more car crashes, more workplace injuries, more deer strikes, more headaches, more depressive episodes, and lower SAT scores. And maybe worst of all, every time you switch, TV viewership drops.

I mean, basically, you're jet lagging yourself twice a year. No wonder most Americans would like to eliminate the clock swapping altogether. So this very year, the Senate passed a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent in a bipartisan vote. I know this is not the most important issue confronting America, but it's one of those issues where there's a lot of agreement. So yes, let's make daylight saving time permanent. I can't think of anyone who would object. Yeah, but you don't have to walk to school in the pitch black dad.

Okay, I can think of some people. I mean, honestly, from a health standpoint, the best idea isn't making daylight saving time permanent. It's making standard time permanent. Standard time has the best correlation between the sun's cycle and your body clock. Sunrise makes you wake up, sunset gets you sleepy. Either way, the House has shown no interest in picking up the Senate's bill. So for now, we're going to go right on wrecking our sleep twice a year. So enjoy your extra hour tonight.

You'll be paying for it in March. He was almost famous at age 15. Later, Cameron Crowe wrote the semi-autobiographical movie by that name about a teenage journalist traveling with a rock band. Now he's bringing his story to the stage.

Tracy Smith is on Broadway. Help me, Rod. Help me. Help you.

Who doesn't remember this? Tom Cruise at the end of his rope. Help me.

Help you. You're causing a major disturbance on my time. Or Sean Penn's Spicoli.

If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time? Or John Cusack's Boombox. Truth is, some of the more memorable moments ever put on film came from writer-director Cameron Crowe. But people tell him the one they really relate to is this. I have to go home.

You are home. 2000's Almost Famous is his story. He actually was the teen who left home to cover rock and roll. Am I speaking to you clearly? Yes, Miss Maynard. If you harm him in any way.

And the Francis McDormand character was based on his real mom, Alice. You will meet the voice at the end of this telephone and it will not be pretty. Do we understand each other? Yes, ma'am. I didn't ask for this role.

But I'll play it. And the Oscar goes to Cameron Crowe for Almost Famous. The film wasn't an immediate hit, but it caught on in home rentals. And for Crowe, it was among his career highs. The movie was a love letter to music and to my family. And now, 22 years later, that love letter is being read again, eight times a week.

Almost Famous, The Musical, opened on Broadway last week. Faithful to the movie and more. If you're going to tell the story correctly, it's a personal story you have to get personal. Even if it's painful.

Sometimes, most of all. Cameron Crowe grew up in San Diego and lived for a time with his mother and sister in this building. Their apartment was actually in the basement. How long has it been since you've been back here? 50 years.

50 years? Yes. This is it. Oh, man. Wow.

I want to start listening to Joni Mitchell and Crosby Stills National. Black Sabbath. I can feel it coming. Holy mackerel. This totally feels like home. Got to check out the kitchen for a minute.

Yes, the vast expanse. But it's okay because my mom was not a good cook. But Alice Crowe was a college professor, and she had definite ideas about what her kids were learning. Your mom didn't want any rock and roll. She just felt that rock and roll was going to destroy brain cells. But their apartment was just down the hill from San Diego's Old Globe Theater, and she'd take him there to see Shakespeare. And your mother made you go to these plays. Made me go. Demand it.

Of course, he'd thank her later. Hello. William Miller. This is he.

William, this is Ben Fong Torres. I'm the music editor at Rolling Stone magazine. Just like the kid in his movie, young Cameron started writing for rock magazines. Cream, Rolling Stone, and eventually graduated to screenplays and directing. Mom was proud, of course, but she wanted him to write a musical based on Almost Famous. In time, he did.

And by 2019, he was ready to stage it. Where else? At the Old Globe. But only days before the first ever preview, Mrs. Crow, who was in her 90s, had a bad fall and slipped into a coma. Anika Larson plays the Alice Crow character in the show. Did you get a chance to meet Alice? I did.

I did. Larson asked Cameron to let her go to Alice's bedside. They say people in comas can hear, so he took me to the hospital. I held her hand. I introduced myself to her. I sang her three songs for her.

I thought, if she can't come to the show, we bring the show to her. And then he took me back and we did our first dress rehearsal that night. And she died that night. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It was a lot.

Yeah. And so the first audiences came in just after we'd lost her. And, you know, I felt her spirit every night. I feel it here now.

To her last breath, she was saying, never give up. Tell this story. And we did. In spite of it all, opening night in San Diego was a triumph. Joni Mitchell was in the crowd and celebration was in the air. And they would say, so are you going to go to Broadway?

I'm like, you know, we have tonight. People really loved it. And Joni Mitchell loved it. She actually thought it was better than the movie. If nothing ever happens, I'm good. But in the end, he couldn't resist the chance to see his mother's dream happen.

Don't you dare break his spirit. And the cast packed their bags for Broadway. And now, after a three-year pandemic delay, it's all happening.

Broadway composer Tom Kitt wrote a score that sounds both familiar and completely new. What was it like putting on that coat for the first time? Oh, my God.

Addictive. Solea Pfeiffer is Penny Lane, the role made famous by Kate Hudson. It's all happening. It's all happening. One thing that is really exciting to me is that there was everyone who could see themselves in Kate Hudson. And now, as a woman of color stepping into this role, you know, little girls like me get to see themselves in this role.

So I feel like it just like cracked the door open just enough. It's all happening. It's all happening. But beyond the music and the cast and the lights of Broadway, it's really about one family and a dream finally come true. What is it like seeing your story come to life like this night after night? Sometimes it rubs deeply. And sometimes it kind of opens up some raw memories.

But to see your own life up there kind of with veins opened, you know, it's sometimes overwhelming. So what do you think Alice would think of all this? She would want three seats for like two of her friends on each side. And she would be there every night, just like she is. You do get messages from your loved ones.

And I definitely know she's here. Are you a fan of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert? Then you'll love The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert. It's The Late Show in podcast form. The Late Show Pod Show is the only version of The Late Show specially handcrafted for one of the five senses, at least until we invent a Late Show that you can eat. With new episodes dropping seven days a week, The Late Show Pod Show enjoyment is endless.

Listen to The Late Show Pod Show with Stephen Colbert on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. A son with secrets. He just lied to everybody. His parents vanish. You know, cars go off the road. Things happen. What happened to the Holdersons? Not making any sense. And it's taking weird and weird turns. Nobody saw this coming.

Follow and listen to the 48 Hours Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Harlan. Long before The Rock, there was Rocky. Now one of the biggest stars of the big screen is taking on TV. Lee Cowan is in conversation with Sylvester Stallone. Sylvester Stallone seemed almost overly eager to talk about his latest project. In part, perhaps because it's the kind of part he's been denied for his entire professional career. The Italian Stallone is earning his chops as a real mafioso.

There's nothing left for me. Tulsa King, the latest streaming series out next Sunday from our parent company Paramount. Most of you know my nickname is the General. Follows an aging good fella fresh out of federal prison.

But instead of celebrating with coffee and cannoli, his New York crime family shuts him out and sends him west. My name is Tyson, welcome to Tulsa. To set up a racketeering and gambling operation on the plains of Oklahoma. You could earn like crazy.

Do whatever you want. I need to see your books. Are you from the government?

I just knocked your guard out and you think I'm a CPA? Take the sopranos, put them on a stagecoach. So part of this is, I mean it's not a comedy, but there's a humorous element in it in that you are this east coast guy coming to kind of figure out what the west is all about, right?

Yeah, it is. There's a whole different kind of culture out here, which is really what forged a lot of the country. And then generation after generation, you know, they meld into the tapestry of America, but they don't get the kind of attention you would think. Which is why he wanted to take us here. Those guys are long gone. To Oklahoma's national cowboy and western heritage museum. Look at that. Right? Where? He showed off his new pair of custom Roy Rogers boots.

How come he never did a western? Look at me. How you doing? How you doing?

You got any Indians that need like, uh, Spamoni? Still, when Rocky first made him a star, he says it was none other than John Wayne who was among the first to welcome him to Hollywood. He goes, you're doing the business, kid. I go, yeah, I just started.

He goes, welcome. My name's John Wayne. And we're like, even the Duke knew that Rocky had tapped into something. It wasn't really a boxing movie. It was more a love story.

It resonated for all sorts of reasons. And so did Stallone. I don't care but damn who it is. You can't buy fame. You can't manufacture it. There's nothing to do with good looks or muscles or anything.

It's an unknown, mysterious virus that some people are lucky enough to catch. Stallone has written one in every three movies he's appeared in, some featuring characters that he admits he may have resurrected one too many times. I finally came home to defend the only family I've ever known. But consider this. He's had a number one box office hit in every one of the last six decades, even voicing a shark. Of course, I'm not as relevant. I'm not this.

I'm not that. But the one thing I do really stand tall and proud of is longevity. How do you think you've changed as an actor over all these decades? I got better.

Yeah, I did. You know, you think you have a peak. There's a peak in energy and there's a peak in perhaps volatility and, ah, look at me go. But when you're younger, it's like when in doubt, shout. But when you get older, it's just gravitas. And yet after all that time on the big screen, Tulsa King is Stallone's first foray into television.

You can speed ahead a little bit, please. He's not nervous, per se, but to watch him on set, you can go further into it, like halfway into the scene. He's treating the small screen with a level of respect that he never imagined when he was coming up. Is it weird doing TV now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At one time when you were on TV, you realized, oh boy, I guess I'm genetically flawed.

I'm genetically flawed. Things have changed now. Now it's just the opposite. Your best actors are streaming. Before streaming, there were just a few big studios. When it came to the sixth installment of the Rocky franchise, Rocky the Loa, basically all of them thought Rocky was on the ropes. That said, you might be surprised to learn that Stallone doesn't own Rocky.

The rights actually belong to the studio and the producer of the franchise, Erwin Winkler. And while Stallone says he's hardly suffering financially, judging from his now-deleted Instagram slams at Winkler recently, it's clear that it still stings. It bothers me. It does. It's not about the money.

It's part of my soul, it belongs to someone who has very little. That's all. Winkler has not responded to us or anyone, but the tabloid soon moved on to another target, Stallone's marriage.

His wife of 25 years, Jennifer Flavin, announced that she was filing for divorce. Some outlets even suggested that Stallone's new Rottweiler, Dwight, may have sparked one argument too many. The next love scene, I'm playing with you, okay? With you.

Right now, I'm revved up and no one can be around me. That's why I bought a dog. Not long after Tulsa King wrapped, he and his wife and Dwight the dog all made up and agreed they'd give it another shot. That's just the kind of final scene he might write himself. He says he's a sucker for happy endings. Doesn't strike me that you're ever gonna give this life up.

Like you're gonna be in front of a camera somewhere doing something. Yeah, you know, I thought I could. I thought I could, but I'm sort of obsessed with it. Yeah? Yeah, I want to prove things.

Still? Yeah, I just think, you know, like Sly, I know everyone thinks you can't. Do you think you can? And it just keeps me going. No telling yet just where Tulsa King will take us.

But now more than ever, Sylvester Stallone seems intent on still playing the underdog, whether it's a boxer or a mobster. I just think the world is so miserable at times. Give me what you wish it could be.

People always want hope. It doesn't cost a dime. It's free. It's four-letter word.

Give it to them. Now streaming. I used to believe in progress, but no matter what we do, we just end up back at the start.

We're in crazy time. The Paramount Plus original series, The Good Fight, returns for its final season. The point isn't the end. The point is winning.

Yes! There are bad people in the world. The best way to protect the good people is to convict the bad. So here's to us.

The Good Fight, the final season, now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. The doorbell rings. Two men at the door. She goes to close the door on them. They force themselves in with guns. They take her by force. They hooded me as soon as I went into the van. A deputy chases them down. I open the rear door of the van and scare them, so I jump back and I shut the door.

Follow and listen to the 48 Hours podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. From Steve Hartman this morning, one woman's crusade to honor forgotten victims of hate. I've never seen anything quite like it. A girl steps to a podium, says her name, and without uttering another word, gets an ovation. A standing ovation. So what did 17-year-old Sophie Kloppenberg do to deserve such respect here in Posey County, Indiana? She rectified an injustice.

144 years in the making. In 1878, after a rape allegation, seven black men were lynched here. Four of them hung directly outside the same county courthouse they never got to set foot in. It was the largest lynching in state history, and yet the whole incident had been largely forgotten.

Until Sophie heard about it. She started at the courthouse, looking for a plaque or any mention whatsoever. Nothing on that courthouse square and no public acknowledgement of what happened. Maybe people didn't want to remember. I'm sure people don't want to remember because it's hard to remember tough things, but it's unacceptable to just forget. It's also unrealistic to expect others to care as much about the issue as she did. Posey County is more than 95% white. Erecting a reminder to a racist past wasn't exactly a high priority around here.

Thank you all very much. But that didn't stop Sophie from appealing to the county commissioners. Repeatedly.

How passionate was she? Very. Commission President Bill Collins. You would probably be hard pressed to find many seniors in high school anywhere in the country that would be willing to take on something like this. Racism still exists.

And Bill says even fewer who could succeed. I'm proud of Posey County, Indiana and the beautiful people here. We're having the difficult conversations and giving a tangible voice to its minorities. Thank you.

Thanks to that diplomatic touch. Just recently, here in the heart of red America, 144 years after that mob gathered in the square, another crowd formed on the very same spot. This time to watch Sophie unveil a memorial bench and historical marker, formally acknowledging the past and celebrating the progress. It's Sunday morning on CBS and here again is Jane Pauli. E.T.

phone home. Childhood has often been a theme of Steven Spielberg's movies, including 1982's E.T. But in his new film, the boyhood story Spielberg tells is his own.

Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes talks with a Hollywood legend. Every one of my movies is a personal movie. I don't make films that I don't consider to have something of myself left behind in them. Steven Spielberg has left something of himself behind in 35 movies.

Though in some cases you have to wonder what. Along the way, he's become the highest grossing film director of all time. Now, at age 75, Spielberg has made The Fablemans, a film he calls semi-autobiographical. My mom was really kind of pushy about, Steve, what are you going to tell our story? What are you going to tell my story? Absolutely.

This is something that they embraced. I kind of assumed that you were waiting for your parents to die because you wouldn't want their critique or you wouldn't want to hurt them or disappoint them. No, I wouldn't have done anything to hurt or disappoint my parents.

To me, it was more of a gift to them than any kind of a criticism about how my life and my sister's lives wasn't as hunky-dory as people assume. How much did you spend to rent this camera? 20 bucks. But I use my own money. In the film, his father, as in real life, is a computer engineer played by Paul Dano. Sammy, a hundred dollars for a hobby?

It's not a hobby, Dad. Michelle Williams is his mom, a free spirit who he has described as Peter Pan. It's a coming-of-age movie, a coming of Spielberg's obsession with making movies. Movies are dreams, doll.

But you never forget. Starting with the first film he ever saw at age six. In the movie, you see the greatest show on Earth and you get a thunderbolt when you see this movie.

Is that what happened? Is that the beginning, the moment? I didn't know what a movie was. My dad and my mom took me to the movie in a theater. It was a movie about the circus. After a while, I got very involved in the story. There's a train crash in the middle of the movie. And all I remember is it was the scariest thing I'd ever experienced in my entire life. To overcome that fear, he kept recreating the crash with his electric trains, then filming it with his dad's 8-millimeter camera. And that was it. Spielberg, the filmmaker, was born.

As in real life, he was just an adolescent when he made a Western called Gunsmog. And then I showed it to the Boy Scouts on one of our weekend meetings and they went crazy. That was the first moment where I said, what a jolt. That's a really good feeling.

That was a really good feeling. Is it true that when you did reshoot some of the movies you made when you were a kid, that you changed the angles to make it look better? I really, really tried, Leslie, my best to make the 8-millimeter movies I was recreating look as amateurish as the films I made as a 12, 13, 14, 15-year-old.

But if I found a good angle, I had to get down on the ground and get a low angle that I wouldn't have done as a kid. I couldn't help myself. Oh my goodness. I love it. Well, you realize that in my business, that's a no-no.

We could not do that. Luckily, in my business, we get to suspend disbelief. Tony Kushner, who wrote this movie, said that he thought this was therapeutic for you. Well, it was cathartic for me, certainly.

I never took it for granted. I mean, it was a tremendous privilege to, it's like making a movie and realizing with this movie, what have I just done? Has this been $40 million of therapy? And?

Whoever spends $40 million of therapy. His mother is the heart of the story, as she was in real life. My mom always wanted more. She was the more mom. Enough wasn't enough for mom, you know.

Is that good or bad for a kid? That's a wonderful thing for a kid, because she inspired me to be, in a way, ambitious and greedy about more and more and more. No guilt? She didn't infuse that in you? She didn't believe in guilt. My mother used to always say, Steve, guilt is a waste of emotion.

How lucky are you to be not infused with the idea of guilt and to be Jewish at the same time? Wow. Now that's unique. My mom liked breaking stereotypes.

We're never not going to know each other, Sammy. I don't know if you give your father the credit he deserves, at least in your career. Well, you know, saying my dad was very practical. He wanted me in school to major in English, so if I didn't become a filmmaker, I would become a teacher.

Being a movie director is just something that, what, one in a million people get to be a movie director? He was simply trying to protect me. His parents split up when Stephen was 19. Left out of the movie was all the real-life drama when he blamed his dad for the divorce and barely talked to him for 15 years, which I asked his parents about in 2012 for 60 Minutes.

I'm going to show you a clip from our 60 Minutes piece. She fell in love with another guy. Yes, with one of his friends. You fell in love with one of his friends. Did Stephen know that? No, he didn't know that right away. He thought I divorced her. So, wait a minute. You fell in love with his friend. You left him, but Stephen blamed you, thought you had left her, and you didn't tell him?

That's right. Not for years. Why?

I don't know. I think I was just protecting her because I love with her. Even though she left you, you were still in love with her?

Yeah. Still do. He forgave me, I think. I was so unhappy. He covered for me. My mom and my dad announced that they were separating, as it's portrayed in the Fablemans. My dad fell on the sword, but I didn't know there was a sword to fall on.

I simply took him at his word when he said, it's my idea that we separate. Wow. And I live with that, and I blame my dad for that for years. The movie reveals a secret about this that Stephen kept till now, that when he was a teenager, he discovered his mother's affair with his dad's best friend. Sixteen.

Yep. And that was a secret that we shared for most of our lives. Your father did not know for most of his life that you knew.

No. I never had that conversation with my dad. But that's a burden on a young kid. That's a burden on you that she let you carry. It's not that she let me carry it. It's something that I felt I could bury.

And in a way, making this movie made me realize that I had been carrying that burden all these years, and I had to exercise it from my own heart and soul. And once that was out of my system, I was able to regret that I hadn't shared that with my dad. Those are your sisters? Yeah, these are my sisters. His mom, Leah, and her second husband went on to open a restaurant in Los Angeles where she held court.

We used to call this my mom's stage because the patrons, the customers were her audience, and she was performing for them all the time. Later in their lives, Leah and his dad, Arnold, reconciled. You could afford to be a little encouraged. About what? About him making movies again.

I didn't say that. But in the movie, The Fablemans, there's no happy ending for his parents. There is, though, a happy beginning to Spielberg's career as a filmmaker.

I've got better perspective now about what happened a long time ago, so that's why this is something that had to wait for me to, I guess, grow up in order to look back. With Election Day Tuesday, thoughts this morning from historian John Meacham, whose new book chronicles the life and evolution of President Abraham Lincoln. He thought everything was over. It was the summer of 1864, and Abraham Lincoln believed his campaign for re-election amid the Civil War was doomed. The president was to be defeated, his policies repudiated by the people, his vision of America lost. But if the Democratic nominee, George McClellan, was in fact the choice of the electorate, then so be it. This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected, Lincoln wrote. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the president-elect as to save the union between the election and the inauguration. A president devoted to justice and to the rule of law, a president willing to cede power graciously should he lose, a president who put the constitutional experiment and the good of others above his own self-interest.

Such words can seem nostalgic, even naive in our own time. On Tuesday, Americans will go to the polls in the first national election since the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Perhaps 300 election deniers are on the ballot across America. At stake is not only the policies of ordinary times, but the viability and the durability of American democracy itself. I wish this were hyperbolic.

I wish it were hypothetical, but it's neither. Democracies are always contingent and conditional enterprises. They depend not only on the substance of laws and of institutions, but on the characters of leaders and of the led. In a democracy, the pursuit of power for power's sake, devoid of devotion to equal justice and fair play, is tempting, but it's destructive. This is why the unfolding voting in the midterm elections is so important. There are forces abroad in the land that are choosing to put their own power ahead of everything else.

To them, politics is not a mediation of differences, but an occasion for total war. Usually, a vote is about policy, a tax rate, say, or immigration reform. This year's vote is about more than that.

It's about whether elected Republican officials will obey the law, fairly count the votes in 2024, and obey the will of the people. A world in which power is all, in which the assertion of a singular will trumps all, in which brute force dictates all, is not moral, but immoral, not democratic, but autocratic, not just, but unjust. The task of history is to secure advances in a universe that tends to disappoint. That was Lincoln's task, and it is ours. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. At a time when we need a little more certainty, I think he's going to have a challenging time finding that right balance. I'm not willing to submit that he can't figure it out yet. For more from this week's conversation, follow The Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.