While finishing work on "Once Upon a Time in America" in 1982, Leone was impressed with Harrison Salisbury's non-fiction book "The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad", and he planned on adapting the book as a war epic. Although no formal script had been completed or leaked, Leone came up with the opening scene and basic plot. According to the documentary "Once Upon a Time, Sergio Leone", the film opened "in medias res" as the camera goes from focusing on a Soviet hiding from the Nazis' artillery fire to panning hundreds of feet away to show the German Panzer divisions approaching the walls of the city. The plot was to focus on an American photographer on assignment (whom Leone wanted to be played by Robert De Niro) becoming trapped in Leningrad as the German Luftwaffe begin to bombard the city. Throughout the course of the film, he becomes romantically involved with a Soviet woman, whom he later impregnates, as they attempt to survive the prolonged siege and the secret police, because relationships with foreigners are forbidden. According to Leone, "In the end, the cameraman dies on the day of the liberation of the city, when he is currently filming the surrender of the Germans. And the girl is aware of his death by chance seeing a movie news: the camera sees it explode under a shell ... "