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Ross douthat | spielberg’s “lincoln” and its critics.

Spielberg’s “Lincoln” and Its Critics

In the wide-ranging online conversation about Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s “Lincoln,” it’s been interesting to watch the movie be praised and criticized for the same artistic choice: Its determinedly narrow focus on the month or so of politicking and debate that pushed the 13th Amendment through a reluctant House of Representatives. To the film’s fans — my op-ed colleague David Brooks and A.O. Scott are in-house examples, but there are many others — this narrowing brings the democratic process to life in a way that few political movies ever have, capturing “the squalor and vigor, the glory and corruption of the Republic in action,” as Scott puts it, and throwing Lincoln’s distinctive balance of provisional cynicism and ultimate idealism into sharp relief. To its  various   detractors , this narrowing is a betrayal of the true story of emancipation, which was actually settled on the ground more than in the halls of Congress, through the agency of slaves as much as by the votes of politicians, and which failed to deliver fully on its promises (thanks to Reconstruction’s failures, and Jim Crow’s ascendance) precisely because of the kind of compromises that “Lincoln” the film treats as the better part of political valor.

This case against the film’s historical frame is, in part, an argument on behalf of the more radical abolitionism that Lincoln often kept at arm’s length. Here is  Aaron Bady in the journal Jacobin , for instance, painting the Spielberg-Kushner focus on the 13th Amendment as an exercise in bad faith:

… to put it quite bluntly, I think the filmmakers made this choice because they wanted to make a polemical point about moderation over radicalism, and I think they picked the story they wanted to tell because it seems to support that position. And yet the historical story they tell only supports that claim if you very selectively frame out most of the context around it, and so they do. And passing a single bill in Congress only comes to seem to represent the broader field of social change and progress—“things” getting “done”— if we ignore the big picture.

I think this slightly misreads the film, while also getting at an important point about the difficulties translating the tangle of history into successful, streamlined art. “Lincoln” is a movie about the art of legislative politics, but it isn’t quite a movie about moderation’s superiority to radicalism, as Bady’s plaint suggests. Rather, it’s a film about a moment when a president who styled himself a moderate succeeded in accomplishing what had once seemed a quite radical goal, and did so over the objections and doubts of many of his temporizing friends and allies. The movie’s Lincoln is clearly more careful and cautious than the movie’s representative Republican radical, Tommy Lee Jones’s Thaddeus Stevens, and the latter’s grudging willingness to be more circumspect himself is a crucial hinge moment in the story. But Lincoln is not compromising or watering down Stevens’ immediate goal of writing abolition into the Constitution; instead, he pursues it directly and sincerely, and shows no willingness to compromise on it one iota in order to win votes. (Or as Dave Weigel puts it , far from valorizing dealmaking for its own sake, the film tells “a story about a president who refuses to move from one goal and bribes people to get there.”)

By picking this particular moment in the process of emancipation, then, Spielberg and Kushner aren’t so much pitting moderation against radicalism as attempting to harmonize the two approaches, and show how a moderate and a radical can work together — if the moderate is willing to be more intransigent than usual, and the radical is willing to not say everything that’s on his mind — to work a revolution in the law. That harmony helps makes “Lincoln” an effective and crowdpleasing film: In the slice of history that the film illuminates, our contemporary pro-equality sympathies can be with both Lincoln and Stevens unreservedly, both men’s gifts can be displayed for the appreciation of posterity — and no violence need be done to what actually transpired.

That this harmony is only achieved by leaving out (or fleetingly referencing) what came before and after does, indeed, sacrifice some very important realities that complicate the movie’s portrait of the past. But these sacrifices are inherent to the quest to wrestle history into art, and a movie that was more completely sympathetic to the radical abolitionists would inevitably encounter various problems of its own. Consider Bady’s lengthy complaint about how the film portrays Stevens:

The character that … Jones plays is a fire and brimstone radical who wants to occupy the South militarily, who wants to enforce black freedom at bayonet point, and who want to extract from wealthy southerners some of the wealth they had extracted from their slaves and set up freed slaves on their own farms. He would give them the forty acres and a mule, in short, and if Lincoln is Obama, then Stevens is a little bit like what the Tea Party thinks Obama to be: a socialist bent on revenge and wild wealth redistribution. When people on the right declare that Obama is an anti-colonial socialist, leftists often sigh, wistfully; “If only!” This movie nods its head soberly. “Yes,” it says, “Redistributing wealth to slaves from their former owners sounds good in practice, but we need to be  realistic ; it wouldn’t work in practice.” That’s why this movie needs to domesticate Stevens, why things only “get done” when the impatient Stevens is convinced to shut up and get in line, to stop demanding that black people get the vote and accept that “giving” them freedom was enough. Lincoln wins the argument with Stevens—in their dramatic kitchen conference—when he points out that if Stevens had gotten his way, all would have been lost. Stevens’ impatience would have doomed the war effort, and on this basis, Stevens is won over to Lincoln’s cautious quest for consensus. After Lincoln was dead, however, progressive politics would be driven by radicals and freedmen, and it was in this period that substantive emancipation was first achieved. On the one hand, the period of Radical Reconstruction—roughly 1867 to the early 1870’s—was called that because congressional radicals like Thaddeus Stevens were actually in charge of Reconstruction and did many of the things which the movie portrays as being Stevens’ wild and impatient radicalism. But while military governors (and Southern Unionists) helped the genie first get out of the bottle, black organizations and practical politics were the genie’s active demonstration that it had no plan to go back in without a fight, nor did it. It would take decades of fierce political warfare, mass racist violence, and a popular (white) backlash against radical reconstruction before blacks would be put back in their place.

As I said above, I don’t think that the film is nearly as condescending to Stevens as this reading suggests. But it’s also useful to imagine how the radical cause would come across with the wider angle Bady suggests. Swing the lens back to the early years of the Civil War, and the contrast between Lincoln’s caution and Stevens’ radicalism would, indeed, be much stronger than in the brief period covered by the Spielberg-Kushner storyline. But that contrast would (at least arguably) redound even more to Lincoln’s benefit, because his caution and gradualism around slavery actually succeeded — in winning two elections, in keeping the North (relatively) united in a long and grinding war, and in ultimately uniting military victory and legal emancipation in a way that a more radical administration might not have been able to accomplish.

Swing the lens forward, on the other hand, to the years of Reconstruction, and one could make a fascinating pro-radical film: A kind of pro-equality answer to “Birth of a Nation,” with KKK villains and freedman heroes, and Stevens’ Republicans as the legislative agents of the first great attempt at guaranteeing African-Americans their civil rights. But of course that attempt largely failed, and so that film would have to be a sweeping tragedy — a story about the stark limits on political idealism as well as the heroism of idealists, whose lessons for contemporary reformers would be ambiguous at best.

I would happily see that kind of film, as I would see a film offering a ground’s-eye view of emancipation (no, the looming “Django Unchained” doesn’t count, though I’ll be seeing that too), or for that matter a film about abolitionism before Fort Sumter, with Liam Neeson bearded and thundering as John Brown. Indeed, I can imagine many Civil War-era movies that would be richer and more complicated than “Lincoln,” which for all its strengths is thick with the dutiful spirit of uplift that Spielberg brings to all his historical projects. But there are also many imaginable movies that would seek greater complexity and find only chaos and overcomplication — or, alternatively, that would offer a message more congenial to Spielberg and Kushner’s more radical critics, but only through exactly the same sort of selective editing of which the makers of “Lincoln” stand accused.

The problem is that every historical film has to “ignore the big picture,” because actual history just too big to fit the screens and stories that we have. The question isn’t whether to edit; it’s where and how and what, and how to balance the requirement to win a contemporary audience with the obligation to do justice to the actual historical record. The justice that “Lincoln” does to its complicated subject is necessarily flawed and incomplete. But I can see why its makers made the choices that they did, and I think the results, while imperfect, are more impressive than many films about the foreign country of the past.

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I've rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He had less than a year of formal education and taught himself through his hungry reading of great books. I still recall from a childhood book the image of him taking a piece of charcoal and working out mathematics by writing on the back of a shovel.

Lincoln lacked social polish but he had great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln," is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln's life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination. Rarely has a film attended more carefully to the details of politics.

Lincoln believed slavery was immoral, but he also considered the 13th Amendment a masterstroke in cutting away the financial foundations of the Confederacy. In the film, the passage of the amendment is guided by William Seward ( David Strathairn ), his secretary of state, and by Rep. Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ), the most powerful abolitionist in the House. Neither these nor any other performances in the film depend on self-conscious histrionics; Jones in particular portrays a crafty codger with some secret hiding places in his heart.

The capital city of Washington is portrayed here as roughshod gathering of politicians on the make. The images by Janusz Kaminski , Spielberg's frequent cinematographer, use earth tones and muted indoor lighting. The White House is less a temple of state than a gathering place for wheelers and dealers. This ambience reflects the descriptions in Gore Vidal's historical novel "Lincoln," although the political and personal details in Tony Kushner's concise, revealing dialogue is based on "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The book is well-titled. This is a film not about an icon of history, but about a president who was scorned by some of his political opponents as just a hayseed from the backwoods.

Lincoln is not above political vote buying. He offers jobs, promotions, titles and pork barrel spending. He isn't even slightly reluctant to employ the low-handed tactics of his chief negotiators (Tim Blake Nelson , James Spader , John Hawkes ). That's how the game is played, and indeed we may be reminded of the arm-bending used to pass the civil rights legislation by Lyndon B. Johnson, the subject of another biography by Goodwin.

Daniel Day-Lewis, who has a lock on an Oscar nomination, modulates Lincoln. He is soft-spoken, a little hunched, exhausted after the years of war, concerned that no more troops die. He communicates through stories and parables. At his side is his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln ( Sally Field , typically sturdy and spunky), who is sometimes seen as a social climber but here is focused as wife and mother. She has already lost one son in the war and fears to lose the other. This boy, Robert Todd Lincoln ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), refuses the privileges of family.

There are some battlefields in "Lincoln" but the only battle scene is at the opening, when the words of the Gettysburg Address are spoken with the greatest possible impact, and not by Lincoln. Kushner also smoothly weaves the wording of the 13th Amendment into the film without making it sound like an obligatory history lesson.

The film ends soon after Lincoln's assassination. I suppose audiences will expect that to be included. There is an earlier shot, when it could have ended, of President Lincoln walking away from the camera after his amendment has been passed. The rest belongs to history.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Lincoln (2012)

Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language

149 minutes

Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln

Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens

Sally Field as Mary Todd

David Strathairn as Seward

Directed by

• Steven Spielberg
• Tony Kushner

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How historically accurate is "lincoln".

Moviegoers flocked to the theaters to see Lincoln over Thanksgiving weekend, and the history buffs among them probably wondered, with some anxiety, how much of it would be fact and how much of it would be fiction. The quality of the production, on top of some truly remarkable performances by Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and others, certainly lent it a grounded feel. But how accurate is it?

There is a short answer and a long answer to this question. The short answer is: very. The long answer requires a bit more digging.

Lincoln is set during a short period of a few months in early 1865, and its overall plot is entirely factual. As the movie shows, it was an intense time in Washington: Confederate peace commissioners were trying to work out an end to the war, the House of Representatives was debating the 13th Amendment, and both events involved some shady political maneuvering, some of it by Lincoln himself.

Critics of the movie have pointed out that there were other events happening at the same time, which helped to push the 13th Amendment forward and end the war. Professor Eric Foner points out that “slavery died on the ground” as well as in the House, due to abolition efforts by feminist leaders like Susan B. Anthony, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the actions of free blacks themselves. However, the absence of such events is not really historical error, but rather a choice of focus. The movie is about Lincoln, and the politicians on both sides of the aisle who were directly involved in the process of passing the 13th Amendment and ending the war -- not about the actions of other involved parties, however important they might have actually been to the historical event. Their stories are not this movie’s to tell.

Another criticism, voiced by Kate Masur in her New York Times review of the movie , is the passivity of black characters in the movie. It is true that free African Americans were actively involved in efforts to get the 13th Amendment passed, and the movie could probably have shown this a bit more without significantly veering off-course, possibly by highlighting the role of Frederick Douglass, who does not appear in the movie, or by providing more context for black characters like Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln's dressmaker and one of the leaders of the African American community in Washington. Once again, however, this is not exactly an issue of historical accuracy (at least insofar as omissions are not errors) but of storytelling.

These arguments aside, there are a few actual historical “bloopers,” as they are called by Harold Holzer , the Lincoln biographer and content consultant for the movie. Some are simply small stretches of fact, such as the idea that Lincoln refused to talk peace with the Confederates until the amendment was ratified. In truth, the peace conference and the 13th Amendment were connected, and occurred around the same time, but it is difficult to say for sure that they were connected from the beginning, as the movie portrays.

Most of the other “bloopers” are there because of the dramatic touch they add to a scene, rather than because the filmmakers made an unintentional or uninformed mistake. For example, Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Fields) would never have watched the final voting from the House gallery, neither soldiers nor civilians would have had the Gettysburg Address memorized, and the fifty-cent piece did not bear Lincoln’s face at the time. Neither was Lincoln known to pull his written speech from the lining of his hat, or keep a portrait of William Henry Harrison in his office.

Of the few “bloopers” that seem to be genuine mistakes, none of them are damaging to the integrity of the story. They are minor issues that only scholars would notice, such as the fact that the movie portrays congressmen voting by state delegations and young Tad Lincoln playing with glass negatives from photographer Alexander Gardner. In fact, congressmen at the time voted alphabetically by name, and glass negatives would have been far too fragile for anyone to think of giving them to a small child.

In the end, these are small quibbles that have little bearing on the overall accuracy of the movie. The only truly questionable points involve people or events on which the historical record is silent or vague. Thaddeus Stephens’s relationship with his African American housekeeper cannot be proven beyond doubt to have been a romantic one, but there is enough evidence to make it seem extremely likely. The “backroom deals” portrayed in the movie are probably quite accurate, but they were of course kept fairly secret, so the precise details about them remain unknown. And we obviously do not have a transcript of every word that passed between Lincoln and his friends, family, or enemies; as a result, much of the movie’s dialogue is, by necessity, fiction.

So is Lincoln 100 percent accurate about every single detail? No. But it does accurately portray the events on a broad scale, and, more importantly, it offers an accurate overall view of the individuals involved. Day-Lewis’s Lincoln has been hailed as one of the most honest portrayals of the president to date -- right down to that unexpected voice, which was described by Lincoln’s contemporaries as being high and somewhat reedy, not the gravelly baritone we often imagine. One of the greatest triumphs of the film is the depth it adds to Lincoln, rather than simply portraying him as a one-dimensional (and historically inaccurate) saint. This Lincoln is undeniably a good man, but he is also a skilled politician, and he is willing to get his hands a bit dirty in order to accomplish something he knows to be right.

Director Steven Spielberg might actually have said it best. As the keynote speaker at the 149th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, he neatly explained the delicate balance between fact and fiction necessary to a film like Lincoln . “One of the jobs of art is to go to the impossible places that history must avoid,” he said. Exploring the unknowns of the past is a “betrayal of the job of the historian,” but it is part of the job of the filmmaker seeking to resurrect these lost collective memories.

In crafting Lincoln , Spielberg has more than done his part in that process. It is not a documentary, but a work of dramatic fiction rooted firmly in historical fact. His portrayals of the people and events of early 1865 might not be accurate in every minute detail, but they are truthful. And that might be more important.

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Daniel Day-Lewis delivers an unimpeachable performance in Steven Spielberg's shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Abraham Lincoln's life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Abraham Lincoln may not technically be the subject of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln,” but Daniel Day-Lewis is inarguably its star, delivering an unimpeachable performance as the United States’ 16th president in a shrewd, stately and somewhat stuffy drama focused on a narrow yet defining chapter of Lincoln’s life: abolishing slavery via the passage of a Constitutional amendment. Though historians will surely find room to quibble, every choice Day-Lewis makes lends dignity and gravitas to America’s most revered figure, resulting in an event movie whose commercial and critical fate rides on the reputations of not just Lincoln, but the esteemed creative team as well.

Too seldom does American cinema deal with the country’s most shameful policy: the paradox by which a nation founded on equality might allow the subjugation and servitude of one race to persist for nearly a century. Spielberg, however, has faced the issue head-on, not just once (“ The Color Purple “) or twice (“Amistad”), but three times, confronting it most directly — at the very core of the policy — in “Lincoln.” The title functions as something of a misnomer, considering that the president here serves as the instrument to emancipation and not the actual focus of the film, as if “Amistad” had been released as “Quincy Adams.”

Liberally adapted from Doris Kearns Goodwin ‘s 2005 book “Team of Rivals,” Tony Kushner ‘s script dramatizes the behind-the-scenes story of the wheeling and dealing required to pass the 13th Amendment — undoubtedly the legacy for which Lincoln hoped to be remembered, not realizing how compelling audiences would find every aspect of his private life 144 years later.

The theater-trained scribe, who previously co-wrote “Munich” for the director, defies what admirers expect of a Spielberg-made Lincoln biopic. In place of vicarious emotion and tour de force filmmaking, “Lincoln” offers a largely static intellectual reappraisal of the great orator, limiting not only the scenery chewing but also the scenery itself in what amounts to Spielberg’s most play-like production yet; it’s a style that will keep many viewers at arm’s length.

Emphasizing talk over action, Kushner concentrates on Lincoln’s strategy of forcing an unpopular and recently defeated policy through a lame-duck House of Representatives. Enlisting three buffoonish vote-buyers (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson ), the executive doesn’t hesitate to exploit his immense powers, which extend to offering cushy government jobs, pardons and other presidential privileges to those willing to embrace his position.

This is politics as it is really played, yet few writers have found a way to make it as compelling as Kushner does here. That success owes in part to the extensive character-actor ensemble Spielberg and casting director Avy Kaufman have enlisted, repaying them with dramatic roles for not only Lincoln’s entire cabinet (most prominently David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward), but more than a dozen key allies and opponents of the 13th Amendment, including Lee Pace as a showboating Democrat, Michael Stuhlbarg as a conscience-conflicted swing voter and David Costabile as the doubting Thomas among Lincoln’s closest supporters.

Despite occasional digressions into spectacular but artificial-looking Civil War battlefields, the action is rowdiest on the floor of Congress, where Republican representative Thaddeus Stevens ( Tommy Lee Jones ) trades scathing barbs with such ideological rivals as George Pendleton (Peter McRobbie, who more closely resembles frown-creased portraits of the real-life Stevens than Jones does). Though the film inevitably deals with Lincoln’s assassination, notably played offscreen, the climax comes during the Congressional vote itself, in which Spielberg allows the names of history’s heroes to ring out the way he previously did those saved on Schindler’s list. Even more effective is the way Kushner integrates the full text of the Gettysburg Address and the 13th Amendment into the body of the film.

Still, since audiences inevitably prefer personal intrigue to the inner workings of politics, Kushner laces “Lincoln” with details about first lady “Molly” ( Sally Field ), as Abe called his wife, Mary, and sons Tad (Gulliver McGrath) and Robert (Joseph Gordon Levitt), who withdraws from Harvard in order to enlist in the Union army, despite his father’s adamant demands to the contrary. Still, these human-interest scenes seem to get in the way of the story at hand, offering valuable, intimate glimpses of the Lincolns as seldom seen before, yet inorganic to the abolition of slavery — save one powerful scene, when Mary, having already lost one son and loathe to watch Robert perish in the Civil War, publicly threatens her husband, “If you fail to acquire the necessary votes, woe unto you, you will have to answer to me.” Spielberg and Kushner hold this truth to be self-evident: that behind every powerful man is a woman pushing him toward greatness.

Informed largely by Goodwin’s research, “Lincoln” presents an image of the president very different from the melancholy figure so often seen before. Such crushing grief falls instead to Field, whose long-suffering Mary endured debilitating migraines and deep depression after the death of their son Willie, but also scandalously overspent in her efforts to outfit the White House — and herself — to a level she felt befitting the first family. Curiously, Mary was a decade Abraham’s junior, though Field is actually a decade older than Day-Lewis, creating an odd, almost maternal dynamic between the two actors.

Meanwhile, Day-Lewis plays Lincoln as a physically awkward but not unhandsome figure, gentle with his children, uncomfortable with ceremony (his disdain of calfskin gloves becomes a running joke), and firm when needed with colleagues who could not always see the wisdom in the man some considered “the capitulating compromiser.” This Lincoln is a lover of theater and avid raconteur who easily quotes from Shakespeare and scripture, a man who problem-solves via storytelling — an impression that naturally flatters those in Spielberg and Kushner’s profession.

Perhaps that explains the staginess of “Lincoln’s” telling, right down to the creak of the boards under the great orator’s feet and d.p. Janusz Kaminski ‘s conservative framing, which recalls either classic prosceniums or heavily shadowed Renaissance paintings. Though incongruous with the psychological realism that Kushner, through elevated dialogue, aims to achieve, this iconic style suits such a beloved persona.

And yet, Lincoln’s life takes a backseat to the ideological battle between two opposing ideas — an end to slavery, or an end to war. The result looks as much like a Natural History Museum diorama as it sounds: a respectful but waxy re-creation that feels somehow awe-inspiring yet chillingly lifeless to behold, the great exception being Jones’ alternately blistering and sage turn as Stevens.

Production values are as elegant as one would expect from Spielberg, grittier but no less impressionistic than last year’s “War Horse.” John Williams’ score, which seemingly incorporates hymns, marches and other period music, offers vital but unobtrusive support.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a DreamWorks Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Reliance Entertainment presentation in association with Participant Media and Dune Entertainment of an Amblin Entertainment/Kennedy/Marshall Co. production. Produced by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy. Executive producers, Jonathan King, Daniel Lupi, Jeff Skoll. Co-producers, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Adam Somner. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay, Tony Kushner, based in part on the book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
• Crew: Camera (Deluxe color, widescreen), Janusz Kaminski; editor, Michael Kahn; music, John Williams; production designer, Rick Carter; art directors, Curt Beech, David Crank, Leslie McDonald; set decorator, Jim Erickson; costume designer, Joanna Johnston; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS/Datasat), Ron Judkins; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editor, Richard Hymns; re-recording mixers, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom; special effects coordinator, Steve Cremin; visual effects supervisors, Ben Morris, Garan Miljkovich; visual effects, Framestore, the Garage VFX; stunt coordinator, Garrett Warren; assistant director, Adam Somner; casting, Avy Kaufman. Reviewed at Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, Calif., Oct. 25, 2012. (In AFI Fest -- closer.) MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 149 MIN.
• With: Abraham Lincoln - Daniel Day-Lewis Mary Todd Lincoln - Sally Field Secretary of State William Seward - David Strathairn Robert Todd Lincoln - Joseph Gordon-Levitt WN Bilbo - James Spader Francis Preston Blair - Hal Holbrook Thaddeus Stevens - Tommy Lee Jones Fernando Wood - Lee Pace George Zeaman - Michael Stuhlbarg James Ashley - David Costabile Alexander Stephens - Jackie Earle Haley Lydia Smith - S. Epatha Merkerson Ulysses S. Grant - Jared Harris With: John Hawkes, Walton Goggins, Bruce McGill, David Oyelowo, Julie White, Adam Driver, Gulliver McGrath, Tim Blake Nelson, Gregory Itzin, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, Christopher Boyer, John Hutton.

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Lincoln – review

Abraham Lincoln's second term, with its momentous choices, has been brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg as a fascinatingly theatrical contest of rhetoric and strategy. It is a nest of high politics for the white ruling class, far from the brutality and chaos of the battlefield. At its centre is a gaunt Shakespearian figure, somewhere between Caesar and Prospero.

Spielberg has made a moving and honourably high-minded film about this world-changing moment of American history, his best for many years: I can't imagine anyone not wanting to see it, and to experience the pleasures of something acted with such intelligence and depth. There is admittedly sometimes a hint of hokum; how you react to the film may depend on how you take the opening sequence in which Lincoln , seated like the famous statue but with an easy smile, listens to two black soldiers telling him how they see the war – a slightly Sorkinian scene that ends with one reciting the Gettysburg address while walking away from the president. It is a flight of fancy, not strictly plausible, but very effective in establishing a mood music that swells progressively throughout the picture.

Lincoln exerted a grip on me; it is literate, cerebral, heartfelt, with some brilliantly managed moments and, of course, a unique central performance from Daniel Day-Lewis . He portrays Lincoln as a devastating master of charm and exquisite manners, skilled in imposing his authority with a genial anecdote, a man with the natural leader's trick of making people want to please him. He speaks in an unexpectedly light, clear voice that is nonetheless shading off into the maundering monologue of an old man, exhausted by war and personal catastrophes.

Day-Lewis, like Olivier before him, is a master of the voice and the walk: it's almost as if he has alchemised his body shape into something different: bowed, spindly and angular, gnarled as a tree, exotic and yet natural as his tall hat, often holding the straight right arm at the elbow with the left behind his back: the civilian equivalent of military bearing. His Lincoln is aware that his strength is ebbing; he is on the point of ossifying into a legend incapable of action. He is often seen in semidarkness, his face turned down in contemplation of possible, terrible defeat, or the certain terrible cost of victory: like the Shikler portrait of Kennedy.

His political capital, though great, is a deteriorating asset, and as the civil war grinds on, Lincoln begins his second term wishing to stake it all on rushing through a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery before defeating the South. To get it through the system, he must do business with truculent radical Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), and at the same time entreat conservative Republican Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook) for his faction's votes. Blair's condition is that Lincoln must swallow his pride and accept, or appear to accept, some sort of secret, provisional peace mission from the rebels in Virginia, a risky gesture that the president must conceal from his trusted secretary of state, William Seward (David Strathairn). Dangerous evasions and compromises are made, but the rebels stay strong; they do not surrender as Lincoln hopes and the awful, unthinkable truth is that he may have to abandon his anti-slavery amendment as a sop to get them to talk peace, end the bloodshed and preserve the Union. Has he gambled and lost?

There are some heartstoppingly good setpieces. The moment in which Lincoln has to raise the flag outside a naval building, after a short, self-deprecating speech that he has written on a piece of paper – kept in his hat – is a superbly managed scene: modest, undramatic, gently comic. Sally Field is outstanding as Lincoln's wife, nursing rage and hurt that almost boils over as she must bandy words at a White House reception with Stevens, whom she detests: Spielberg shows Abraham in the background, chatting diplomatically but then noticing how Mrs Lincoln is about to damage his chances with a key ally.

On two occasions, we see a flash of anger from the president, when his son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) wants to join the army against his parents' wishes, and when his wife confronts him about the unmentionable subject of their late son, and their unspeakable burden of grief and guilt. Most of the time, Lincoln's emotions and energies are encoded in the opaque language of diplomacy and politics: when he is openly angry, he seems poignantly weak and vulnerable.

Another sort of film would have concentrated more on these personal crises, but Spielberg has made the right structural decision in containing them and dramatising the formality, the procedure, the outward political ritual on which everything depends. And what a feat from Day-Lewis: the nearest thing a 21st-century biopic can get to a seance.

• Daniel Day-Lewis
• Steven Spielberg
• American civil war
• Period and historical films
• Sally Field

More on this story

An American history professor on Lincoln

After Lincoln, who's next for the Hollywood biopic treatment?

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Oscars 2013: Lincoln stays red-hot favourite as awards fever rises

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2012, History/Drama, 2h 29m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Daniel Day-Lewis characteristically delivers in this witty, dignified portrait that immerses the audience in its world and entertains even as it informs. Read critic reviews

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Lincoln   photos.

With the nation embroiled in still another year with the high death count of Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln brings the full measure of his passion, humanity and political skill to what would become his defining legacy: to end the war and permanently abolish slavery through the 13th Amendment. Having great courage, acumen and moral fortitude, Lincoln pushes forward to compel the nation, and those in government who oppose him, to aim toward a greater good for all mankind.

Rating: PG-13 (Intense Scene of War Violence|Brief Strong Language|Some Images of Carnage)

Genre: History, Drama, Biography

Original Language: English

Director: Steven Spielberg

Producer: Steven Spielberg , Kathleen Kennedy

Writer: Tony Kushner

Release Date (Theaters): Nov 16, 2012  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 3, 2014

Box Office (Gross USA): $182.2M

Runtime: 2h 29m

Distributor: DreamWorks SKG

Production Co: Amblin Entertainment, Kennedy/Marshall

Sound Mix: Datasat, SDDS, Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Daniel Day-Lewis

Abraham Lincoln

Sally Field

Mary Todd Lincoln

David Strathairn

Secretary of State William Seward

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Robert Todd Lincoln

James Spader

Hal Holbrook

Francis Preston Blair

Tommy Lee Jones

Thaddeus Stevens

Fernando Wood

Michael Stuhlbarg

George Zeaman

David Costabile

James Ashley

Jackie Earle Haley

Alexander Stevens

S. Epatha Merkerson

Lydia Smith

Jared Harris

Ulysses S. Grant

Walton Goggins

Clay Hawkins

Gulliver McGrath

Tad Lincoln

Peter McRobbie

George Pendleton

Gloria Reuben

Elizabeth Keckley

John Hawkes

Robert W. Latham

Elizabeth Marvel

Steven Spielberg

Tony Kushner

Screenwriter

Kathleen Kennedy

Jonathan King

Executive Producer

Daniel Lupi

Janusz Kaminski

Cinematographer

Rick Carter

Production Design

Michael Kahn

Film Editing

John Williams

Original Music

Joanna Johnston

Costume Design

Avy Kaufman

Art Director

David Crank

Leslie McDonald

Jim Erickson

Set Decoration

News & Interviews for Lincoln

Rank Daniel Day-Lewis’ 10 Best Movies

Al Gore’s Five Favorite Films

Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s 10 Best Movies

Critic Reviews for Lincoln

Audience reviews for lincoln.

"Lincoln" is a very well shot drama film of 2012. The plot to "Lincoln" is during 19th century the presents there is the war, racism and "Abraham Lincoln's" final months in politics. "Lincoln" portrayed by "Daniel Day-Lewis" has planned a way to end the war once and for all and to terminate the disgusting act which is slavery. The movie starts off with a war-taking place, which is very thrilling and entertaining to watch. Most of the movie shows "Lincoln" trying to have his plan/ "The Thirteenth Amendment" put into action. These scenes are very dramatic but sometimes can be found boring to the audience. The film's climax was very interesting and entertaining to watch, the scene captures the entire thrill that the movie was leading up to and didn't disappoint. Unlike some of "Steven Spielberg's" recent films "Lincoln" delivers a more dramatic plot which is due to the amazing dialogue spoken, the dialogue is very sophisticated its not a poppycock verbal fight at all. "Daniel Day-Lewis" gives "Abraham Lincoln" his calm manner from history. "Tommy Lee Jones" gives a thrilling and terrific performance as "Thaddeus Stevens". "John Williams" has once again composed an excised soundtrack and has created another perfect soundtrack for "Steven Spielberg's" movies and he composed music that captures the emotion for every scene. As stated before "Lincoln" was filmed exceptionally, "Steven Spielberg" will always film his movies to capture everything in a scene and "Lincoln" is no exception. If you are a person who enjoys some of "Steven Spielberg" recent movies then I highly recommend you watch "Lincoln" as it has superb acting from "Daniel Day-Lewis" and "Tommy Lee Jones", stunning camera shots and a great script. Although the movie has some issues these a few boring scenes throughout the movie. I give 2012's "Lincoln" a 9/10.

Lincoln is best viewed with modest expectations. The performance of Daniel Day Lewis lives up to the hype. It is a great performance in a great career. Unfortunately, the other elements of the film do not rise to that standard and it shows. I'd compare Lincoln to Raging Bull. In that film we have also have a great performance by the lead but also great supporting cast, script, directing and it makes for great film. If DDL had those elements around him I could see a classic film being made, but instead it is a good movie, a high three.

Well done. Better than usual for historical pieces, so on the upper range of the 4 rating -- 4-4.5.

I first heard of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln it seemed like Oscar Bait and I thought it might have even had a chance to be a flop, like J. Edgar. it became one of the most successful films of the year, after watching it I agree that it's a stellar film. I'm particularly pleased that President Lincoln was not put on a pedestal, he was called out for instituting martial law and for black troops getting less pay. I believe these are two moments that are overlooked in this film. For a biopic the camera is not focused that much on Lincoln, but instead on the Congressional hearing in the questions of the 13th ammendment, abolishing slavery. This is treated politically with no sentimental BS getting in the way. The cast of Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Sally Fields brought their historical figures to life. The scene of voting on the ammendment was one of the most cinematic of the whole year. A well worthy 150 minute experience, with top notch accuracy, and minimal Hollywood glorification. 3.5 stars

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Book Reviews

With four kids in an old studebaker, amor towles takes readers on a real joyride.

Heller McAlpin

The Lincoln Highway is a joyride. Amor Towles ' new Great American Road Novel tails four boys — three 18-year-olds who met in a juvenile reformatory, plus a brainy 8-year-old — as they set out from Nebraska in June, 1954, in an old Studebaker in pursuit of a better future. If this book were set today, their constant detours and U-turns would send GPS into paroxysms of navigational recalculations. But hitch onto this delightful tour de force and you'll be pulled straight through to the end, helpless against the inventive exuberance of Towles' storytelling.

Like his first two novels, The Lincoln Highway is elegantly constructed and compulsively readable. Again, one of the ideas Towles explores is how evil can be offset by decency and kindness on any rung of the socio-economic ladder. His first novel, Rules of Civility (2011), set among social strivers in New York City in 1936, took its inspiration from F. Scott Fitzgerald and its title from George Washington's Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation . His much-loved second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), incorporated nods toward the great Russian writers and shades of Eloise at the Plaza and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel . Mostly confined to a single setting — Moscow's luxurious Metropol Hotel — it spanned 32 years under Stalin's grim rule.

Towles' new novel ranges further geographically — from Nebraska's farmland to New York's Adirondacks by way of some of New York City's iconic sites — but its action-packed plot is compressed into just 10 days. The Lincoln Highway, which owes a debt to Huckleberry Finn, revisits American myths with a mix of warm-hearted humor and occasional outbursts of physical violence and malevolence that recall E.L. Doctorow's work, including Ragtime .

The novel begins on June 12, 1954 and ends on the same date, clearly not coincidentally, as A Gentleman in Moscow . When we meet him, Towles' latest hero, Emmett Watson, has been released a few months early from detention in consideration of his father's death, the foreclosure of the family farm, and his responsibility for his 8-year-old brother, Billy. (Billy has been ably taken care of by a neighbor's hard-working daughter, Sally, during Emmett's absence; she's another terrific character.) The kindly warden who drives Emmett home reminds him that what sent him to the Kansas reformatory was "the ugly side of chance," but now he's paid his debt to society and has his whole life ahead of him.

Shortly after the warden drives off, two fellow inmates turn up, stowaways from the warden's trunk — trouble-maker Duchess and his hapless but sweet protegé, Woolly. (In another fun connection for Towles nerds, naïve trust funder Wallace "Woolly" Wolcott Martin is the nephew of Wallace Wolcott from Rules of Civility. )

Eagerness to discover what landed these three disparate musketeers in custody is one of many things that keeps us turning pages. Expectations are repeatedly upended. One takeaway is that a single wrong turn can set you off course for years — though not necessarily irrevocably.

'A Gentleman In Moscow' Is A Grand Hotel Adventure

Author Interviews

Idea for 'gentleman in moscow' came from many nights in luxury hotels.

The Lincoln Highway is, among other things, about the act of storytelling and mythmaking. The novel probes questions about how to structure a narrative and where to start; its chapters count down from Ten to One as they build to a knockout climax. Towles' intricately plotted tale is underpinned by young Billy's obsession with a big red alphabetical compendium of 26 heroes and adventurers — both mythical and real — from Achilles to Zorro, though the letter Y is left blank for You (the reader) to record your own intrepid quest.

Billy is determined to follow the Lincoln Highway west to San Francisco, where he hopes to find his mother, who abandoned her family when he was a baby and Emmett was 8. (The number 8 figures repeatedly, a reflection of the travelers' — and life's — roundabout, recursive route.) Whether riding boxcars or "borrowed" cars, Towles' characters are constantly diverted by one life-threatening adventure after another — offering Billy plenty of material for a rousing Chapter Y, once he figures out where to begin. One thing smart Billy comes to realize: He belongs to a long tradition of sidekicks who come to save the day.

"Most of us shell our days like peanuts. One in a thousand can look at the world with amazement," Towles wrote in his first novel. Of course, Towles is drawn to that one in a thousand. His interest is in those whose zeal has not yet been tamped down by what Duchess (the only first-person narrator) describes, with improbable flair for a poorly-educated 18-year-old, as "the thumb of reality on that spot in the soul from which youthful enthusiasm springs." With the exception of Woolly, the teenagers in this novel are remarkably mature by today's standards, and burdened by cares. But at any age, it's the young-at-heart who are most open to amazement — people like Woolly, who may not be cut out for this world but who can appreciate what he calls a "one-of-a-kind of day."

There's so much to enjoy in this generous novel packed with fantastic characters — male and female, black and white, rich and poor — and filled with digressions, magic tricks, sorry sagas, retributions, and the messy business of balancing accounts. "How easily we forget — we in the business of storytelling — that life was the point all along," Towles' oldest character comments as he heads off on an unexpected adventure. It's something Towles never forgets.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Outstanding drama about revered leader's political genius.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Lincoln is a tribute to a president who took leade

Lincoln is shown to be a thoughtful, intelligent,

Scenes of the Civil War are mostly shown in passin

Mary and Abraham Lincoln embrace.

As would have been accurate for the era, the words

Characters drink liquor (some to excess) and smoke

Parents need to know that Steven Spielberg's Lincoln isn't a biographical chronicle of Abraham Lincoln's (Daniel Day-Lewis) life in office but rather a political drama about the passing of the 13th Amendment and the end of the Civil War. The most sensitive issues in the movie are its depiction of…

Positive Messages

Lincoln is a tribute to a president who took leadership seriously and knew that, for the United States to continue, slavery would need to be abolished -- even if he wasn't personally a die-hard supporter of equal rights. There are also messages about work-life balance, letting children make their own choices, and realizing that all people have worth and a right to their freedom. Additional themes include integrity, courage, humility, and perseverance.

Positive Role Models

Lincoln is shown to be a thoughtful, intelligent, generous man who, while not as pro-equality as the abolitionists, is definitely insistent that the country abolish slavery. But he's not depicted as perfect: He's willing to play the political game of patronage (giving lame-duck Democrats political appointments) in exchange for getting the 13th Amendment passed. Thaddeus Stevens is the most progressive congressman, and he wants nothing short of total equality. The movie doesn't sit in judgment of or demonize the Confederates or Democrats who don't want to abolish slavery; they're depicted as closed-minded men who just can't fathom changing their way of life.

Violence & Scariness

Scenes of the Civil War are mostly shown in passing, but there's definitely carnage -- including bodies lying dead across battlefields. Mentions of casualties upset the president and his Cabinet. In an Army hospital, amputee soldiers greet the president, and then two soldiers bury a barrel full of severed limbs -- making Robert Todd Lincoln (and likely many viewers) sick. Although we don't see Lincoln's assassination, he's displayed dead, with a pool of blood surrounding him.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

As would have been accurate for the era, the words "Negroes," "coons," "coloreds," and "n-----s" are used to describe African Americans. Other strong language is peppered throughout and includes two uses of "f--k," plus "s--t," "bulls--t," "ass," "goddamn," "crap," "damn," "hell," "son of a bitch," and "oh my God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters drink liquor (some to excess) and smoke cigars, pipes, and hand-rolled cigarettes (accurate for the era).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Steven Spielberg 's Lincoln isn't a biographical chronicle of Abraham Lincoln's ( Daniel Day-Lewis ) life in office but rather a political drama about the passing of the 13th Amendment and the end of the Civil War. The most sensitive issues in the movie are its depiction of war (severed limbs and bloody battlefields filled with dead soldiers are seen) and occasional strong language, including many era-accurate (but hard to hear today) racial epithets. But overall, the violence is much tamer than in war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Glory , and Lincoln is an educational, entertaining drama that even some mature 5th graders might be ready to handle, if they watch with their parents. (That said, it does move somewhat slowly, so kids hooked on fast-paced entertainment may not be interested.) To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (21)
• Kids say (51)

Based on 21 parent reviews

Good to watch as a family--values and civics lessons

If it weren't for the blasphemy the movie would be a 5 star., what's the story.

It's 1865. President Abraham LINCOLN ( Daniel Day-Lewis ) has just been reelected, and it's clear that the Confederacy isn't likely to survive another spring in the ongoing Civil War. But before Lincoln can embrace the likelihood of the South's surrender, he wants -- seemingly more than anything -- to pass the 13th Amendment and definitively outlaw slavery in the entire Union. With the help of Secretary of State William Seward ( David Strathairn ), Lincoln hires three political negotiators ( James Spader , Tim Blake Nelson , and John Hawkes ) to convince at least 20 of the House of Representatives' Democrats (who staunchly oppose the amendment) to vote for the bill (usually in exchange for patronage positions). Meanwhile, in his personal life, Lincoln faces more issues of compromise and sacrifice with his emotional wife, Mary ( Sally Field ), and his desperate-to-enlist son, Robert ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ).

Is It Any Good?

There's no better film to watch to pay witness to how even our country's greatest historical leaders still had to make quid pro quo overtures across party lines to move forward. Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's award-winning book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln , Lincoln is more about the political intrigue of Lincoln's final months than a "biopic" about his personal life. Day-Lewis' performance is a brilliant character study of a legendary man. Unlike the over-the-top characters Day-Lewis played in Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood , his President Lincoln is an introspective man who tells stories that sound like parables and who exudes a powerful dignity, even in silence. As Mary Todd Lincoln, Field makes a passionate case for the First Lady's instability, stemming from the overwhelming grief of losing son Willie.

But one of the most startling performances in the film, which is so eloquently scripted by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, is courtesy of Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens. The uncompromising abolitionist congressman wants complete racial equality -- not just the legal extinction of slavery -- but even he knows that change sometimes comes in baby steps, not revolution.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about why President Lincoln is still considered one of the most influential presidents of all time. How does the movie's depiction of President Lincoln compare to what you know or have learned about him? Did anything surprise you about his political or personal life?

What does the movie tell us about how politics have changed since the 1860s? Do politicians still have to work together and make compromises, even if they fundamentally disagree? What is the continued relevance of the 13th Amendment?

How closely do you think Lincoln adheres to history? How many liberties with the facts do you think a movie like this can take? Why might filmmakers decide to do that?

How do the figures depicted in Lincoln demonstrate perseverance and courage ? What about humility and integrity ? Why are these important character strengths ?

How does Mary Todd Lincoln's emotional fragility -- in no small part spurred by the fear of one of her remaining sons going to fight in the war that her husband considers necessary -- impact Lincoln's situation?

Movie Details

• In theaters : November 9, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : March 26, 2013
• Cast : Daniel Day-Lewis , Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Sally Field
• Director : Steven Spielberg
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : DreamWorks
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Character Strengths : Courage , Humility , Integrity , Perseverance
• Run time : 150 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language
• Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe
• Last updated : December 8, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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The House of Lincoln : Book summary and reviews of The House of Lincoln by Nancy Horan

Summary | Reading Guide | Discuss | Reviews | More Information | More Books

The House of Lincoln

by Nancy Horan

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' rating:

Published Jun 2023 352 pages Genre: Historical Fiction Publication Information

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About this book

• Reading Guide

Book Summary

An unprecedented view of Lincoln's Springfield from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Loving Frank .

Nancy Horan, author of the million-copy New York Times bestseller Loving Frank , returns with a sweeping historical novel, which tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to the Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young asylum-seeker who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield from Madeira, Portugal. Showing intelligence beyond society's expectations, fourteen-year-old Ana Ferreira lands a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hostess duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln's views on equality and the Union and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife, Mary. Along with her African American friend Cal, Ana encounters the presence of the underground railroad in town and experiences personally how slavery is tearing apart her adopted country. Culminating in an eyewitness account of the little-known Springfield race riot of 1908, The House of Lincoln takes readers on a journey through the historic changes that reshaped America and that continue to reverberate today.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• Ana and her family immigrated from Portugal. Once in Illinois, her father seems determined to assimilate while her mother clings to her Portuguese roots (p. 7-8). Do you think Genoveva would have been happier if she'd tried to adapt to her new circumstances, as her husband insists? Do you have first-hand experience with people who've permanently moved to a new country, and if so, how did they adjust?
• Spencer and his brother William consider moving to Chicago (p.52), where Blacks have greater freedom, but ultimately, they decide to return to Springfield. What would you have done in their place, and why?
• Ana thinks to herself "That was what you did in America. You started at low wages toiling for somebody else, but with hard work, in ...

You can see the full discussion here . This discussion will contain spoilers! Some of the recent comments posted about The House of Lincoln: "If A can prove…that he may of right enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument and prove equally that he may enslave A?" Why do you think Lincoln's logic failed to sway more of the population? I think it has to do with power and money. The white males, who were the majority at the time, had the power, money, land, status, education; they were the government, the ones making the laws. It came down to greed and fear of losing what one ... - LS "That was what you did in America. You started at low wages toiling for somebody else, but with hard work, in a year or two, you could have employees working for you." How possible was this then? What about now? For freed slaves and immigrants,it was not easy to move up to better jobs. It depended on their skills, their drive to make a better life, who they knew and what prejudices they encountered. It is still true today that it is not easy for everyone to ... - sylviala "The future depended on marriage. Marriage meant you had a plan." What do you think of this statement? Do you agree it was true at the time? How much has this changed in today’s United States? One can plan, and I think in the 1880s marriage itself was much more of a given than it is today. After marriage, however, plans could easily change then as they can now, and not necessarily by choice. War interferes, as it did for Ana. Life events ... - marianned Ana thinks that Lincoln "was born in a time and place where race prejudice was learned early on" yet he overcame his biases. How do you think we can identify our own prejudices, and how do we become more tolerant? Recognize that fear of the unknown and fear of those different than ourselves is just that - fear. To overcome fear we must educate ourselves and see every other human being as our fellow man. I came upon a quote recently that I can’t quite ... - LS Ana worries that the race riot of 1908 will become a "condemned memory that will be unknown in fifty years" Do you believe shameful historical incidents do get permanently forgotten, or are they only suppressed temporarily? Much of our history is not taught to students today. I did not know of the 1908 Springfield race riots. It is sad that many race riots have occurred throughout our history, but hopefully they will not be forgotten. Historical fiction such as this ... - sylviala

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"The book's greatest strength is its unexpected examination of racism in central Illinois...[T]he shifts in focus between the two threads don't always work. But nonetheless, Horan has succeeded in illuminating an underconsidered segment of American history. By adding nuance to the history of Illinois in the years surrounding the Civil War, Horan foregrounds the era's complexity." — Kirkus Reviews "Brimming with a rich and unforgettable array of imagined and real historical figures who helped to shape Springfield, Illinois and the nation beyond during the turbulent time of slavery and the Civil War, The House of Lincoln is storytelling at its best." ―Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Color of Air , The Samurai's Garden , and Women of the Silk "Here, happily, is Nancy Horan doing once again what Nancy Horan does best – telling us the part of the story we don't yet know. Strong on fine detail yet cognizant of the expansive historical context, Horan's newest is wonderfully immersive, memorable, important, and pertinent. An ambitious and accomplished work." ―Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves "Nancy Horan's nuanced portrait of Abraham Lincoln as his thoughts on emancipation evolve and her deft, revelatory use of narrators from marginalized communities enhance this compelling, beautifully crafted novel. The House of Lincoln evokes the past to illuminate the present as only the very best historical fiction can." ―Jennifer Chiaverini, New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Sisters "What a gift Nancy Horan has for conjuring the past and bringing it vividly to life! Here, she turns her considerable talents to Lincoln's strange road to the White House and the turbulence of his presidency, illuminating lesser-known perspectives and details that resonate eerily with our contemporary times. This is top-quality literary time-travel, and the trip is well worth taking." ―Therese Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Behaved Woman "The gifted Nancy Horan once again brings readers into a story -- inspired by real events -- that will forever change the way they perceive famous historical figures and their times. In the captivating and important The House of Lincoln , the young Portuguese immigrant Ana is hired to help in the Springfield, Illinois home of Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator is on the rise. Through Ana's relationship with Lincoln's wife Mary and her close friendship with Cal, a free Black girl, the novel explores a lesser-known aspect of a crucial historical period." ―Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Woman in the Room

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Nancy Horan is the New York Times bestselling author of Loving Frank and Under the Wide and Starry Sky . Loving Frank remained on the NYT list for over a year, has been translated into sixteen languages and received the 2009 Prize for Historical Fiction. A native Midwesterner, Horan was a teacher and journalist before turning to fiction. She lived for 25 years in Oak Park, Illinois, where she raised her two sons, and she now lives with her husband on an island in Puget Sound.

Author Interview Link to Nancy Horan's Website

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NYT Publishes Latest VR Film: “Lincoln in the Bardo”

Today The New York Times published its latest VR film, “ Lincoln in the Bardo .”

The film is a companion to George Saunders’ new eponymous novel that tells the story of a grieving president as he spends the night in the cemetery where his beloved son lies in rest. The film visualizes Lincoln’s haunting experience – and gives voice to the ghosts that populate Saunders’ evocative tale.

The film is a co-production by The New York Times, Plympton, Sensorium and Graham Sack. It was directed and written by Graham Sack. George Saunders collaborated on the adaptation.

Lincoln in the Bardo is available on nytimes.com at this link and in the NYT VR app, which is free and available to download on the Play Store and App Store .

NYTimes for iPhone and iPad Updated for iOS 8

Tickets on sale, programming announced for the new york times inaugural food festival.

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Killing Lincoln

Based on The New York Times best-selling novel, Killing Lincoln is the suspenseful, eye-opening story of the events surrounding the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Based on The New York Times best-selling novel, Killing Lincoln is the suspenseful, eye-opening story of the events surrounding the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Based on The New York Times best-selling novel, Killing Lincoln is the suspenseful, eye-opening story of the events surrounding the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

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• 16 User reviews
• 16 Critic reviews
• 1 win & 8 nominations total

• Self - Narrator

• Peter Taltavul

• Abraham Lincoln

• John Wilkes Booth

• Mary Todd Lincoln

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• Trivia The film is narrated by Tom Hanks, who is descended from the family of Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks.
• Goofs At one point Booth is whistling the minstrel show song "Kingdom Come, or Year of Jubilo," but the DVD subtitles misidentify the tune as "Dixie."

Abraham Lincoln : The doors to the white house stand open, to one and all, day and night. My life is within reach of anyone, sane or mad. By the hand of a murder I can die but once, but to go continually in fear, well that is to die over and over... and over again.

• Connections Featured in Uncovering the Truth: Killing Lincoln (2013)

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• Michael_Elliott
• Feb 17, 2013
• February 17, 2013 (United States)
• United States
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• Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln
• Petersburg, Virginia, USA
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• $2,000,000 (estimated)

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• Runtime 1 hour 32 minutes
• Black and White

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Review: ‘Kim’s Video’ is a meandering shrine to a shuttered media palace with an afterlife

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The impermanence of movies amid the rise of streaming services is a worrisome phenomenon. Online, a film can either completely vanish or be altered at the discretion of corporations. Only a physical copy can ensure one’s access to a title in its original form — or sometimes at all. In such a dire landscape, the world’s remaining video stores occupy an imperative position as archives of our endangered collective memory .

Nestled somewhere at the intersection between fiction and reality, David Redmon and Ashley Sabin’s well-intentioned, at times riveting but ultimately scatterbrained documentary “Kim’s Video” attempts to eulogize and eventually resurrect the mythical New York City chain of video stores that took its last breath in 2014.

While Kim’s shrines to cinephilia serve as the connective tissue, the tale also touches on, among other things, Redmon’s own quasi-spiritual musings about cinema, an Italian politician’s plausible mafia ties and facts about the video stores’ former owner. Behind the physical-media empire was Yongman Kim, a Korean immigrant who ditched his dry-cleaning business for the allure of movies on VHS and, eventually, DVD.

At the peak of his success, Kim owned seven video stores around the city. The flagship establishment on the Lower East Side, Mondo Kim’s, housed 55,000 titles, including bootleg copies of films otherwise unavailable in the U.S. and a plethora of obscure DIY projects. Kim’s practice of illicitly obtaining movies resulted in FBI raids and a cease-and-desist letter from Jean-Luc Godard’s lawyers after Kim rented out a pirated version of the auteur’s multipart “Histoire(s) du cinéma.”

The filmmakers don’t spend much time on Kim’s punk acts in the name of cultural accessibility. Rather, they stumble into a web of mysterious, possibly nefarious characters when they investigate what happened after Mondo Kim’s closed for good. It was decided that the precious collection be shipped to the small Italian town of Salemi in Sicily, where enthusiastic local authorities, namely the mayor at the time, Vittorio Sgarbi, promised to make good use of it.

Redmon’s loving devotion for the overseas tapes — his “white whale,” he says — comes through when he visits Salemi on multiple occasions, first to unveil the damage caused to some of the tapes because of neglect, and later to learn more about those responsible. There’s inevitably some overlap here with Karina Longworth’s thorough 2012 piece for the Village Voice about the fate of Kim’s Video, but the globetrotting doc (which at one point takes Redmon to Kim’s native South Korea) suffers from a lack of focus. And yet, that’s also what makes it come across as an undeniably sincere love letter.

When the co-directors zero in on creating phantasmagorical imagery around Redmon’s symbolic transfiguration — the movies in the collection speak to him until he becomes one with them — “Kim’s Video” becomes affecting and relatable to equally obsessed movie lovers. He rationalizes every situation through a correlating scene in a film he’s watched and, when he needs them, summons the ghosts of master directors, dead and alive, who manifest themselves in masks that his nameless accomplices wear to rescue the collection.

It’s only the documentary’s straightforward title, which suggests something more comprehensively objective, that hurts it the most. “Kim’s Video” opens multiple doors but doesn’t step into any of the rooms with its whole body. It’s about a lot of ideas that converge around the concept of the video store and its significance, but works more as a primer than a definitive text. Still, this caper-slash-personal essay is an admirable endeavor that honors, above all, a filmmaker’s fixation on a medium that makes him whole.

'Kim's Video'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes Playing: In limited release Friday, April 5

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Amid New York fraud investigation, Lincoln Project releases bold commercial targeting Trump

A n anti-Donald Trump conservative group has released a video ridiculing the likely Republican presidential nominee as “broke, busted, the loser in chief” for his challenges in meeting a $464 million bond requirement in his New York civil fraud case.

The ex-president has faced difficulties in fulfilling the payment after a decision by Judge Arthur Engoron, who found that Trump artificially inflated his asset values to secure better bank loans. Trump intends to challenge the verdict, yet faces the prospect of asset seizure if he fails to meet the bond.

In a pointed attack, the video’s narrator categorically labels Trump “broke and busted—a fraud, a con, a low-rent rip-off artist,” a direct commentary on the current civil fraud trial in which Trump is accused of inflating his assets to secure favorable bank loans and undervaluing them to reduce tax burdens. The ad intensifies the assault on Trump’s reputation by highlighting his failed business ventures while suggesting that the empire he built is founded on deception.

The video comes on the heels of a court ruling where Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump and his co-defendants liable for fraud, and New York Attorney General Letitia James is pushing to bar Trump and his sons from conducting business in New York. The trial has resulted in a $464 million bond that Trump has found challenging to cover, as per the ruling by Engoron. In this context, the video’s taunt stands stark: “Bankruptcy won’t save you this time,” as the narrator ominously adds, “You’ll have to sell off everything.”

The Lincoln Project’s initiative includes a $15,000 investment targeting digital platforms around Trump’s properties and favorite news channels. Rick Wilson, a founder of the Lincoln Project, referred to the campaign as a maneuver to occupy “space in Trump’s head as he sits in bed at Mar-a-Lago hate-watching Fox News.” The choice to include a shot of Trump’s wife in the ad is explained as a purposeful dig, with Wilson remarking, “Even Melania renegotiated the pre-nup.”

This media blitz by The Lincoln Project intensifies the discourse around Trump’s financial troubles and his ability to run his businesses, juxtaposed against his ongoing legal battles. Simultaneously, Trump continues to maintain a lead in GOP primary polls, setting himself as a strong contender for the Republican presidential candidate for the 2024 election.

Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, asserting that his assets were undervalued and denying any fraudulent conduct, the court’s decision paints a grim picture of the financial bind he faces. With the looming threat of asset seizure, particularly the Seven Springs golf course and private estate north of Manhattan, the situation is further exacerbated.

In a court filing on March 18, Trump’s legal team claimed it was “almost impossible” for him to post the $464 million bond and proposed reducing it to $100 million.

“Despite scouring the market, we have been unsuccessful in our effort to obtain a bond for the Judgment Amount for Defendants for the simple reason that obtaining an appeal bond for $464 million is a practical impossibility under the circumstances presented,” the filing said.

In a post on X, Democratic Representative Sean Casten of Illinois said Trump’s financial difficulties make him a “massive national security risk” as he seeks a second term in the White House.

He wrote: “The presumptive GOP nominee for President is desperate for $464M (and counting) which he cannot personally access. That fact alone makes him a massive national security risk; any foreign adversary seeking to buy a President knows the price.”

Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in the civil fraud case and maintains that, if anything, his assets were undervalued.

Relevant articles:

– Republican group mocks “broke” Donald Trump

– Is Donald Trump broke? What his net worth has to say , Hindustan Times, Tue, 19 Mar 2024 03:34:43 GMT

– Trump repeats call for arrest of political enemies days after ‘vermin’ attack – Live , Yahoo News, Wed, 15 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT

– Lincoln Project invades Donald Trump’s South Florida sanctuary: ‘You’re a loser’ , Florida Politics, Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT

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‘Ripley’ Review: The Con Man Gets the Art House Treatment

Andrew Scott stars in a Netflix series that looks like what you might get if Antonioni or Resnais had directed a season of “The White Lotus.”

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By Mike Hale

Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” sets its dark action in a succession of colorful Italian locales: the Amalfi coast, San Remo, Rome, Palermo, Venice. Movies based on the book, like René Clément’s “Plein Soleil” (released in the United States as “Purple Noon”) and Anthony Minghella’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” have taken the opportunity Highsmith gave them to capitalize on sun and scenery. The audience gets its brutal murders and brazen deceit wrapped in bright visual pleasure.

For “Ripley,” an eight-episode adaptation of the book that premieres on Netflix on Thursday, Steven Zaillian has decided to do without the color. Shot — beautifully — in sharply etched black and white by the Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (“There Will Be Blood”), “Ripley” offers a different sort of pleasure: the chilly embrace of the art house.

Reflecting what the more high-minded filmmakers of the show’s time period (it is set in 1961) were up to, Zaillian, who wrote and directed all the episodes, takes an approach that harmonizes with Elswit’s austerity. The entire season moves along sleekly — you could say somnolently — at the same measured pace, with the same arch tone and on the same note of muted, stylish apprehension. Highsmith’s pulpy concoction, with its hair-trigger killings and sudden reversals, is run through a strainer and comes out smooth. It feels like what you might get if the early-’60s Antonioni or Resnais had directed a season of “The White Lotus.”

And Zaillian appears to have asked his actors to practice a similar restraint. Their overall affect isn’t flat, exactly, but it’s within a narrow range, with physicality tightly reined in and the eyes asked to do a lot of work. When you have the eyes of Andrew Scott, the gifted Irish actor (“Sherlock,” “Fleabag”) who plays Tom Ripley, that’s not a big problem.

Zaillian has been faithful, in broad outline, to Highsmith’s story. Ripley, a slacker and a con man grinding out a living in postwar New York, is sent to Italy to try to persuade a trust-funded idler to come home and take over the family business. He has only a passing acquaintance with his target, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), but in the first of a long series of misunderstandings and lucky strokes that go Ripley’s way, Greenleaf’s father thinks they are good friends.

Highsmith’s novel is a training manual for the sociopath: Once Ripley sees the indolent lives led by Greenleaf and his sort-of girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning), in a picturesque fishing village on the Amalfi coast, he ups his game from tedious grifting to full-contact identity theft. Wedging himself between Dickie and Marge, he becomes obsessed — an obsession in which the lines between befriending Dickie, sponging off Dickie and becoming Dickie are progressively erased.

The novel is both a psychological study and, in its second two-thirds, a parlor trick, as Highsmith maneuvers Ripley into and out of one seemingly disastrous setback after another. “Ripley” stays more firmly on the surface, and Zaillian makes a number of changes, small and large, that maintain the tension while making the story’s convolutions more believable. (At one point Ripley actually dons a disguise, something he never bothers to do in the book. And his successful forgery of a will, which severely stretched credulity, is dispensed with.)

Rationalizing the plot does not make it more enjoyable, however, and Zaillian’s elevation of the material takes some of the low life out of it. There is also an overlay of condescension — Zaillian is not kind to his characters, especially Marge, who is now equal parts tasteless, uptight and mercenary — and occasionally a knowing, simplistic humor that feeds into the patronizing tone.

The greatest effect is on the character of Ripley. To be fair, it was easier for Highsmith to suggest the operatic intensity of Ripley’s aspirations and the desperate need he feels to escape his previous life and his previous self. But in Zaillian’s conception, Ripley is simply less interesting — more pitched toward cunning and greed, less toward passion. The charm he requires to carry out his schemes is less evident, and the sympathy for him that Highsmith drew from her readers is harder to realize.

Within those confines, Scott does an admirable job. He can’t give the character the vivid life you would like in someone who is onscreen for most of an eight-hour series. But he does a meticulous job of portraying Ripley’s transition from shifty timidity to insolent confidence, from lost boy to aesthete, through subtle shifts of expression and posture. As Ripley’s schemes keep meeting with success, Scott’s eyes somehow become both softer and more challenging. Flynn is also good as Greenleaf, well meaning but, in today’s terms, trapped by his privilege. Fanning, a fine actress, is perfectly capable as Sherwood but the character is a hollow shell.

Zaillian and Elswit’s “Ripley” certainly has its good points — it is gorgeous to look at, in its own way, and within the cool approach there are ideas that pay off. Ripley’s sexuality is undefined but heavily hinted at, as it was in the book, but Zaillian brings the question to the surface in the final episode in a way that is both chilling and poignant. Zaillian also creates a thematic link between Ripley and the artist Caravaggio — both murderously angry and jealous, each supreme in his field of art — that is not especially interesting but that involves a lot of screen time for magnificent paintings.

Those with a nostalgic love for a certain sort of cinematic experience are likely to be strong fans of the highly controlled, hermetic “Ripley.” (A cameo by John Malkovich, playing a character from Highsmith’s second Ripley novel, “Ripley Under Ground,” is a promise of more seasons to come.) A clue to what the viewer is in for comes at the end of every episode, when the credits begin “Directed by Steven Zaillian,” “Written for television by Steven Zaillian” and “Created for television by Steven Zaillian.” Auteur auteur!

Mike Hale is a television critic for The Times. He also writes about online video, film and media. More about Mike Hale

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