Lincoln: Can He Save Us, Once Again?

               

                I have finally come to the self realization that I am excited about Lincoln. In case you’ve been living in a hole for the last couple months there is a new movie coming out about our 16^th President, Abraham Lincoln. No, in this one he will not be killing vampires. This movie is based around the passage of the 13^th Amendment. Impressively, Stephen Spielberg took ten years making this movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln.

                The movie, itself, interests me, but what is intriguing me the most right now is thinking of the implications this movie will have and what kind of reception Lincoln will receive from both the general public and the history world. What got me thinking about all of this was reading the article featured in Time magazine by the renowned historian and noted author of the highly acclaimed book Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin. I have placed a link to this article below for you to read in all of your free time, haha.

                In this article Goodwin states, in what to me can be taken as high praise for this movie and its attention to detail:

I spent 10 years writing Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln- on which Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln is partly based- and every day I imagined Lincoln’s world. I had never seen it realized, however, until I visited the movie’s set… When production designer Rick Carter opened a door and led me into his rendering of the Lincoln White House, I felt as if I had been transported back in time. Every detail was so lovingly created, from the cubbyholes in Lincoln’s desk to the portrait of Andrew Jackson on the office wall, from the carpets to the clocks and candelabras.

In Goodwin’s opinion, there was a strong attention to detail taken this movie. While I can’t say if this is certain, I find it hard to argue with an expert like Doris Kearns Goodwin. Additionally, it would seem as though a lot of work has gone into making this movie authentic to the true story it wishes to portray. Tony Kushner, writer of the screenplay for Lincoln, spent six years researching the history he was basing the screenplay on. The superb actor Daniel Day-Lewis even delayed production one year to study Lincoln.

With all this research and approximately three days until the premier of Lincoln the question begs to be asked, “How will it be received?” Will the general public flock to it? If so, will that create an avenue for history to become popular, for at least a little while? What are the historians going to say? Time will only tell and either it’ll be a joyous celebration of history done right or it’ll be another instance of a history film going down in flames.

The history community has had a bad track record for receiving historical films. However, there haven’t been very many historically accurate films made, but even those that were, at least, close to authentic were usually shrugged off by historians in both the public and academic fields. At some times these historians have had good validity to sucker punch many of these film’s credibility, but at other times it would seem these historians were just playing the part of old fuddy-duddies. It will be interesting to see the accuracy that Lincoln will posses. Whichever way the authenticity pendulum will swing to, it will be interesting to see the reaction of the historians. If Lincoln does, in fact, prove to be authentic it would be nice to see the history field embrace it.

I am equally as anxious to see how the public will react to this movie. There seems to be a lot of hype out there about it. Had this film been directed by anyone other than Spielberg or the main actor been any other celebrity than Daniel Day-Lewis I doubt there would be nearly as much fanfare behind a movie about Abraham Lincoln. As Spielberg tries to breathe life into our greatest president I wonder if the general public will find the movie compelling or just pass it off as another boring history movie and spend the price of admission to see the new James Bond movie, instead. If this movie is successful and becomes a popular draw amongst moviegoers I wonder if this might propel a surge in historical interest.  This result, while awesome to have realized, I don’t want to get my hopes up for just yet. But, come on how cool would that be!

With only a few days left until this movie hits the silver screen there is plenty of uncertainty. I’m not sure if Civil War buffs, like me, are as gitty with excitement as I am about this movie. But, I am more excited about the potential that exists for this movie if it proves to be a good history film, as it is looking to be right now. I can’t wait to see the impact Lincoln could have. In these trying times of the mass populace being disinterested in history, I wonder if Lincoln can save us and bring our country together once again by bridging the connection between the history field and our historically disenchanted countrymen.   

 Article: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/25/abraham-lincoln-confidential/