It seems that I spend over 2 ½ hours these days to watch a
movie! I spent at least that much time watching Les Miserable’s, and I did it
again last Sunday watching Lincoln, another masterpiece of the cinema!
The thing that amazes me is that it took an Englishman to
portray one of the greatest presidents this country ever produced! Putting that
last statement aside, Daniel Day Lewis did a magnificent job, he came across
very convincingly.
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| Alexander Cartwright |
The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and based on a
book written by Doris Kearns Goodwin about Abraham Lincoln, who has written
with authority on Lincoln, LBJ and also about Baseball. In fact her
fingerprints are apparent when one obscure fact came out, the mention in the
movie of Alexander Cartwright: the modern inventor of baseball.
The movie seems somewhat dark, scene after scene depicting
the gloom of war and winter, the coldness of death and harshness of life in
1865 as the Civil War is winding down and the 13th amendment is
struggling to become enacted.
Sally Fields who plays Mary Todd Lincoln does a very credible
job and was very convincing. Tommy Lee Jones as the gentleman from Ohio:
Thaddeus Stevens, Hal Holbrook who played a pretty good Mark Twain once as
Francis Preston Blair and a guy who is such a great actor he creeps up on you:
James Spader as W. N. Bilbo.
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| Could play Daniel Day Lewis |
The kid who plays Robert Todd Lincoln: Joseph Gorden-Levit
seemed to fill in very nicely but created some interest in a historical context
because his part along and the final scene in the movie are not accurate. Robert Todd Lincoln in real life had a
speech impediment, and although intelligent was never schooled until after
Lincoln died! In the final scene Tommy Lee Jones goes home after the 13th
amendment is ratified and gives the tally sheet from the House floor to his
friend or housekeeper or lover, all three inferences can be made is shown as a
black woman, when in fact she was a Malotto.
I enjoyed the movie and will admit that the time flew by. It
could be that I love history, and it did explain in great detail the
personality of Lincoln as a father as well as husband and President. The way
the war was depicted also brought home the reality and horror of the conflict.
3 comments:
Great movie, great performances. Wish we could reanimate old Abe who understood the art of government unlike the petulant morons in office today, soiling by their very presence the hallowed corridors that Lincoln once walked.
Wasn't it the younger son, Tad Lincoln, who was not schooled until after his father's death? A few years later at the age of 18 he died; he became the third of Lincoln's children to perish before adulthood. Robert, the only child to live a full lifetime, was in the military at the time of the assassination.
You are correct timetravelor, I meant the youngest.
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