Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012)

[MichaelB]

The famous example of a too-authentic accent was Jennifer Jason Leigh's apparently pitch-perfect but borderline incomprehensible Dorothy Parker in Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle - which had to be re-recorded after early complaints.

[tarpilot]

Does it sound to anyone else like Williams is ripping off his own score from Nixon? I can't get it out of my head now

[MichaelB]

Is this the actual score, or the usual bodge job that trailers have to feature because the actual score hasn't been finished yet?

[HistoryProf]

I think it's fairly clear that the South seceded primarily to preserve slavery, but I don't think it's true that the North fought the war primarily to abolish slavery, and characterizing Lincoln's war aims as such would be at the very least an over-simplification. The movie could pretty easily be the sort of historical mischaracterization that leads people to view the signing of the Magna Carta as a self consciously great moment in the movement towards Democracy- as opposed to a both more accurate and more interesting one, wherein Lincoln was torn in the conflict between his strongly pro-Abolition personal feelings and various other systematic and political pressures he felt to allow other subjects to retain higher priority.

So, I mean, the war was about slavery, but having Lincoln talk up a storm about his personal crusade to bring freedom to the black people would be both historically misleading and appallingly dull.

Precisely...Lincoln was an extremely brilliant and pragmatic man. My only point was that he was trying to end the war. His one and only goal was the end of the war, not the end of slavery. If he could do both, great, but if not? Preserving the Union was above all paramount. His letter to Horace Greeley in 1862 always stands out to me in this regard with it's famous passage I emboldened for your pleasure:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, August 22, 1862.

Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New-York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men every where could be free.

Yours,
A. Lincoln.

[HistoryProf]

That reminds me of when Malcolm McDowell chose to research how HG Welles spoke and was horrified as to the result and decided to throw it out.

Recordings exist of Wells' voice and I can understand why McDowell would not try to emulate it for something like TIME AFTER TIME (Wells spoke in fairly weak and bland tones). Day-Lewis using a less orthodox voice for his performance of Lincoln is definitely a plus in my book.

I don't know that you can call historically accurate "unorthodox" - people simply assumed he had a booming voice because of his imposing stature. I saw this earlier that explains it better than I can:

"If you're perplexed by the sound of Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, it may help to key you in to something historians have long known: Lincoln's voice was actually somewhat high."

"In spite of the fact that Lincoln was a whopping 6-feet 4-inches tall and strong, his speaking voice was higher and more shrill than that of politicians who dominated the American landscape back in the 1860s, according to leading Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer. His actual voice was likely in stark contrast to other actors' past portrayals, including the deep booming voice of Gregory Peck as Lincoln in '80s CBS miniseries "The Blue and the Gray." But don't be mistaken, "People said that his voice carried into crowds beautifully," says Holzer, adding, "Just because the tone was high doesn't mean it wasn't far-reaching.""

[Mr Sausage]

Considering that average male height prior to the 20th century was something like 5'5'', Lincoln was huge. Being 6'4'' in 1860 is like being 6'8'' now. So it's no wonder everyone assumed his voice was loud and booming.

[connor]

His letter to Horace Greeley in 1862 always stands out to me in this regard with it's famous passage I emboldened for your pleasure

Eric Foner in his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Fiery Trial:

But essentially [Greeley's letter] urged him to enforce the Second Confiscation Act, including its "emancipating provisions." This was an odd request, since in late July Lincoln had in fact issued a proclamation giving Confederates sixty days to abandon the rebellion or face the confiscation of their property under that law, a time limit that still had a month to run. Lincoln could have simply replied that he was in the process of doing what Greeley demanded. He could have pointed out, as the Chicago Tribune did, that under the Second Confiscation Act slaves of rebels entering Union lines were legally "already free" and that "their title to freedom" did not depend on any action by the president. Instead, Lincoln chose to interpret Greeley's letter as a call for immediate and total abolition. He replied with his most often-quoted public letter

[...]

Moderate Republicans hailed Lincoln's response to Greeley's "impertinent" letter as "the best enunciation" yet of slavery's relationship to the war effort. Because of what he considered its indifference to the fate of slavery, Wendell Phillips called it, in a letter to the managing editor of the New York Tribune, abolitionist Sydney Howard Gay, "the most disgraceful document that ever came from the head of a free people." But Gay himself congratulated Lincoln. The "general impression" in the North, Gay wrote, was that Lincoln would soon announce the "destruction of slavery" as necessary to save the Union.

Gay's response was insightful. There is no question that winning the war and preserving the Union were uppermost in Lincoln's mind, and that as far back as his law career he had always maintained a distinction between professional responsibilities and personal beliefs. Yet the response to Greeley should be understood not as a statement of principle from which Lincoln was determined never to depart so much as a way of preparing northern public opinion for a change in policy on which he had already decided. Certainly, it suggested that freeing all the slaves was now a real option, something that had not been the case a year or even six months earlier. But perhaps the most telling comment came from the Springfield Republican. The editors praised Lincoln's position but pointed out that the very notion of "saving" the Union required rethinking: the prewar Union was gone forever."

[kingofthejungle]

From a dramatic standpoint, it looks to me as if the movie will get Lincoln about right: a man vehemently opposed to slavery on a personal, moral level, but who (like most successful politicians) was a pragmatist attracted to expedience. Circumstance forces him to choose between the two.

I'm looking forward to it.

[CSM126]

Took me a while to recover from the diabetic seizures after all that saccharine hitting my system at once. Vaseline on the lens, heavenly glow lighting, sugary score... I mean, I expected it (it's Spielberg, he can't help himself), but still. That trailer is goddamn awful.

I do like the unexpectedly realistic voice, though. I was expecting the traditional booming drawl.

[rs98762001]

Hopefully DDL will make this watchable, but the trailer makes it look as execrable as War Horse.

[John Cope]

War Horse was phenomenal (just very, very unfashionable). If it's as good as that then it's in some fine company indeed.

[HistoryProf]

His letter to Horace Greeley in 1862 always stands out to me in this regard with it's famous passage I emboldened for your pleasure

Eric Foner in his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Fiery Trial:

You're preaching to the choir with this. My one and only point is that I hope they don't sit back and regale us with hackneyed debates over the rightness of emancipation, or make it a story of moral anguish on the part of Lincoln. He was as pragmatic a president as ever there was - which is what his letter to Greeley intones. He abhorred slavery on a personal level to be sure, but that did not make him an abolitionist. He was also a strict reader of the Constitution, and how he wrestled with reconciling its validation of slavery with the idea of emancipation could make for a compelling film.

In this respect, i'd love to see Frederick Douglass make an appearance, who as the most prominent black figurehead of the abolition movement was highly critical of Lincoln and considered him weak and ineffectual for refusing to immediately emancipate all slaves (and then only emancipating those in the Confederacy but not those in the neutral states when he did act). Their relationship is also fascinating, for even as they disagreed, Lincoln also had him to the White House, not give a shit that he was offending just about everyone in the process. the man loved to debate but did nothing without tortured internal dialogues and an insistence that whatever he did it must hold up to the standard of the Constitution.

Knowing that Team of Rivals is the primary influence here has me hopeful....I just hope he lays off the syrupy "slavery is bad, mmmkay?" pablum. I'm always in the minority when it comes to period films like this, but I would love to see Seward, Salmon Chase, Lincoln, et al get down and dirty and show America what politicians talking about ISSUES actually looks like.

eta: I see David Strathairn is playing Seward, Jackie Earle Haley is Alexander Stephens, and Bruce McGill is Edwin Stanton - all prominently listed atop the cast on imdb. Definitely some potential there.

[Jeff]

This extended TV spot is much more promising than the original trailer.

[Professor Wagstaff]

That overwrought music had me wondering when Lincoln was going to lay waste to a few dozen vampires.

[mfunk9786]

Congratulations, you're the first person on the internet to reference Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in relation to this film! *applause*

[Professor Wagstaff]

Wait until you hear my references to Avatar being like Dances with Wolves before showering me with praise, thank you very much.

I'm sincere when I say this trailer reminds me of Vampire Hunter (or its trailer, as that's all I've seen of it). The structure of both trailers is to begin with the long speeches , the overly dramatic music (the score for Spielberg's film seem to suggest a thriller more than a political drama) with both feeling interchangeable. There are also the usage of title cards, drab colors, war footage, all of which can be written off as similar because of the way trailers are cut or reflecting the period setting. However, both trailers feature Lincoln with his unmistakable silhouette walking through a doorway as a way of establishing to the audience that this is indeed a movie about Lincoln. The similarity of that device took me aback for a moment watching Spielberg's trailer earlier, wondering if someone spliced the image from one trailer to the other.

[Roger Ryan]

This extended TV spot is much more promising than the original trailer.

I like this new TV spot, but am frustrated by all of the opening archive photos being stretched to fit the widescreen image. Why has it become acceptable in professional productions to distort photos and video to fit a new ratio instead of just cropping or allowing black bars to appear?

Anyway, Day-Lewis looks to be delivering a really "big" performance, but one that will ultimately win me over.

[Matt]

I know we've belabored DDL's choice for Lincoln's voice, and I'm sure it's a well-researched approximation. But does it remind anyone else of Walter Brennan? I keep expecting Lincoln to ask somebody if he was ever bit by a dead bee.

[knives]

That was one of my first thoughts too (it didn't help that I actually watched a Brennan movie not too long after the first trailer appeared). That would certainly make for a very weird film.

[Cold Bishop]

And Daniel Plainview sounded like the Hustons... It wouldn't surprise me if this was a deliberate starting point.

[zedz]

I like this new TV spot, but am frustrated by all of the opening archive photos being stretched to fit the widescreen image. Why has it become acceptable in professional productions to distort photos and video to fit a new ratio instead of just cropping or allowing black bars to appear?

That's a serious pet peeve of mine as well, and it immediately makes me lose respect for the filmmakers. Its like reading sentances with basic mispellings and grammatical errors you cant help but thinking that, the person writing its an idiot.

[Polybius]

I see David Strathairn is playing Seward, Jackie Earle Haley is Alexander Stephens, and Bruce McGill is Edwin Stanton - all prominently listed atop the cast on imdb. Definitely some potential there.

I had just read about Haley a couple of days ago. That is a complete bullseye. The other two I didn't know about but they're both top drawer talents (David in particular) and I have great confidence in them both.

[flyonthewall2983]

James Spader has a role too. Good to see him in such a major film.

[Polybius]

Looking at the IMDB entry now. I'm not familiar with the character Spader plays but I agree that it's always cool to see him in something worthy of his talents.

This is a really excellent cast. I'm especially interested in seeing Tommy Lee Jones playing the great Thad Stevens. All they need is a proper wig and he's going to be spectacular.

[hearthesilence]

Not there, but given the tweets that have popped up in the last 3 hours, I'm 99% certain Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis and Tony Kushner are at Lincoln Center to present this.

EDIT: Make that 100 - a few dozen people have 'checked in' via Foursquare.