![]() How realistic is the portrayal of his backroom deal-making?Ī. Bilbo, a lobbyist the White House enlisted to help pass the 13th Amendment. James Spader supplies a lot of the movie’s comic relief as W.N. The opening scene where he’s basically out on the street talking to soldiers is probably pretty fictional. He would in effect hold office hours and people could come to see him. He was accessible, but usually in his office in the White House. ![]() Was he that accessible to ordinary people?Ī. In the opening scene, Lincoln is shown on the street, chatting casually with some soldiers. Lincoln rarely if ever used profanity, and some of the dialogue calls for him to do that. I think Lincoln may have had a little bit more of an Indiana-Kentucky twang than Day-Lewis has. Lincoln’s voice was described as being fairly highpitched, rather than the deep baritone used by earlier actors. Day-Lewis’ voice is quite high in the movie. We asked the historian to help answer some of our questions after seeing the film (Warning: If you haven’t seen Lincoln yet, this interview contains some spoilers): As a result,McPherson said he considers Lincoln, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, the most accurate screen portrayal of the great leader that he has ever seen. In focusing on a short span of time, the movie delves deeply into Lincoln’s personality, his political tactics and relationship with his Cabinet and family. Ultimately Kushner used that book as a jumping-off point for the Lincoln screenplay, which depicts the last weeks of Lincoln’s life in 1865, when the president pushed for passage of the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery. Initially, Spielberg had optioned Doris Kearns Goodwin’s three-man biography, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. ![]() McPherson, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, was one of many Civil War historians who met withSpielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner early on in the writing process to help provide background for the film. This shows Lincoln’s exhaustion, his gauntness - and his storytelling.” “They tended to reflect a romanticized Lincoln, almost a mythologized Lincoln. “There have been other movies about Lincoln,” said James McPherson, a Lincoln biographer, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian and author of Battle Cry of Freedom, after seeing the film. But there’s another group whose opinion matters - historians. Lincoln, one of many high-profile films this season based on real events, has been warmly embraced by critics and audiences. LOS ANGELES - Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is a historical bio-pic more concerned with depicting the 16th president’s log-rolling politics than his log-splitting childhood.
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