"Lincoln" legal mistake

[Thomas Thorne]

History is the known record of human events. An historical film is the dramatization of historical events told within a specified time frame. Of necessity it must compress people and events to tell an exciting story. A screenplay that fails to do so will likely never be filmed.

We will always lack the technology to send recording devices back into time to record what historical figures thought,said,saw and did. So wide swatches of history will be controversial or unknowable. The idea that Abraham Lincoln never cursed is something we can't say unless primary sources remarked upon it and they could be wrong.


I agree with Laurie Verge that any movie that creates an interest in history serves a useful purpose.
Tom