Writing History With Lightning

[L Verge]

Continuing on with thoughts taken from Writing History with Lightning and Hollywood's interpretation thereof, I'm herein excerpting comments made by Michael Burlingame in his essay of "Abraham Lincoln on Film." The historian has chosen to evaluate three films: John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln" (1939), Robert Sherwood's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940), and Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" (2012).

On the first film, Burlingame quotes a cinematic critic of the film..."has come to be regarded by many as one of the greatest Lincoln portrayals of all time." He then goes on to remind us that it is based on an imaginary courtroom drama loosely based on the legendary 1858 "Almanac Trial" in Springfield in which Lincoln defended Duff Armstrong, son of his New Salem friends, against a charge of murder. He continues to point out that the film consistently deals with fabricated (or at least altered) Lincoln history and is "narrowly focused." As usual, Michael also paints Mary Todd as the woman who took the intiative to scheme her way into Lincoln's life.

He summarizes the film as revealing little about Lincoln's political or personal life, but much about his character with good examples of the legend's positive qualities -- enumerated as folksy, self-deprecating, likeable, humorous, good-natured, courageous, and an able lawyer. Burlingame criticizes this aspect because it does not portray the other side of a man who, in his earlier years, displayed sarcasm, ridicule, and demagoguery to attack his opponents. Burlingame declares the film outdated and not in touch with modern audiences.

In that respect, Michael is kinder to Abe Lincoln in Illinois, with Raymond Massey playing the lead role. Massey was also vocal during interviews regarding the film that was being released just as Europe was dealing with Hitler. The script was originally a stage play, and Massey had played the role there. He told an interviewer: "There really isn't such a great difference between Lincoln's fight and ours. In Lincoln's time, the specific issue was slavery. Today it has taken a different form. But if you substitute the word dictatorship for slavery throughout Sherwood's script, it becomes electric with meaning for our own time."

Sherwood described his play as "the story of a man of peace who had to face the issue of appeasement or war." Lincoln and the Civil War ended the evils of slavery; in 1940, another war was needed to stop the spread of Nazism; and today's audiences can make the comparison with anti-democratic Islamic Jihadists. The playwright also confessed that he was allowed considerable poetic license in bringing forth this concept in the making of the film -- showing Lincoln as a basically passive man who needs the force of his wife to give him ambition and his law partner to goad him into taking a stand on slavery. Burlingame takes great exception to Sherwood's style in those matters. The same fine lines between fact and fiction continue throughout the film, but Raymond Massey's portrayal of Lincoln is hailed as "better than any other film impersonation in history."

That accolade, however, may well have been transferred over to Daniel Day-Lewis as he portrayed Lincoln in 2012's "Lincoln." Michael again accuses the film of having a narrow focus -- the President's role in securing Congressional passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865, to ensure the issue first announced in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation. It shows Lincoln as a true champion of black freedom. On the other hand, Spielberg's film (and Burlingame's comments - as usual) spend a great deal of time criticizing Mary Lincoln (more than two pages of text on just that).

On more serious matters, Burlingame dismisses the thought that Lincoln had to decide between ending the war and saving the Union or ending slavery. The Confederate peace attempts had focused on just the emancipation issue; it was Jefferson Davis who insisted on nothing short of Confederate independence. Offense is taken also with the scene where Lincoln rises from his seat and yells about his power and that he demands the votes needed. Burlingame says that quote was originally from a Massachusetts congressman who was relating something from twenty years before and that many historians don't take it as fact. He then gently accuses Doris Kearns Goodwin of including it in Team of Rivals, on which much of the Spielberg script is based. He then concludes with a number of objectionable qualities of the film centered around politics.

In summary, Michael Burlingame considers all three of the films to be entertaining for general audiences. "But for students of history, they resemble foods that tickle the palette, but provide little nutrition." Frankly, I liked that sentence better thn any other in this essay on the three films. I suspect that Wild Bill would like Burlingame's very last sentence the best, however: "The films also call to mind an Italian expression -- se non e vero, e ben trovato -- with proper Italian accents in place, which I cannot provide here, it translates to EVEN IF IT'S NOT TRUE, IT'S A GOOD STORY.