the l.a. times on the cinema history of lincoln

From the past couple of days comes this piece by Susan King, writing for the L.A. Times about the portrayal of Abraham Lincoln along the history of cinema. It's timed, of course, to the release of Steven Spielberg's new Lincoln.

I find I have mixed feelings about a drama of this sort, based on a figure of real historical weight. The real Lincoln is a figure whose image will always be too prominent to be kneaded safely into a fictionalized universe; the real person is always a possibility in the mind of the viewer — well, at least in my mind — and further investigation always promises the possibility of getting to the real man behind the representation of the filmic lie.

Compare Lincoln with some of Daniel Day-Lewis's other juicy historical roles: Daniel Plainview of There Will Be Blood and Bill the Butcher of Gangs of New York. For the average film-goer (like moi) these anonymous guys work just fine as stand-ins for an age. I don't even particularly care what the facts behind their characters are. Instead, I care much more about the truth of the historical situation that would have made their stories possible.

Any movie about Lincoln, however, will implicitly promise a real story, an important story, always lurking beyond the film and undermining its message. I mean, I'll go to the new Lincoln and I bet I'll enjoy it, but it will require a certain suspension of disbelief that anyone will every get a single man on film in any complete way.

Strangely, King's piece seems to dance around a bit at the issue that would seem to be at hand: How do attitudes of a time and the predispositions of a filmmaker shape a film about a historical subject? Here’s the most relevant quote on that point, drawing on UCLA history professor Joan Waugh:

The depictions of Lincoln during the Depression, noted Waugh, have more in common with the idealized "man of the people who rode above politics" that Frank Capra depicted in such films as 1939's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" with James Stewart.