Wednesday, November 28, 2012

The Lincoln Movie (2)

I've been reading a lot of comment on the movie.  I am most interested in what Lincoln scholars might say about it.  Harold Holzer offers what I consider trivial criticism.  The leading Lincoln scholar on slavery is Eric Foner.  I watched the streaming of a CNN interview.  Foner makes the obvious point that the movie is "inadequate" in that it doesn't tell the full story of the end of slavery in the U.S.  We have to remember that this  is just a movie with the visual power that a good movie can bring, but with a specific story line that can never be the full story.  Slavery was already eroding by January of 1865.  I take the progressive view that the slaves liberated themselves by fighting for their freedom in the Union army.  The movie creates the impression that there was a great rush to enact the 13th Amendment in Jaunary whereas Lincoln said he would call a special session of the new Congress that would be sworn in in March for the purpose of passing the amendment if necessary.  I suppose, though, you can make the case that Lincoln felt the immediate enactment might hasten the end of the war.  According to Foner from his book on Lincoln and slavery, the movie leaves out the fact that Lincoln offered compensated emancipated to Alexander Stephens at the Hampton Roads conference.  Using this fact would have made the movie messier and would denigate Lincoln's halo.  The other thing is that the 13th Amendment was sponsored by abolitionist groups and not AL.  Lincoln didn't decide to support it until 1864.  History is messy.  Movies are not.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I will eventually see the movie too. I am glad that you like Day-Lewis' performance. The movie is based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin book, and history is complex, so no movie can get every detail.