With important historical subjects, I disagreed with the artistic license they took in changing the zombies to vampires.

He knew which film u were talking about.

I'm dying to see it but it doesn't open here til the end of the week.

Were you at the Directors Guild? My daughter is a lawyer for the DGA, and she took me to a screening today at their theater in LA. Afterwards there was a live Q&A of Steven Spielberg moderated by JJ Abrams. It was awesome. Afterwards we passed within 10 feet of the two of them in the parking garage, shaking hands after the show. My brush with greatness. my daughter and I literally got the last two seats in the 500-seat theater after waiting in line for almost two hours. At least that many were turned away.

It was a wonderful movie. I'm looking forward to taking my husband to see it when I get back to Anchorage.

I saw the film a few weeks ago.
Quite an impressive film and historically accurate.
I wish I could have seen the Spielberg talk but I already had a reservation at the other event.

was perfect. Some scenes looked like they were desiigned around art on canvas that was done around that era...one scene in particular had a beautiful "still life" quality that was stunning...my experience with art has given me a new "eye" with which to detect this artistry in filmmaking and I was duly impressed...

we arrived (3 hours before the 7 p.m. showing

I guess these young-uns buy their tickets to movies ahead of time on the internet

The focus of the film is the last four months of Lincoln's life and the extraordinary efforts to get legislative passage of the 13th Amendment. The legislative arm-twisting was monumental.

in Springfield, IL. It is a wonderful place. I learned a lot there.

I did a paper on the Lincoln Douglas debates in high school. I read a lot of the transcripts and I remember Lincoln said a lot of things that today we would think of as "weasel" language regarding his position on race. But you're correct, that came from applying a 1970s standard to things thought and said in the 1850s.

He was a racist, as was everyone. But the difference is that he didn't let it stop him from recognizing that human beings need freedom.

You do know that Hollywood tends to just make shit up, right?

Lincoln once said that if it took keeping slavery in the south to save the Union, he'd do it. If it took freeing the slaves, he'd do it. If the status quo would keep the Union intact, he'd stick with the status quo.

Yes, he was morally opposed to it, but his concern was the Union, not slavery. Success at any cost.

If he could keep the Union intact, he had options regarding slavery. If the South became a sovereign nation, he had no options. In the end, he took sort of a middle ground. The South broke away, but Lincoln always considered them states of the Republic in rebellion against the Union. This way, Federal law would apply to the Emancipation Proclamation in theory, if not actual fact.

It was a simple equation. First; win the war. Then, enforce the Proclamation and abolish slavery.

It's unfathomable to imagine what direction World history would have gone had it not.

My favorite quote about that period is from Shelby Foote. He said that before the Civil War people would say the United States ARE after the Civil War people said the United States IS.

I think if Lincoln had lived some of the horrid civil rights violations may not have happened.

Hindsight is 20/20. But even if Lincoln did not make all the right decisions (and who could), he had the right character. That is what history remembers.

"War of choice," "supported and encouraged secession movements," well these are 21st century views imposed upon politicians of previous centuries, which the OP specifically says NOT to do.

You ask whether the suffering of the slaves was prolonged and the answer is "No!" In this modern world, despite the general agreement of all powers that slavery is not desirable, it still persists. Now imagine the 150 years since the US civil war without a massively powerful USA assisting the anti-slavery sentiment world wide. Do you honestly believe that slavery would have atrophied and vanished from any state that encouraged it? Do you honestly think that such a state would have permitted the oppressed population to be any more than serfs, similar to the peasantry of pre-revolutionary Russia?

If you truly believe this then there is a bridge in Brooklyn you might want to buy.

Now look at some other possible consequences of a balkanised USA.

At the time of Lincoln the USA was only one wanna-be world power and it had started to challenge the decaying might of the older empires of Europe and had begun imposing itself on the world stage. Now subtract the economic might of the South from the nascent US empire, with the accompanying bickering and border conflicts that would have ensued within the formerly United States. The old empires of Europe would have made hay in the power vacuum that remained. The UK, Spain, Mexico and the Confederacy (assuming Texas did not secede) would have been skirmishing across the Caribbean. Mexico would probably control New Mexico and large parts of California, I suspect that Washington state and large parts of the Dakotas would be back with the dominion of Canada. The Alaska purchase would have not have happened.

You seem to regard balkanisation as a good idea, in general, and this is true but only if you run a large empire or a multi-national business. A fragmentation of opposing power to large vested interests is to the profit of the vested interests.

That Lincoln's view on race were "complex." And the movie (which I haven't seen yet) is getting positive reviews precisely because that's one of the things it's done successfully -- represent complexity and nuance.

I'm not sure what you're criticizing the OP about.

"I know now that while certain ideals are timeless it's unfair to impose a late twentieth century or early twenty first century sensibility on someone from the mid nineteenth century."

I'm just amazed that it took a MOVIE to make him (or her) realize this and am surprised that he/she would rely on a dramatized account of history to teach him/her anything.

Strikes me as pretty low.

Realizing the error of the ahistorical paradox is something many people (most, I'd say) never get. How you get wisdom is far less important than that it be gotten at all.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with dramatized historical accounts as long as you take them with a grain of salt. In fact, art is often used to highlight elements of reality that the artist wants to emphasize.

For that matter, if you look at most high school history textbooks published in the US, you'd probably find that Steven Spielberg is a much more credible historian. So I say bravo! to Spielberg and bravo to the OP, because they've both advanced the state of humankind.

If he wasn't a civic saint he was damn near close.

...about Lincoln or any other important US historical figure from the watered-down crap taught in public schools today. When I'm helping my daughter with her Social Studies homework (they no longer call it US History), I'm constantly having to fill in information to help her understand what was going on behind the scenes that influenced the macro events of US History. For most American kids today, programs like those found on The History Channel, The Military Channel, Discovery, and National Geographic are their best bet to learn something factual about the actual events that shaped this country.

If kids and/or adults can learn something about US history from this movie, I'm not only for it, I highly encourage it.

I don't get your problem with this movie, I really don't.

Historians that have seen it have reported that it is surprisingly accurate.
He says that very line you quote in the movie too but you get to see where it comes from and what it really means.

It didn't take me thirty five years from the first time I did a college freshman paper on Lincoln to know his views on race were layered and if you believe it did there is nothing I can do to disabuse you of that notion.

Lincoln made racist remarks, wanted to send the freedman back to Liberia. That's what I initially learned. I thought I now saw further than other men. How wrong was I. How stupid was I to rip someone out of their times and put him or her in my times.

The bottom line is Lincoln came to abhor slavery and made it his raison d'etre to end it.

He hated slavery but knew he could not come out and say it. Yet there are indications in his early years he hated it as much as John Brown and we know what happened to Brown. Lincoln knew he had to get support from people who disliked or even hated black people.

A perfect example was William Tecumseh Sherman. He was pure soldier, did not like black people, but was loyal to the union. There is no doubt Sherman was instrumental in helping to win the war and put fear in southerners. Sherman's priority was serving the president and saving the union. Slavery to him was a side issue he really didn't care about. If Lincoln had openly stated ending slavery was one of his primary goals I doubt he would have been able to retain people like Sherman.

"Sherman was instrumental in helping to win the war and put fear in southerners." They're still pissed off at him 150 years later

I just love saying his name to get them riled.

Grant was smart in unleashing him. Glad Sherman was on our side.

But it's hard to have sympathy for folks who thought it was o k to own other folks.

I'm not a presidential historian, I want to educate myself some more. But I know historians are taking another look at Grant's presidency and looking at it in a kinder light.

It's amazing how the parties have traded their historical roles.

I think in his own way Lyndon Johnson was a visionary.

It is sad because on domestic issues he was great.

Presidents can be complicated and President Truman is a good example. He was known to use racial slurs and his mother was a true racist. Yet when he became president he was reportedly truly offended by the attacks on black soldiers. His fight for and executive order to desegregate the military was a huge win in the civil rights movement. It cost him a lot of southern democratic allies.

BTW, Grant was a great general but i think a little over his head as president. He is still one of the great heroes in America.

And a macho-man complex. Vietnam was his downfall, but he also gave us the Great Society.

Human beings are complex, and cannot be cast in simple terms of "angel" or "devil."

While he himself was not corrupt, there were a lot of corrupt individuals in his administration for this reason. This is where the scandals come from.

He also in rather unfairly compared to Lee. Most people say Lee was a great strategist, and that Grant was just a butcher with more men. Yes, Grant's army suffered heavy casualties, but so did Lee's. Grant was also better able to see the entire strategic picture, while Lee never really saw anything past Virginia. Grant would see how securing an objective would aid him in his sector, and also how it would affect the south in other sectors. When he was made General of all Union Armies, he was finally able to get all those armies to coordinate attacks on different parts of the Confederacy.

I do believe he was too trusting as a president.

He just couldn't fathom one of his "friends" taking advantage of him. He gave a lot of these friends government positions, who then turned around and tried to embezzle as much money as possible. He had the same problem after his presidency. He got into a business deal with his "friend" Ferdinand Ward. Ward swindled Grant, and others Grant had encouraged to invest in the project and fled the country. Grant insisted on paying these people back, selling his Civil War mementos to pay back $150,000 of the stolen money. He was left destitute, and was only able to save his family from this destitution by writing and publishing his memoirs while dying of throat cancer.

and not of maintaining the Union he would have accepted the offer to join the Confederacy/Lousiiana Militia. A complex man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Seminary_of_Learning_%26_Military_Academy

Lincoln knew who he was dealing with.

Which is one of the greatest things about him. He saved the country.

views on slavery and race were complex and nuanced and evolved over time. The Lincoln of 1863 (post Emancipation Proclamation) was far different and far more evolved than the Lincoln of 1860-61.

You should also ask yourself why Lincoln thought the Union was worth preserving at any cost, before dismissing him as some sort of morally vacuous cynic.

also wrote a great biography of Lincoln. An excellent book.

Doesn't mean they follow them.

Hollywood goes for what is dramatically expedient. Truth is far less important than entertainment.

Since a movie based on historical research seems useless in your mind ...

some scholarship behind it. Tony Kushner ain't no slouch either.

that Hollywood actually follows a book when they adapt it and doesn't make anything up.

Please.

"Argo" for instance takes some artistic license with the actual story (the Iranian police didn't chase the plane on the runway and shoot at it) and of course I doubt if the lead character looks much like Ben Affleck in real life.

I just think Spielberg followed the Kearns Goodwin book pretty faithfully. And I don't mean about "stage business" like the little vignette about the gloves. And certain scenes would probably have to be "reconstructed" since they took place in Lincoln's bedroom (important scene with Mary Lincoln). But overall the historical integrity of this film seems very good to me...

Ask Doris Kearns Goodwin!

Thought it wasn't out until 11/16

Even though I knew how it ended and I'm not the sort of guy that cries over anything.

What a tragedy, what a missed opportunity, what an incredible loss for the country. Lincoln was such a good person, such an icon. We all lost when he was assassinated by that fucking asshole Boothe.

How different things would have been.

It's like watching the Zapruder film and wishing somehow it would end differently.

I guess that happens when the mind cannot accept the reality.

And how different things would have been had President Kennedy been able to at least finish even one term.

To quote Seward

I agree with you though, a terrible loss, for the north and the south.

but it reminds me of something from around 4 years ago... Something that Malia said on their
tour of the White House. She said she was looking forward to writing school papers at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]My daughter and I discussed it today and can't wait.

Thanks for the review!

If you're interested in reading about the evolution of Lincoln's views on slavery, emancipation and equality you might be interested in The Fiery Trial:Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery by the historian Eric Foner.

Looking forward to the movie.

writing the screen play.

But I really can't stand John William's music. From what I've heard already, it's imitation Aaron Copland, again.

I can't stand his music either except when the movie is so terrible I can at least spend the time counting his "quotes".

I was excited when I saw Kushner was doing the screen play as well. These things and what looks to be an amazing cast has put this on my must see list.

Americana yes. But I think, better than the other guys do it (Carter Burwell, etc.). Bonus, is that it was recorded by the Chicago Symphony.

I expected it to be great. Combined with Spielberg the odds were high. I look forward to seeing it.

I want to see Skyfall too. A little Daniel Craig eyecandy

I read the book after our recently elected President said that he was reading it. Great narrative history.

And the theme was "US" - whoever put the ads together probably realized that people would be looking for something uplifting after a hard-fought election.l

I think Spelberg released it after the election because he didn't want be seen as partisan and giving a gift to Barack Obama.

it was the republicans who were the good guys while the democrats were the obstructionists when it came to abolishing slavery.

and have not for some time.

IMHO, only FDR, Washington, and Jefferson can touch him...

of Lincoln's friend and law colleague in Springfield, IL.

James Conkling: http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions/americas_new_birth_of_freedom_3.html

James Conkling's granddaughter hired my grandfather as a teen to be her handyman and later chauffeur. She and her father (I forget his name) were quite fond of him - Alice (the granddaughter) hosted my grandparents' wedding and reception during the Great Depression. My grandfather drove them up from their home in NE to their summer place in MN and went fishing and such with them. Alice's father worked in Lincoln's law office running errands as a boy.

So - my dining table was sat at by (and my grandfather personally knew) a man who personally knew Lincoln. I just think that's awesome. Only 3 degrees of separation between me and that great man. Sigh.

All of which has nothing to do with the movie unless it has Conkling in it, lol.

ETA: Oh and I also have photographs of my grandfather with old Mr. Conkling and Alice. He was quite elderly even in the 1920s when the photos were taken.

Was there NO OTHER WAY to free black Americans in 1861 OTHER than a war that killed nearly 700k Americans with possibly another 200k deaths from injury and disease in the following decade?

That would have been a good question for Jeff Davis and Bob Lee.

Lincoln said he'd keep every slave imprisoned if it'd preserve the union. (paraphrase)

That would be akin to letting the NAZIs surrender and keeping all of occupied Europe and their concentration camps.

I think Ulysses Grant had it right when he said "but as soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle."

and I will respectfully correct you.

1861 would be akin to 1938 in your example and in 1938 there were no concentration camps ( in the WW2 sense of the word) and no occupied Europe.

I'm talking about 1861 negotiations. At that time Europe was already anti-slavery. Even the South could see the writing on the wall.

Here's the real problem. And I'm confident of this. Lincoln HAD NO IDEA that the Civil War would erupt into what it did. He anticipated sending some called up troops down south for a little saber rattling and all would be good. Once the war got bad and the Union was getting pummeled, Lincoln HAD NO CHOICE but escalation. Circumstances moved Lincoln, not the other way around.

At that point he became desperate to save the Union and fought the war decisively.

Let's be graphic... Lincoln's war cost 140x the deaths as Shrub's Iraq in 1/3 the time. There's NOTHING heroic or awe inspiring about the USCW.

I doubt anyone disputes that - but it was not Lincoln's doing. As you point out, the war was brought to him, and when it all went to hell, he did what had to be done.

Lincoln was willing to let the south keep their slaves. The deep south wouldn't return to the union even though Lincoln was basically giving them what they wanted.

Lincoln wanted to end slavery and preserve the Union, by necessity spoke out of both sides of his mouth, and in the end accomplished both.

Well played...

Since BEFORE the US was even the US. The Three-Fifths Compromise was a huge part of this, and the next 80+ years was compromise after compromise, as humans kept on being treated as livestock.

As Jefferson said, "We have a tiger by the tail."

The rich Teabaggers in the South caused the war, and enablers like Robert Lee didn't try to stop them.

than just the freeing of the slaves. http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm

Anyone who thinks the USCW was fought "to free the slaves" got trapped in 5th grade History class.

For Lincoln it was a war to preserve the Union.

South Carolina and six other states seceded before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Much like our current President, he was handed an absolute mess by his predecessor who had failed to take the appropriate actions to isolate and defeat the pro-slavery lunatics in South Carolina like Andrew Jackson had done three decades earlier. Even Jackson, who I'm fairly certain owned more slaves than any other US President, knew that these people were fucking crazy and had to be stopped. Buchanan, on the other hand, was too chickenshit to do anything about it.

The deep south pretty clearly saw that the Federal government wasn't going to take any serious action to stop them and so they threw in their lot with the crazies in South Carolina.

Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, and the border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland) it's a little more murky. These states had the most to lose from a war and were ambivalent about fighting one. But after Fort Sumpter Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion and it was clear they would be involved in the war one way or another, so they picked the pro-slavery side.

This has all been litigated. History is written by the victors. Traitorous southerners seceded from the United States Of America because it was more important to own other human beings than to be American citizens.

They were put down at great cost but a scourge was removed from the land and the union was preserved.

The union forces should've occupied that place for decades until the people accepted that their actions in the antebellum years were wrong and evil. That's what we did in Germany after World War II and that's why it's illegal to deny the holocaust there today.

The only things that the Civil War settled were the fact that you can't own other human beings, and you can't secede. But other than that we told the south that they could go back to their horrendously racist ass-backward system of government, and we've been paying for it ever since.

But if the Republicans allow the Democrat, Tilden, to become president he presumably removes troops from the south and ends Reconstruction anyway.

I should add that Confederate sympathizers and latent supporters of Jim Crow would take umbrage at your comparison to the National Socialists but I fail to see a tangible difference between Jim Crow and the Nuremberg Laws.

At that point we had pulled federal troops out of most states, and you had the same traitors we had been fighting a decade ago running the governments in many of the states that he won. The south should've remained as conquered territory for another decade or two with nobody (other than freed slaves) getting a say in who gets to be President of the United States.

Tilden would've likely lost the election (for real) had that been the case. And actually if he had won under a hypothetical scenario where southern whites weren't a big part of his coalition, he may not have pulled the troops out.

Thumbs up!

Because a liberal black man was elected. Funny how history runs in these spirals.

The last to leave the Union, and the bulk of its citizens didn't want to do so. The plantation owners on the coast did it. NC was relatively poor then, and not a huge slaveholding state, and also had a very strong abolitionist and Quaker influence, which extended to being an important part of the Underground Railroad.

Four score and seven years ago, I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!!

The problem is that I'm in South Korea and it is difficult to find out when the movies are released. I looked at IMDB and it didn't have South Korea on the list. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan are all listed for early next year which makes me think we have a few months to wait before getting to see it.

Lincoln financed the war by having the United States (Union side) print its own money called the Greenback.

There weren't two sides during this, that was only the US government fighting traitors.

I am a proud North Carolinian, and there is no way to spin what the CSA stood for. Treachery and slavery.

since the use of Greenbacks was only used by the Union side.

The use of Greenbacks by the United States government during the civil war is really the real reason President Lincoln was assassinated. But any historical account always skips this fact. As usual, always look at the money trail.

Lincoln declared the central banksters a worse enemy than the Confederacy. And by printing our own interest-free money, he committed the cardinal sin against the rich elites.

The reviews look good, but I would go see it, regardless what the reviews say.

I was moved.. very moved by this film.

Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln is amazing...

I'm no fan of Lincoln's, sorry.

If you were black and your children were sold like animals from a litter you might have a different opinion. As Lincoln said " Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

That's the long answer.

And the south seceded. Maybe if they just seceded, history wouldn't be so harsh but they seceded with human booty.

And the union is dissolved which is exactly what Lincoln rightfully opposed.

As it was the U S A was one of the last industrialized nations to abolish slavery.

HippoTron was correct in asserting that the occupation of the south should have been more like the occupation of Germany after WW ll. It should have continued until every vestige of pro Confederate sentiment was eradicated. There are still neo-Nazis in Germany but pro Nazi sentiment is infinitely more muted in Germany than pro-Confederacy sentiment is in some parts of the American south.

And it was far worse in Alabama, where I spent 10 long years.

Thank you. Completely agree!

These people were traitors and should have been treated as such.

Lincoln was a tyrant and shredded the Constitution. He should have let them go without war.

.

Because they wanted to own and trade and breed and treat HUMAN BEINGS as livestock?

I'm a North Carolinian through and through, and most people here did NOT want to join the CSA. It disgusts me the rice planters here made this state join the CSA. The CSA was a traitorous movement formed ONLY because rich slave owners wanted to keep on being rich slave owners. THAT'S what they meant by states' rights. Period.

Sadly, he would have zero chance of winning today due to his appearance - and his honesty and integrity.

But mainly his appearance. That's the world we now live in.

We should be thankful we had this man as a leader when the times permitted it. And although he was the first Republican president, we should remember that at the time, Republicans were the progressive party (and stayed that way right through Teddy Roosevelt).