Spielberg, Jones, and Lewis can clear their mantels for their Oscars right now. Ditto whoever winds up with the Best Picture statuette for this movie. This is easily the best movie I’ve seen since Schindler’s List. Easily the best Lincoln movie ever.
That being said, I did wonder a bit about the Gettysburg Address recitation by the soldiers. I’m not sure they would have had the time to memorize it in the middle of the war.
I liked the way the assassination was handled. We all knew he was off the the theater, we see the footlights and … wait a minute, this isn’t Our American Cousin, it’s a children’s play! And of course Tad wasn’t in Ford’s Theater, so where’s he going with this? Then the man interrupts the play to deliver the news- what a way for a boy to learn his father had been shot. No need to actually show the shooting, we’ve all seen it done in other movies and television documentaries and read about it. Then the death scene was done just right, and then fade out with the Second Inaugural Address.
Regarding the location of Booth- he is said to be to the right side of the president, and I believe somewhat to the left of the railing. There are those who claim to identify the other conspirators, but there is some disagreement about the accuracy of that claim. Booth himself claimed to be close enough to have shot him. If you go to lincoln-assassination.com there are threads about this photo.
How someone born in Vermont who moved to Pennsylvania ended up with Tommy Lee Jones’ Texas accent baffles me. What, is Jones now Sean Connery? We have to accept that whoever he plays, a Russian Sea Captain or a Northern Senator ends up with an accent out of left field? DDL sets the mark for vocal impersonation, and TLJ achieves the opposite extreme.
Meh, Thaddeus Stevens’ accent would not have sounded anything like a modern mid-Pennsylvania accent and nobody in 1865 would have had an accent that would match a modern Texas accent.
I agree–he grew up in Vermont, so he probably had a Yankee accent, which has remained pretty stable from that day to this. DDL showed you how an actor is capable of adapting his voice to recreate a character–and your attitude is “Big deal”?
I loved it because it showed what a bastard Lincoln could be if that’s what it took to win the war.
Also, I’m not ashamed to admit the movie made me cry. When he was arguing with Mary about Willie’s death and admitted how he felt but couldn’t allow himself to break down over it like she did, that was fucking brutal and almost an exact recreation of Mrs. Cad and me when we lost our daughter. It is one of the few times I’ve ever been caught up in the unmitigated reality of a movie situation.
It’s hard for me to get worked up over accents. Yes, the Lincoln was about as close as we can get to descriptions of his voice and I could believe that Mary was from Kentucky, but it seems to me much less important for the other figures. Was Stanton’s voice authentic? Seward’s? Bob Lincoln’s? I have no idea and it didn’t make a whit of difference for me.
If it has nothing to do with the plot, particularly if it’s a fictional narrative, then yeah, I can see the point. But an actor’s voice is one of his main tools–it’s how he convinces us he IS the character he’s playing. Dustin Hoffman would reject an offer, I believe, to play Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a bio pic (even though it is one of his funniest lines ever) becuase he would be too short, too old, and too white, and he couldn’t rise to the challenge of doing the role convincingly, though he could do a reasonable approximation of the Manhattan accent. But if he had to do it, he would try to look as balck, as tall, as young as possible, technically daunting though it might be. In the case of Jones, I’m wondering “Why is this Southern senator the leader of the Abolitionist wing of the Republicans in the Senate? How’d that happen?” Then I hear them talking about “the senator from Pennsylvania,” and I’m thinking “He moved there, maybe, from Texas? Have to look Stevens up.” And it turns out, what? That, no, Jones was too lazy or too inept, to take the edges off his accent for the part. Doesn’t mean the movie was totally ruined, but I lost a little respect for Jones when I learned that.
Let’s put it this way: I would be very, very disturbed if Tommy Lee Jones stopped sounding like Tommy Lee Jones. I don’t know why it is, but certain actors, like Jones, Jack Nicholson or Morgan Freeman, have voices and speaking cadences so distinctive that any attempt to change them sounds fundamentally wrong. Would you accept Jack Nicholson with an English accent? Of course not.
If Spielberg though Tommy Lee Jones and Tommy Lee Jones’s voice were the best casting for the role, then he was probably right.
I guess I’m in the minority here–I think Spielberg did a great job as a producer of the film (hiring mostly gifted actors, cinematographers, Kushners, etc.) but his typically smarmy, schmaltzy, sentimental, and just-plain-shitty job as director. I would have much prefered this film to have been shot by a great director–who might have hired an actor who could imitate a northern-sounding Senator, who might have shied away from the more cloying “great man” moments, who might have toned some of the literal halo lighting effects that Spielberg kept pulling out of his ass. And maybe producer Spielberg could have gone to rehab to get over his addiction to John WIlliams’ score–what a hack WIlliams is. I can name you ten directors who, given Spielberg’s budget, could have turned out a better quality movie, as one just as entertaining.
It’s movie-star casting, as you seem to imply. Jones can’t play a Northerner? Easy solution–don’t cast him. There are literally hundreds of actors who could do the part as well as Jones–but Jones is a movie star, so he gets the part.
There are parts I’d cast Nicholson in, and parts that he’s too old to play, too American to play, too middle-class to play. He doesn’t have a lot of range, but if you cast him as a 60+ middle class American, he’ll do fine. Freeman actually was believable in a part written for a white American (SHAWSHANK) but that was fiction and they simply changed the part of Red to suit Freeman. The ultimate in movie-star casting, as I said, is Sean Connery, who most of his career has been miscast as a Philadelphian (in MARNIE), a Berber (in THE WIND AND THE LION), an Irishman (THE UNTOUCHABLES), a Russian (HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER), etc. because he has no skill (or interest?) in toning down his Scottish accent. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good actor, doesn’t mean these movies are shit–he and they are among my favorites–but it does mean that he is far from a great actor in my book. Accents are among an actor’s tools–but some have them and some don’t.
I’m one who was also bothered by the movie-star casting. DDL was great, and Field was good also. But I could have done without, especially, Jones or Spader. Less recognizable faces would have been much less distracting.
Actually, according to Goodwin’s book, which inspired the movie, Lincoln’s voice was high-pitched and nasal. DDL did the Lincoln voice we ‘expect’ instead.
But it doesn’t matter. I wasn’t distracted at all by the accents. For all I know, the ‘southerness’ of Tommy Lee Jones’ voice (and upper-class southern accents descend directly from British accents) was accurate for a Pennsylvanian of the day.
Re Thaddeus Stevens. An earlier post commented on TLJ’s “ridiculous wig” in the film. Actually, Stevens DID wear a wig: “he had lost all his hair and and atop his bald head he wore a wig which never seemed to fit correctly” (Thaddeus Stevens | Biography of the Congressman). As they say, truth is stranger than fiction. Photos of Stevens show that TLJ’s portrayal of him is spot on (accent didn’t bother me for a supporting role; far more critical to get Lincoln’s right, and DDL is brilliant).
Never married, Thaddeus Stevens DID live with his widowed housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith – a touching scene in the film, wig and all. They were together for 25 years, raising her children and his adopted nephews. She was not only housekeeper and hostess in Wash.DC, but also helped Stevens run his businesses, later becoming a landowner and businesswoman in her own right, a remarkable accomplishment for a woman of that era, particularly one of mixed race.
Another very strong African-American female “character” in this story is that of Elizabeth Keckley. Unfortunately, Steven Spielberg missed an excellent opportunity to explain her role in the Lincoln household, let alone her role in Washington DC. She was not, as alluded to in a post above, Mary Todd Lincoln’s “maid”, though for lack of any other explanation in the film, this is the impression most viewers will go away with. A big missed opportunity (perhaps it is on the cutting room floor, Mr Spielberg?). Elizabeth Keckley was a freed slave and seamstress, considered one of the best dressmakers in Washington DC; she became Mrs Lincoln’s preferred dressmaker, and subsequently her CONFIDANTE and FRIEND. She was never Mary’s maid. Mrs Keckley lost her only son in battle (fighting for the north); she was a comfort to Mary in her own griefs and was a calming influence in times of crisis. She was also active in the free black community, helping to raise money and establish a relief association for former slaves who had come to Union lines.
The movie is, of course, about Lincoln and the passing of the 13th Amendment, not about minor characters; however, and especially because of this particular theme and the role of blacks (and women) in this period of time, a well-written dialogue could have established Keckley as more than just “a maid”.
I disagree. In my experience, we tend to think of Lincoln as having a deep, powerful, stentorian sort of voice. That’s how it’s been portrayed in the past, and when the trailer first came out, a lot of people were surprised by DDL’s version of his voice. But DDL’s higher-pitched (and it definitely was higher-pitched than usual), reedy, folksy voice seems much more accurate than most other portrayals, judging by the historical record. I thought he sounded remarkably like Walter Brennan at some points, which I don’t think is the “expected” voice at all.
I think this comes down to personal taste, I’m tend to a be a “less is more” person when it comes to film. I felt it was obviously from the scene where he enters his home that they were in a close and loving relationship – I don’t think he would have stolen (or let’s say “aggressively borrowed”) the Thirteenth Amendment for his housekeeper just because he liked the way she ironed his shirts.
To me, the bedroom scene as filmed seemed like a flashing neon sign that said “WARM AND FUZZY MOMENT! WINK, WINK! SAY “AWWWW”!” I would have much preferred a domestic scene that showed intimacy in a more interesting way, such as continuing the conversation about the amendment over dinner where he is serving her in the way that a husband would serve his wife.
I’m not disputing the fact of the relationship at all.
