![]() ![]() The final vote in the House supplies the film’s emotional climax, and Spielberg ably portrays the historic moment of unrestrained celebration among Republicans and the mixed gallery of white and black spectators. Blood’s been spilt to afford us this moment,” and Lincoln wants House action “Now! Now! Now!” “Abolishing slavery by constitutional provision,” he asserts in closing, would settle the fate “not only of the millions now in bondage but of unborn millions to come.” I can’t accomplish a god damned thing of any human meaning or worth until we cure ourselves of slavery and end this pestilential war.” Looking at his advisers and pounding the table again, he continues: “And whether any of you or anyone else knows it, I know I need this. He slams his hand on the table and says, “I can’t listen to this anymore. The key moment comes when Lincoln grows agitated at the absence of clear support in his Cabinet to push for immediate passage in the House. Spielberg reproduces the rhetorical give-and-take on the floor of the House and, through a Missouri couple named Jolly, conveys a common white attitude that emancipation made sense only if connected directly to saving the Union.ĭaniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln leaves no doubt that, for Spielberg at least, the war was preeminently about ending slavery. Tad Lincoln examines photographs of slaves and asks Elizabeth Keckley if she was beaten while in bondage Mary Todd Lincoln urges her husband not to squander political capital by pushing for emancipation and Radical Republicans debate whether to punish Lincoln for dragging his feet on their proposals relating to slavery. Spielberg repeatedly instructs viewers about emancipation’s centrality. The film’s central narrative concerns Lincoln’s determination in January 1865 to secure passage of the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives. ![]() The scene ends, in stunningly improbable fashion, with the second man quoting the “new birth of freedom” passage from the Gettysburg Address to the president (my August 2016 column addresses the implausibility of anyone’s quoting from the speech at the time). The soldier mentions Rebel atrocities against USCTs, after which one of his comrades joins the conversation to lecture Lincoln about discrimination in the Army and the need to grant black men the vote. It opens with black soldiers fighting Confederates and then moves into a conversation between Lincoln and one of the African-American combatants. Lincoln signals its focus on emancipation in the first scenes. Daniel Day-Lewis’ transcendent performance in Lincoln, which earned him an Oscar, virtually assures the film’s continuing relevance to popular conceptions of the war. Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Timur Bekmambetof’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, both released in 2012, interpret the 16th president in ways that reflect and reinforce the current ascendency of the emancipation cause memory of the conflict. In 1989, the film introduced millions of viewers to black Union soldiers and anticipated a cinematic turn toward emancipationist narratives. Insight: How Hollywood Portrays Lincoln and His Commitment to Emancipation Closeįilms from 2012 are relevant to continuing conceptions of the Civil WarĪ decade ago I wrote for Civil War Times about Glory as a turning point in Hollywood’s long relationship with the Civil War.
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