list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Abraham Lincoln on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Abraham_Lincoln/327/default.aspx Title: Abraham Lincoln
Year: 1930
Director: D.W. Griffith
Plot: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel, allegedly cast because of her resemblance to Griffith favorite Lillian Gish), his lawyer days in Illinois, his contentious marriage to Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), his heartbreaking decision to declare war upon the South, his pardoning of a condemned sentry during the Civil War, and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth (expansively portrayed by Ian Keith). This was D.W. Griffith's first talkie, and the master does his best with the somewhat pedantic dialogue sequences; but as always, Griffith's forte was spectacle and montage, as witness the cross-cut scenes of Yankees and Rebels marching off to war and the pulse-pounding ride of General Sheridan (Frank Campeau) through the Shenandoah Valley. Thanks to the wizardry of production designer William Cameron Menzies, many of the scenes appear far more elaborate than they really were; Menzies can also be credited with the unforgettable finale, as Honest Abe's Kentucky log cabin dissolves to the Lincoln Memorial. As Abraham Lincoln, Walter Huston is a tower of strength, making even the most florid of speeches sound human and credible; only during the protracted death scene of Ann Rutledge does Huston falter, and then the fault is as much Griffith's as his. Road-shown at nearly two hours (including a prologue showing slaves being brought to America), Abraham Lincoln was pared down to 97 minutes by United Artists, and in that length it proved a box-office success, boding well for D.W. Griffith's future in talkies (alas, it proved to be his next-to-last film; Griffith's final effort, The Struggle was a financial disaster). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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]]>Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:00:51 GMTAbraham Lincoln1930D.W. GriffithTo date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (<a href="/players/P____48558/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Una Merkel</a>, allegedly cast because of her resemblance to Griffith favorite <a href="/players/P____27129/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Lillian Gish</a>), his lawyer days in Illinois, his contentious marriage to Mary Todd (<a href="/players/P____30043/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Kay Hammond</a>), his heartbreaking decision to declare war upon the South, his pardoning of a condemned sentry during the Civil War, and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth (expansively portrayed by <a href="/players/P____37392/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Ian Keith</a>). This was D.W. Griffith's first talkie, and the master does his best with the somewhat pedantic dialogue sequences; but as always, Griffith's forte was spectacle and montage, as witness the cross-cut scenes of Yankees and Rebels marching off to war and the pulse-pounding ride of General Sheridan (<a href="/players/P____10556/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Frank Campeau</a>) through the Shenandoah Valley. Thanks to the wizardry of production designer <a href="/players/P___102542/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>William Cameron Menzies</a>, many of the scenes appear far more elaborate than they really were; Menzies can also be credited with the unforgettable finale, as Honest Abe's Kentucky log cabin dissolves to the Lincoln Memorial. As Abraham Lincoln, <a href="/players/P____34142/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Walter Huston</a> is a tower of strength, making even the most florid of speeches sound human and credible; only during the protracted death scene of Ann Rutledge does Huston falter, and then the fault is as much Griffith's as his. Road-shown at nearly two hours (including a prologue showing slaves being brought to America), Abraham Lincoln was pared down to 97 minutes by United Artists, and in that length it proved a box-office success, boding well for D.W. Griffith's future in talkies (alas, it proved to be his next-to-last film; Griffith's final effort, <a href=/films/227074/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>The Struggle</a> was a financial disaster). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide133http://www.spout.com/images/no_image.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Abraham_Lincoln/327/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/2/4/40232.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 2/4/2009 10:00:51 AM
Body: Publisher Quirk Books and author Seth Grahame-Smith have come up with the best way to make a literary work more accessible since the creation of Classics Illustrated comic books: they’ve added “all-new scenes of bone crunching zombie action” to Jane Austen’s 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice. This new version, out in stores this May, is titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now With Ultraviolent Mayhem! And if you didn’t think it was a masterpiece before, chances are you will now. Could we do the same thing to classic films? Well, the technology to add extraneous enhancements to movies exists. Just check out The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for proof. But like Pride and Prejudice, we’d need to “enhance” films in the public domain if we wanted to get away with it. Fortunately, there are hundreds of such titles (see a list at Wikipedia), some of which actually already have zombies (Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, and in a way the “scientific” film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms). Avoiding the majority of public domain movies already consisting of horror and science fiction elements, we’ve come up with ten great classic films that would be even greater with the addition of zombies. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstin, 1925) New title: Mutinous Zombies of the Battleship Potemkin Synopsis: A Soviet cinema masterpiece, Eisenstein’s film depicts the 1905 uprising of zombies on the titular vessel against the oppressive officers of the Tsarist regime. It begins when soldiers aboard the Potemkin are forced to eat rotten, maggot-infested meat, which turns the men into mutinous zombies. Later, the city of Odessa becomes overwhelmed with undead citizens and the Tsarist military is sent in to massacre them. In the end, though, even the soldiers are converted. Other Eisenstein films, particularly October, may also appropriately receive similar special zombie editions. The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1927) New title: The General and the Zombies Synopsis: Buster Keaton’s greatest silent blockbuster is kind of like the Shaun of the Dead of its time. The film begins with Keaton’s character losing his girlfriend due to his inability to prove he’s not a coward and a bum, but then by happenstance he ends up a hero and, most importantly, salvages his relationship in the process. In this special edition, Johnnie Gray still has to rescue his train (and his girlfriend) from the Union army, but now those Northern spies are zombies. Like the title character in Shaun of the Dead, Johnnie must in one new scene impersonate a zombie in order to fool them. The stone-faced Keaton is a natural for this masquerade, but of course then soldiers on his side mistake him for being a Union zombie, with hilarious consequences. Abraham Lincoln (D.W. Griffith, 1930) New title: Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies Synopsis: Griffith’s biopic about the 16th President of the United States was filled with historical inaccuracies when first released almost 80 years ago. The main complaint? Griffith left out Lincoln’s triumphant one-man battle against a Confederate brigade made up completely of zombie soldiers (yep, the South had them, too). Now, in a special edition release timed to coincide with Honest Abe’s 200th birthday, scenes depicting that battle, as well as a new ending, in which Lincoln recommends the enslavement of zombies, because they are not technically men and therefore are not guaranteed Constitutional freedom, are included. Also, on the DVD: a bonus behind-the-scenes supplement featuring a still-undead Lincoln zombie overseeing the restoration; an exclusive look at Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hat, which he wore to keep zombies from getting at his brains. (The above image of Abe Lincoln, Zombie Hunter is from this t-shirt.) At the Circus (Edward Buzzell, 1939) New title: At the Zombie Circus Synopsis: The Marx Brothers’ films were crazy enough without the addition of zombies, but this late episode from Groucho, Harpo and Chico just wasn’t anarchic enough for their fans. So, now the plot involving the stolen money has been eliminated and the film consists of the three Marx boys trying to stay alive inside a circus tent filled with zombies. There’s a strong man zombie, a dwarf zombie, and then there’s Margaret Dumont, who is so dull Groucho thinks she’s a zombie. Or maybe he just stabs her in the brain for fun? His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) New title: His Girl Zombie Synopsis: Despite the new title, Rosalind Russell is never turned into a zombie. Rather, the zombies are merely in the background, causing even more fast-paced hysterics (yes, they’re the quick sort of zombies that are all the “rage” these days). Actually, at one point Ralph Bellamy’s character is thought to be a zombie, but then it’s realized that as much as he appears to be the walking dead, he’s just too slow to be one of the zombies running around outside the courthouse. Again, His Girl Zombie has something in common with Shaun of the Dead (not to mention Twister), in that it’s another story in which a couple attempts to separate but is thrust back together during a chaotic event. Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) New title: Angel and the Badman and the Zombies Synopsis: In this early precursor to the ‘80s Harrison Ford classic Witness Zombies, John Wayne plays a shootist and womanizer who is wounded near a Quaker family home. Brought in and nursed back to health, he attempts to tame himself after falling for a young Quaker woman. But his desire to become a pacifist is made difficult when brain-hungry zombies attack the house, and he must choose to either commit himself to the Quaker ways and “die” with his new religious society of friends, or go out and kick some zombie ass. D.O.A. (Rudolph Mate, 1950) New title: Z.O.A. Synopsis: The film begins with Frank Bigelow, filmed from behind, entering a police station to report that he’s been murdered. The reason he is able to do this is not because he’s not yet died from the poison; it’s because he is a zombie, which we finally discover when the camera finally shows us his face. The film then goes to flashback and details the events that lead to Bigelow’s zombification. After the back-story is complete, the film returns to the scene in the police station, where cops proceed to shoot Bigelow in the head. His file is then marked “Z.O.A.,” meaning “zombie on arrival.” Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen, 1951) New title: Zombie Wedding Synopsis: Fred Astaire and Jane Powell star as a brother and sister song and dance duo in this musical classic, which features two of Astaire’s most famous scenes. “Zombie Jumps” has him dancing first with a coat rack, then with a corpse, Weekend at Bernie’s-style. The latter of these objects ends up coming to life, a metaphor for Astaire’s famous ability to animate the inanimate. In “You’re All Zombies to Me,” Astaire playfully escapes from the zombie he’s created by dancing on the walls and ceiling of a room. Beat the Devil (John Huston, 1953) New title: Beat the Devil and the Zombies Synopsis: It’s been called the first camp movie, but unfortunately it wasn’t the first camp zombie movie. That all changes now with newly added scenes in which Humphrey Bogart and a great ensemble of character actors, including Peter Lorre, must fight off zombies while killing time at an Italian port. It’s very likely that Huston and co-screenwriter Truman Capote would have no problem with this additional subplot. Anyone familiar with the background of the film knows its makers didn’t take it seriously in the least. Actually, let’s just go ahead and add zombies into every section of the film. Zombies on the boat, zombies in Africa, zombies everywhere. Heck, make Bogie a zombie due to a lack of money. After all, as his character sets it up with the line, “I’ve got to have money. Doctor’s orders are that I must have a lot of money, otherwise I become dull, listless and have trouble with my complexion.” It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) New title: It’s a Zombie Life Synopsis: On Christmas Eve, George Bailey wishes he were a zombie. But before he can find another zombie to bite him, an angel comes down from Heaven and shows him what his life would be like if he were undead. Zombie George infects the whole town of Bedford Falls, all except the wealthy Mr. Potter, who manages to take over the town by enslaving and exploiting the zombified citizens. In the end, George realizes that he’s better off simply shooting himself in the head so that he can’t possibly become a zombie. (Note: It’s a Wonderful Life is actually no longer in the public domain, but we just couldn’t not include it). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:00:51 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com2/4/2009 10:00:51 AMPublisher Quirk Books and author Seth Grahame-Smith have come up with the best way to make a literary work more accessible since the creation of Classics Illustrated comic books: they’ve added “all-new scenes of bone crunching zombie action” to Jane Austen’s 19th century novel Pride and Prejudice. This new version, out in stores this May, is titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance – Now With Ultraviolent Mayhem! And if you didn’t think it was a masterpiece before, chances are you will now. Could we do the same thing to classic films? Well, the technology to add extraneous enhancements to movies exists. Just check out The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for proof. But like Pride and Prejudice, we’d need to “enhance” films in the public domain if we wanted to get away with it. Fortunately, there are hundreds of such titles (see a list at Wikipedia), some of which actually already have zombies (Night of the Living Dead, White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, and in a way the “scientific” film Experiments in the Revival of Organisms). Avoiding the majority of public domain movies already consisting of horror and science fiction elements, we’ve come up with ten great classic films that would be even greater with the addition of zombies. Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstin, 1925) New title: Mutinous Zombies of the Battleship Potemkin Synopsis: A Soviet cinema masterpiece, Eisenstein’s film depicts the 1905 uprising of zombies on the titular vessel against the oppressive officers of the Tsarist regime. It begins when soldiers aboard the Potemkin are forced to eat rotten, maggot-infested meat, which turns the men into mutinous zombies. Later, the city of Odessa becomes overwhelmed with undead citizens and the Tsarist military is sent in to massacre them. In the end, though, even the soldiers are converted. Other Eisenstein films, particularly October, may also appropriately receive similar special zombie editions. The General (Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1927) New title: The General and the Zombies Synopsis: Buster Keaton’s greatest silent blockbuster is kind of like the Shaun of the Dead of its time. The film begins with Keaton’s character losing his girlfriend due to his inability to prove he’s not a coward and a bum, but then by happenstance he ends up a hero and, most importantly, salvages his relationship in the process. In this special edition, Johnnie Gray still has to rescue his train (and his girlfriend) from the Union army, but now those Northern spies are zombies. Like the title character in Shaun of the Dead, Johnnie must in one new scene impersonate a zombie in order to fool them. The stone-faced Keaton is a natural for this masquerade, but of course then soldiers on his side mistake him for being a Union zombie, with hilarious consequences. Abraham Lincoln (D.W. Griffith, 1930) New title: Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies Synopsis: Griffith’s biopic about the 16th President of the United States was filled with historical inaccuracies when first released almost 80 years ago. The main complaint? Griffith left out Lincoln’s triumphant one-man battle against a Confederate brigade made up completely of zombie soldiers (yep, the South had them, too). Now, in a special edition release timed to coincide with Honest Abe’s 200th birthday, scenes depicting that battle, as well as a new ending, in which Lincoln recommends the enslavement of zombies, because they are not technically men and therefore are not guaranteed Constitutional freedom, are included. Also, on the DVD: a bonus behind-the-scenes supplement featuring a still-undead Lincoln zombie overseeing the restoration; an exclusive look at Lincoln’s famous stovepipe hat, which he wore to keep zombies from getting at his brains. (The above image of Abe Lincoln, Zombie Hunter is from this t-shirt.) At the Circus (Edward Buzzell, 1939) New title: At the Zombie Circus Synopsis: The Marx Brothers’ films were crazy enough without the addition of zombies, but this late episode from Groucho, Harpo and Chico just wasn’t anarchic enough for their fans. So, now the plot involving the stolen money has been eliminated and the film consists of the three Marx boys trying to stay alive inside a circus tent filled with zombies. There’s a strong man zombie, a dwarf zombie, and then there’s Margaret Dumont, who is so dull Groucho thinks she’s a zombie. Or maybe he just stabs her in the brain for fun? His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) New title: His Girl Zombie Synopsis: Despite the new title, Rosalind Russell is never turned into a zombie. Rather, the zombies are merely in the background, causing even more fast-paced hysterics (yes, they’re the quick sort of zombies that are all the “rage” these days). Actually, at one point Ralph Bellamy’s character is thought to be a zombie, but then it’s realized that as much as he appears to be the walking dead, he’s just too slow to be one of the zombies running around outside the courthouse. Again, His Girl Zombie has something in common with Shaun of the Dead (not to mention Twister), in that it’s another story in which a couple attempts to separate but is thrust back together during a chaotic event. Angel and the Badman (James Edward Grant, 1947) New title: Angel and the Badman and the Zombies Synopsis: In this early precursor to the ‘80s Harrison Ford classic Witness Zombies, John Wayne plays a shootist and womanizer who is wounded near a Quaker family home. Brought in and nursed back to health, he attempts to tame himself after falling for a young Quaker woman. But his desire to become a pacifist is made difficult when brain-hungry zombies attack the house, and he must choose to either commit himself to the Quaker ways and “die” with his new religious society of friends, or go out and kick some zombie ass. D.O.A. (Rudolph Mate, 1950) New title: Z.O.A. Synopsis: The film begins with Frank Bigelow, filmed from behind, entering a police station to report that he’s been murdered. The reason he is able to do this is not because he’s not yet died from the poison; it’s because he is a zombie, which we finally discover when the camera finally shows us his face. The film then goes to flashback and details the events that lead to Bigelow’s zombification. After the back-story is complete, the film returns to the scene in the police station, where cops proceed to shoot Bigelow in the head. His file is then marked “Z.O.A.,” meaning “zombie on arrival.” Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen, 1951) New title: Zombie Wedding Synopsis: Fred Astaire and Jane Powell star as a brother and sister song and dance duo in this musical classic, which features two of Astaire’s most famous scenes. “Zombie Jumps” has him dancing first with a coat rack, then with a corpse, Weekend at Bernie’s-style. The latter of these objects ends up coming to life, a metaphor for Astaire’s famous ability to animate the inanimate. In “You’re All Zombies to Me,” Astaire playfully escapes from the zombie he’s created by dancing on the walls and ceiling of a room. Beat the Devil (John Huston, 1953) New title: Beat the Devil and the Zombies Synopsis: It’s been called the first camp movie, but unfortunately it wasn’t the first camp zombie movie. That all changes now with newly added scenes in which Humphrey Bogart and a great ensemble of character actors, including Peter Lorre, must fight off zombies while killing time at an Italian port. It’s very likely that Huston and co-screenwriter Truman Capote would have no problem with this additional subplot. Anyone familiar with the background of the film knows its makers didn’t take it seriously in the least. Actually, let’s just go ahead and add zombies into every section of the film. Zombies on the boat, zombies in Africa, zombies everywhere. Heck, make Bogie a zombie due to a lack of money. After all, as his character sets it up with the line, “I’ve got to have money. Doctor’s orders are that I must have a lot of money, otherwise I become dull, listless and have trouble with my complexion.” It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946) New title: It’s a Zombie Life Synopsis: On Christmas Eve, George Bailey wishes he were a zombie. But before he can find another zombie to bite him, an angel comes down from Heaven and shows him what his life would be like if he were undead. Zombie George infects the whole town of Bedford Falls, all except the wealthy Mr. Potter, who manages to take over the town by enslaving and exploiting the zombified citizens. In the end, George realizes that he’s better off simply shooting himself in the head so that he can’t possibly become a zombie. (Note: It’s a Wonderful Life is actually no longer in the public domain, but we just couldn’t not include it). Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/17/36462.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/17/2008 4:01:03 PM
Body: At various turns, Abraham Lincoln (1930), D.W. Griffith’s first and most notorious sound film, comes off as the legendary director’s W.– the story of a simple, silly good ole boy’s rise to the U.S. Presidency. Walter Huston portrays young Abe as a tough but bumbling doof, romantic daydreamer and idle underachiever. Even his bride-to-be, Mary Todd, curses him as a “country baboon” at one point. But the rest of the film illustrates every last Honest Abe tall tale. Well, in that sense, it’s a lot like W., too: When in presidential mode, Huston’s Lincoln is as uncanny a reproduction of a national myth as Josh Brolin’s George W. Bush is of a national disgrace. At other moments, Abraham Lincoln is Griffith’s Nixon, a strong example of a film director tempering his political convictions in order to embrace an unlikely subject. The filmmaker who re-invigorated the Ku Klux Klan with Birth of a Nation treats the Great Emancipator as a complex, admirable character. Early on, Griffith establishes wild young Lincoln as the hardiest fighter, drinker and railsplitter in Illinois. He’s a brash man’s man but gets all goofy and impulsive around his first great love, society girl Anne Rutledge (Una Merkel) . Griffith presents this historically contested relationship (no solid evidence of the affair with married Rutledge exists) as the experience that sobered Abe into mature leadership. Anne’s sudden death from typhoid sends Abe into a depressed stupor from which he emerges sounding like a far-seeing prophet. During Lincoln’s rise as a self-taught Illinois lawyer and legislator, he catches the eye of feisty debutante Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), whose society matchmakers are steering her toward powerhouse Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas. “A lot of people seem to think a man named, uh, Abraham Lincoln is going even further than Mr. Douglas,” Mary says. Her friend shrieks,”Why Mary Todd, have you gone crazy? You compare an unknown cornfield lawyer with a brilliant, cultured gentleman like Stephen A. Douglas?” (This is screenwriting for our times: transparent as a Baggie.) But no one is more down on Lincoln than old Abe himself: “[I] got less property and owe more debts than anybody that ever run for legislature.” When Ms. Todd aggressively pursues him, he panics: “That woman scares me… smart as pepper and pretty, too.” Even at the wedding, when advised to take a drink to calm his nerves, he frets, “My legs are too frightened to pay any attention to liquor.” After triumphing at the famed Lincoln-Douglas debate on the abolition of slavery, Lincoln nevertheless loses the race for Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate to Democratic incumbent Douglas. He remains wracked with self-loathing. “I’m 50 years old… a failure at everything. If I died today, nobody’d ever know I’d lived.” A moment later a Republican party representative reports that the debates have made Lincoln a national figure and asks that he become the party’s candidate for president. Tensions in the South are “boiling over” as Abe puts it, illustrated by a brief scene of a dashing Virginian of Rhett Butler looks and Ashley Wilkes manners exhorting a pro-slavery mob. The man declares personal war on “every abolitionist who dares defile the soil of Old Virginia!” “Who’s that?” says a bystander. “Oh, that’s the actor John Wilkes Booth. He can’t act, but the women don’t know it.” Griffith shows a nice bit of narrative economy by indicating Lincoln’s election victory through a simple, quiet closeup of Mary’s hand scratching out the word “Passenger” on a luggage tag and replacing it with “President” in her dainty script. Abe laughs warmly offscreen, and we see his hand pat Mary’s. “Awww, Mary…” In Abraham Lincoln, the president’s advisers oppose his drumbeat to civil war (like the lefties, moderates and traditional conservatives who questioned Bush’s Iraq War) and attempt to control him (like Bush’s neocon puppetmasters): “Then we agree… that we must yield to the demands of the South and evacuate Fort Sumter. We agree that our president must be firmly guided by us. We must make every effort to control his inexperienced judgment.” Abe’s not having it. He steps up and asserts his role as the decider: “I will shoulder all responsibility,” he says, ordering relief troops to Fort Sumter in preparation for a Confederate assault. Griffith’s, Huston’s and cinematographer Karl Struss’s finest moment in the film lingers on Lincoln’s grave reaction after having just signed a request for 75,000 troops to kick off the war. A daugerrotype come to chilling life. Speaking of: Huston’s resemblance to Lincoln grows more astonishing as he “ages” decades, adopting the famous jawline beard and stovepipe hat. (Good thing, since, in an early scene where Abe seduces Ms. Rutledge, Huston wears heavy silent movie eyeliner and lipstick that evoke his granddaughter Anjelica Huston circa 1988.) The screen Mary Todd Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant are also shocking photocopies of the originals. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as one of Griffith’s worst films because of its stilted dawn-of-the-talkies dialogue and staging, but I found it to be at least as dynamic and diverting a political cartoon as Oliver Stone’s latest historical tossed salad. Kill the sound and you’ll catch some signature Griffith moments of visual play, like the montage of marching boots, cavalry and cannons assembling for war in an insane rush. His whip pans to visual punchlines pack as much wit and electricity as John Ford’s. Griffith’s legacy lies in these scattered contributions to film grammar and the art of historical pageantry, not his politics or historical accuracy. Oliver Stone is staring at a similar, enviable fate. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:01:03 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/17/2008 4:01:03 PM At various turns, Abraham Lincoln (1930), D.W. Griffith’s first and most notorious sound film, comes off as the legendary director’s W.– the story of a simple, silly good ole boy’s rise to the U.S. Presidency. Walter Huston portrays young Abe as a tough but bumbling doof, romantic daydreamer and idle underachiever. Even his bride-to-be, Mary Todd, curses him as a “country baboon” at one point. But the rest of the film illustrates every last Honest Abe tall tale. Well, in that sense, it’s a lot like W., too: When in presidential mode, Huston’s Lincoln is as uncanny a reproduction of a national myth as Josh Brolin’s George W. Bush is of a national disgrace. At other moments, Abraham Lincoln is Griffith’s Nixon, a strong example of a film director tempering his political convictions in order to embrace an unlikely subject. The filmmaker who re-invigorated the Ku Klux Klan with Birth of a Nation treats the Great Emancipator as a complex, admirable character. Early on, Griffith establishes wild young Lincoln as the hardiest fighter, drinker and railsplitter in Illinois. He’s a brash man’s man but gets all goofy and impulsive around his first great love, society girl Anne Rutledge (Una Merkel) . Griffith presents this historically contested relationship (no solid evidence of the affair with married Rutledge exists) as the experience that sobered Abe into mature leadership. Anne’s sudden death from typhoid sends Abe into a depressed stupor from which he emerges sounding like a far-seeing prophet. During Lincoln’s rise as a self-taught Illinois lawyer and legislator, he catches the eye of feisty debutante Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), whose society matchmakers are steering her toward powerhouse Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas. “A lot of people seem to think a man named, uh, Abraham Lincoln is going even further than Mr. Douglas,” Mary says. Her friend shrieks,”Why Mary Todd, have you gone crazy? You compare an unknown cornfield lawyer with a brilliant, cultured gentleman like Stephen A. Douglas?” (This is screenwriting for our times: transparent as a Baggie.) But no one is more down on Lincoln than old Abe himself: “[I] got less property and owe more debts than anybody that ever run for legislature.” When Ms. Todd aggressively pursues him, he panics: “That woman scares me… smart as pepper and pretty, too.” Even at the wedding, when advised to take a drink to calm his nerves, he frets, “My legs are too frightened to pay any attention to liquor.” After triumphing at the famed Lincoln-Douglas debate on the abolition of slavery, Lincoln nevertheless loses the race for Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate to Democratic incumbent Douglas. He remains wracked with self-loathing. “I’m 50 years old… a failure at everything. If I died today, nobody’d ever know I’d lived.” A moment later a Republican party representative reports that the debates have made Lincoln a national figure and asks that he become the party’s candidate for president. Tensions in the South are “boiling over” as Abe puts it, illustrated by a brief scene of a dashing Virginian of Rhett Butler looks and Ashley Wilkes manners exhorting a pro-slavery mob. The man declares personal war on “every abolitionist who dares defile the soil of Old Virginia!” “Who’s that?” says a bystander. “Oh, that’s the actor John Wilkes Booth. He can’t act, but the women don’t know it.” Griffith shows a nice bit of narrative economy by indicating Lincoln’s election victory through a simple, quiet closeup of Mary’s hand scratching out the word “Passenger” on a luggage tag and replacing it with “President” in her dainty script. Abe laughs warmly offscreen, and we see his hand pat Mary’s. “Awww, Mary…” In Abraham Lincoln, the president’s advisers oppose his drumbeat to civil war (like the lefties, moderates and traditional conservatives who questioned Bush’s Iraq War) and attempt to control him (like Bush’s neocon puppetmasters): “Then we agree… that we must yield to the demands of the South and evacuate Fort Sumter. We agree that our president must be firmly guided by us. We must make every effort to control his inexperienced judgment.” Abe’s not having it. He steps up and asserts his role as the decider: “I will shoulder all responsibility,” he says, ordering relief troops to Fort Sumter in preparation for a Confederate assault. Griffith’s, Huston’s and cinematographer Karl Struss’s finest moment in the film lingers on Lincoln’s grave reaction after having just signed a request for 75,000 troops to kick off the war. A daugerrotype come to chilling life. Speaking of: Huston’s resemblance to Lincoln grows more astonishing as he “ages” decades, adopting the famous jawline beard and stovepipe hat. (Good thing, since, in an early scene where Abe seduces Ms. Rutledge, Huston wears heavy silent movie eyeliner and lipstick that evoke his granddaughter Anjelica Huston circa 1988.) The screen Mary Todd Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant are also shocking photocopies of the originals. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as one of Griffith’s worst films because of its stilted dawn-of-the-talkies dialogue and staging, but I found it to be at least as dynamic and diverting a political cartoon as Oliver Stone’s latest historical tossed salad. Kill the sound and you’ll catch some signature Griffith moments of visual play, like the montage of marching boots, cavalry and cannons assembling for war in an insane rush. His whip pans to visual punchlines pack as much wit and electricity as John Ford’s. Griffith’s legacy lies in these scattered contributions to film grammar and the art of historical pageantry, not his politics or historical accuracy. Oliver Stone is staring at a similar, enviable fate. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/cinemarian/archive/2008/5/12/28614.aspxPost By: CinemaRian
Post To: CinemaRian Blog
Post Date: 5/12/2008 11:48:45 AM
Body: Okay, let's get one thing out of the way at the beginning- this not one of the fifty worst films ever made. The two guys who said that were total losers. Another thing the movie definitely is not is anything approaching historically accurate. D.W. Griffith was known for his, uh, biased interpretation of history before in such films as The Birth of a Nation. That film would lead to believe that this would be a film about the 16th President from a Southern perspective, but you'd be wrong. This is a saintly biopic in the tradition of Ghandi, but a lot shorter and less boring. Luckily, we also never get to see Lincoln in a loincloth. I don't know that much about the Antibellum and Civil War eras of American history, but what I do know is enough to tell me that this film was written to work as melodramatic fantasy instead of a real statement about historical events. In other words, this is the way 1930's audiences wanted to see that period- as a war about secession instead of slavery, everybody is honorable (Lee and Grant are both portrayed on the same ethical level), and we get slaves cheering for the South to win. On the positive side, Lincoln (Walter Huston) is portrayed as the near saint American myth would have us believe. Make no mistake, Lincoln was a great guy (probably supporting racial equality a lot more than he let on), but he wasn't Jesus. Because this old-fashioned Griffith melodrama, we get a lot of contrived scenes, but because of the talent of the director, a lot of them work. The ten minuets or so, concerning Lincoln's birth and as a good ol' boy (in Illinois?) don't work and are grating. But as Lincoln begin a fling with his first love, Ann Rutledge (Una Merkle), the Griffith magic takes over, and we get drawn in. It's genuinely sad when Ann dies, and (to the film anyway) it's too bad that Abe gets hitched with Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), who is portrayed as a real bitch. We feel Lincoln's anguish at the hard war descions, are (like the real Lincoln, for once) marvel at his ability to be an essentially kind person in the most dire possible circumstances. I have long stated that D.W. Griffith is the only director who found a way to make the essentially un cinematic Civil War look exciting. Many of the battle scenes are truly breathtaking. Griffith is one of those rare directors like Spielberg or Peter Jackson who are so proficient in the language of film that, regardless of content, it is always a pleasure to merely watch the film unfolding on the formal level. This being a D.W. Griffith film about the Civil War there are some ethical problems- although not explicit like Birth of a Nation, this film is implicitly racist. The black characters are all portrayed (obviously) by white actors in black face, and history has thankfully recorded that the conflict was not a just about a political disagreement, but an ethical one, as well. There are some other problems, as well- the acting is at times dated, some scenes are hard to believe, others are over the top, and some are both. But if you follow Griffith on his fantasy of American history, this a rewarding film. Modern audiences can only do that to a limited extend. I am a liberal and was bothered some of the content of this film, but I am also white. I think African American viewers might find this whole movie to be complete garbage, and not be able to look past its ethical problems like I was. Abraham Lincoln (1930)
]]>Mon, 12 May 2008 15:48:45 GMTCinemaRianCinemaRian Blog5/12/2008 11:48:45 AM Okay, let's get one thing out of the way at the beginning- this not one of the fifty worst films ever made. The two guys who said that were total losers. Another thing the movie definitely is not is anything approaching historically accurate. D.W. Griffith was known for his, uh, biased interpretation of history before in such films as The Birth of a Nation. That film would lead to believe that this would be a film about the 16th President from a Southern perspective, but you'd be wrong. This is a saintly biopic in the tradition of Ghandi, but a lot shorter and less boring. Luckily, we also never get to see Lincoln in a loincloth. I don't know that much about the Antibellum and Civil War eras of American history, but what I do know is enough to tell me that this film was written to work as melodramatic fantasy instead of a real statement about historical events. In other words, this is the way 1930's audiences wanted to see that period- as a war about secession instead of slavery, everybody is honorable (Lee and Grant are both portrayed on the same ethical level), and we get slaves cheering for the South to win. On the positive side, Lincoln (Walter Huston) is portrayed as the near saint American myth would have us believe. Make no mistake, Lincoln was a great guy (probably supporting racial equality a lot more than he let on), but he wasn't Jesus. Because this old-fashioned Griffith melodrama, we get a lot of contrived scenes, but because of the talent of the director, a lot of them work. The ten minuets or so, concerning Lincoln's birth and as a good ol' boy (in Illinois?) don't work and are grating. But as Lincoln begin a fling with his first love, Ann Rutledge (Una Merkle), the Griffith magic takes over, and we get drawn in. It's genuinely sad when Ann dies, and (to the film anyway) it's too bad that Abe gets hitched with Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), who is portrayed as a real bitch. We feel Lincoln's anguish at the hard war descions, are (like the real Lincoln, for once) marvel at his ability to be an essentially kind person in the most dire possible circumstances. I have long stated that D.W. Griffith is the only director who found a way to make the essentially un cinematic Civil War look exciting. Many of the battle scenes are truly breathtaking. Griffith is one of those rare directors like Spielberg or Peter Jackson who are so proficient in the language of film that, regardless of content, it is always a pleasure to merely watch the film unfolding on the formal level. This being a D.W. Griffith film about the Civil War there are some ethical problems- although not explicit like Birth of a Nation, this film is implicitly racist. The black characters are all portrayed (obviously) by white actors in black face, and history has thankfully recorded that the conflict was not a just about a political disagreement, but an ethical one, as well. There are some other problems, as well- the acting is at times dated, some scenes are hard to believe, others are over the top, and some are both. But if you follow Griffith on his fantasy of American history, this a rewarding film. Modern audiences can only do that to a limited extend. I am a liberal and was bothered some of the content of this film, but I am also white. I think African American viewers might find this whole movie to be complete garbage, and not be able to look past its ethical problems like I was. Abraham Lincoln (1930) http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/war/MemberTagFilms.aspxwar
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