Spielberg to direct Lincoln Biopic in 2009

The book Team of Rivals is incredible. It's premise is that Abraham is a "political genius" because he put all four of his Republican primary opponents from 1860 in his cabinet. That way, he was able to appeal to the abolitionists by appointing Salmon Chase, the moderates by appointing William Seward, and the conservatives in the border states by appointing Attorney General Edward Bates (and also Montgomery Blair of the Maryland Blairs, whose father Francis was the publisher of Andrew Jackson's very successful newspaper, the Washington Globe, and whose brother at the time was not only a colorful Congressman from Missouri, but also a successful Union general (at the same time). It's really a "multiple biography", but Abraham Lincoln, who went from spending a dirty winter in the wilderness as a young boy abandoned by his widower father to what Tolstoy calls the greatest historical figure ever in the whole of human history (paraphrase), was the central character. His entire legal education was from studying books by himself. He could not afford to go to school, but he knew how to tell stories. Reagan was not as great a communicator as this man. He had an anecdote for every situation, and they were all sticky.

Did you every press the send button on an email or a DU post and live to regret it? Lincoln had the same temptation with telegraphs, but he was a master at tempering his tone in order to get things done.

One guy complained to Lincoln and said Secretary Stanton called him a "jackass" (I think that was th word, or something like it). Lincoln laughed and said, "I guess that means I am a jackass", much to the consternation of the petitioner who hoped to use that for leverage in order to get something he wanted.

I read almost 800 pages of Team of Rivals in four days. Every other sentence is documented by 100 pages of end notes from real historical documents, mostly letters and telegraphs.

Tony Kushner (Munich, Angels in America) will adapt the screenplay
Sally Field will play Mary Todd Lincoln (rumored)

There is talk about Harrison Ford playing VP Lincoln, whose drunk speech at the 1864 inaugural is pretty much his only scene in the book, but I can't seem to find the original source.

So the debate begins, who should play whom?

Paul Giamatti for Salmon P Chase?
Tom Cruise for George McLellan?
Russel Crowe for Ulysses S Grant?
Sam Elliot for Robert E. Lee? (I don't know)
Ben Foster for John Wilkes Booth?
Ana Paquin for Kate Chase?

Salmon's daughter and primary political advisor- "the most beautiful woman in Washington", whose wedding was at the White House, and whose dominance of Washington society really pissed off poor Mary Todd Lincoln, who herself spent at least a year dressed in black because of the death of her son Tad in the White House? (She ended up in a mental institution late in life).

Other roles: Frederick Douglas, George Tecumseh Sherman, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (both have great beards), Jefferson Davis, Attorney General Edward Bates, Francis Blair, Francis Jr. and Montgomery Blair.

Apparently, Larry Carter, whose biggest role to date is a secret service agent in National Treasure: Book of Secrets, is to play Secretary of State Seward, who was the front runner in the 1860 Republican primary and later became Lincoln's closest political advisor.

Here is the New York Times Book Review of it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/books/review/06mcpherson.html




There is much debate to be had about Lincoln. On the imdb forum, they want to know about the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and the fact that Lincoln made statements early on that he did not think that blacks and whites were equal.

Do ends justify the means? Maybe, maybe not. It was the bloodiest war in history.

Personally, I think that if he did not "appease" some of the pro-slavery (or at least the anti-abolitionists) for a time, he would go down in history closer to the free soiler Salmon Chase, whose contribution was immense, but whose reputation is more of a clown, than anything else. A clown with a big, very sad frown painted on his face.

It's politics. According to David Simon, of HBO's the Wire, being right or wrong is not very interesting. That can be pretty boring, because it's too easy to get shut down. It's about how things are done. Economics, Sociology - that kind of thing. I think Lincoln was just saying that stuff about the races because if he didn't, he would lose the war and slavery might never be abolished. I don't think that should completely negate that he not only wrote the Emancipation Proclamation, but he made it into law.

I also don't think that Lincoln should be blamed because racial tension didn't exactly go away, and the failure of reconstruction was a tragedy. He had a plan for reconstruction. Something that sounded really good. But he was shot and killed while some of the battles were still waging in the western states. If he had been around, IMHO, things could have been so much better. What a loss.

Anyway, this is one hell of a debate for an Entertainment folder. Feel free to move this thread around mods(American History? Books Non-Fiction? Classic Films?).

I'm excited as hell to look forward to this movie. I'm a certified civil war buff after reading that book.

5 years of war (plus back story) in 3 hours? A dozen or so major characters? 800 pages, with four to five historical document references quoted on each page?

Making it into a trilogy kind of trivializes the war, though. It shouldn't be treated like Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars, all due respect.

BTW, these are thoughts that come out of my head. It is a very controversial subject. I do not wish to offend anyone by any of my posts. If I do offend, please allow me the opportunity to defend myself. I'd be happy to admit when I'm wrong. Feel free to point that out.

Cheers

You can't cover it all, a filmmaker or writer always has to figure out what they want to tell. They isn't a lot of art in globbing everything all together in a massive volume. Spielberg is such an awesome filmmaker, I'm sure he has a plan. But I don't foresee a trilogy either. He just can't bloat one film to the point where it becomes an inane story.

No Ordinary Time recently. It was about the Roosevelts in World War II. Very interesting.

Now I will read her book about Lincoln. Thanks for your post.

I wish someone would do a really good book and movie about Washington. I think he's the least known of our great presidents.

and find out for yourself

Warm Regards,

Erik B. Anderson
Independence Township, New Jersey
Established 1782

my apologies