Film Metadata:
Title: Lincoln
Year: 2012
Producers: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy
I have a copy of the film on DVD that I watched.
The film was based in part on the 2005 biography of Abraham Lincoln Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. In the biography, Goodwin used both primary and secondary sources in writing the book.
Big Themes:
The film Lincoln focuses on the last four months of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency and life and focus on the major themes of the ending of the Civil War and the passage of the 13th Amendment by Congress to abolish slavery. The film depicts various events that took place between January and April 1865 including Lincoln’s visit to the Petersburg, Virginia battlefield on April 3rd, Lincoln’s meeting with representatives of the Confederate government on April 2nd, the debate in the House of Representatives over the passage of the 13th Amendment, and the vote in the House of Representatives on January 31st where the 13th Amendment was approved by Congress. Many of the key scenes in the film, such as the one where the 13th Amendment was passed by the House of Representatives, are considered to be accurate representations of the historical events they depict based on primary source accounts of the events. The film is also considered to be historically accurate in the characterization of Abraham Lincoln. The film accurately captures Lincoln’s personality, mannerisms, and style of speaking based on the first hand accounts of the people that actually met and knew Lincoln. The one part of Lincoln that is not entirely historically accurate is the introduction of the 13th Amendment to Congress. The film gives the impression that it was Lincoln who first proposed the 13th Amendment and that it was first brought to the House of Representatives in January 1865. While Lincoln was undoubtedly a major supporter of the 13th Amendment and campaigned vigorously to get support for the amendment in the House of Representatives, Lincoln did not create the 13th Amendment nor was it first introduced in the House of Representatives in January 1865. What the film leaves out is the fact that the 13th Amendment had originally been introduced in Congress the previous year and on June 15, 1864, had actually failed to get the required votes to pass the House of Representatives. However, this even with this one historical inconsistency, the film is overall mostly historically accurate.
Key Moments:
2. The second moment begins around 2:05:16 and depicts Lincoln meeting with Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens aboard the River Queen to discuss peace and an end to the Civil War. This moment is important to the major themes of the film because in this moment Lincoln tells Stephens that for the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union they need to ratify the 13th Amendment and that slavery is over in the United States. It is in this moment that Lincoln reinforces the notion that slavery will no longer be legal and that the South will no longer be able to depend on the labor of enslaved African-Americans.
