Reel History 11: Abraham Lincoln In The Movies

Abraham Lincoln was, and this is hardly debatable, the greatest president in the history of the United States. Some polls say Reagan, but those polls, and those who voted for Reagan on them, are wrong. Lincoln exists in Americana as the anti-Richard Nixon: he was a virtuous, honest, wonderful man and is celebrated for it, whereas Nixon was a mean, spiteful liar who was out for one man and one man only- Richard Nixon. These two presidents have been depicted on film more than any others, but the stories told about them couldn't be more different (more on Nixon later).

Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809, was a self-educated country lawyer at a time when law was a profession that accepted self-made men. He became a Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, then a one-time member of the House of Representatives, but was denied the trifecta by rival Stephen Douglas, who defeated him in the 1858 run for the Senate; Lincoln did, however, win over the heart of the object of Douglas' affection, Mary Todd, so really, Lincoln got his (ok, ok, they were married all the way back in 1842, so maybe Douglas was the one exacting revenge). He did eventually win the highest office in the country, so who needs the Senate, really? But upon Lincoln's election in 1860, slave-holding states started seceding one after another in quick succession, fearing the president would free their property and violate their 'state rights' (used as an excuse to glorify the South even to this day, sadly). This divided the nation and laid the groundwork for the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 and the beginning of the Civil War. Lincoln wouldn't get to see the reformation of the union he worked so hard to achieve; he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 15, 1865, six days after Robert E. Lee and the Confederate army surrendered, and 25 days before the war formally ended.

Lincoln's story is this- virtue, hard work, and honesty, in office and out, will get you ahead; and while slyness and cruelty will also get you ahead, the former gets you hagiographies and enduring love, not demonization and hate. But hey, Nixon gambled and lost. History will see to that.

D.W. Griffith's Abraham Lincoln (1930) is one of the earliest movies about President Lincoln (but not the earliest; the first was made all the way back in 1909), and it tries to leave no stone unturned telling the story. The history of slavery, the Civil War, Lincoln's love life- everything is covered in a series of thinly connected scenes, some of which are in sound, some silent. It's odd for Griffith to cover Lincoln in such a sympathetic manner, considering he's the man who directed Birth of a Nation, a movie that glorified the Ku Klux Klan, but he does it. It's not a movie that holds up all that well, however, and is mostly boring and relatively plotless. Note that Lincoln is played by Walter Huston, who was also Mr. Scratch (a.k.a the Devil) in The Devil and Daniel Webster.



John Ford fared better in his 1939 movie Young Mr.

Lincoln, which starred the gangly Henry Fonda as Lincoln. As the title suggests, the movie follows Abe during his formative years as a lawyer, mostly in a fictional context. Lincoln in this movie isn't just virtuous, he's the best darn Illinoisan the state ever spit out- he's judging a pie eating contest, winning a rail splitting competition, and cracking up a jury with his hilarious antics. The movie surrounds a fictitious court case involving a fight and murder, with justice winning in the end. One thing that all four movies I watched make a point of including (to various degrees of success) is Lincoln's easy-going and joke-telling nature. He loved to make people laugh and tell stories, and that's partly why he was beloved by the citizens. The rather grim visage you see in pictures is often the result of both the Civil War and his family life wearing him down, but by all accounts he was a rather light-hearted and friendly person.


The movie (also Abraham Lincoln) includes the dubious detail of Ann Rutledge, Lincoln's supposed first love and his motivation for going into law. It's fierce debate whether or not she and Lincoln had a thing, but apparently it was first revealed after the assassination in 1865 by Lincoln's law partner William Herndon. Herndon hated Mary Todd Lincoln, and told the story much to her dismay, so it's possible it's fake, or at least embellished.

Steven Spielberg's appropriately named film Lincoln covers at least some of the part not covered by Ford. It's also probably the definitive Lincoln movie, one that, however you feel about biopics, manages to convey his true character and the problems he faced dealing with the Civil War and at home. The movie is about the last four months of both the Civil War and his life, as he tried to pass the 13th Amendment through the House before his second term was to begin and the country was to eventually be reunited (with the slave states back in the Union). This amendment would formally abolish slavery, as the Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier was not law but a wartime measure and could easily be overturned by the court once the war was over. The movie is loosely based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, so Lincoln's genius is first and foremost in this movie. I may have denigrated Nixon's craftiness up there, but Lincoln had his fair share of it. The difference is Lincoln used it to free the slaves before time ran out and it became a fruitless pursuit; Nixon used it to maintain an iron fist over the White House, get re-elected, and bomb Cambodia.

With Lincoln, Spielberg may have directed the best movie about the man ever, and Daniel Day-Lewis the best performance. I know it's not saying much considering, but it's a wonderful, interesting biopic in a mostly maligned genre.

2012 truly was the year of super accurate Lincoln biopics, continuing with the supremely stupid Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Benjamin Walker is the Lincoln here, looking more like a young Liam Neeson than the sixteenth president, and he uses his rail splitting powers (under the most BS of pretenses) to hunt... vampires. Turns out, the Confederates were using slaves as a source for blood! And there's a Linkin Park song played over the credits. That should tell you everything you need to know about this movie. Seriously, it's infuriating how much this movie sucks.

Covered in tons of crappy CGI blood, this telling of Lincoln is clearly trying to be some kind of pulpy, stupid action movie, but there's too much weird self-importance that comes with taking such a beloved individual and hewing very close to the events of his real life while at the same time having him fight vampires. There's something incredibly off about having the Gettysburg Address recited over Union soldiers killing vampires at the Battle of Gettysburg. But what's even worse is using the death of his son Willie, and the grief he and Mary suffered, as some cheap emotional moment. Mary Todd's mental breakdown after the death of Willie was real; the vampire that killed him was not.

And that's why I hope they stop taking real history and trying to make it 'awesome'. Lincoln's life is already awesome enough, full of pathos, meaning, and moving stories- what good does it do to try and turn him into a superhero? It's completely unnecessary and at times, down right disrespectful.

There are tons more Lincoln-y things: he's been played by Robert V. Barron in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure,  Gregory Peck in a 1982 TV movie called The Blue and the Grey, and by Sam Waterston in not one, but TWO different TV shows. He's been portrayed in Bioshock Infinite and Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Doctor Who. He's pretty much everywhere, and that's because he's the virtuous president.

If you stripped all partisan politics out of the question, Lincoln would hands down be polled the greatest American president, and no poll saying otherwise will ever take away his status in politics or culture. Can you imagine Reagan traveling with Bill and Ted?

NEXT TIME: Looking at the Civil War a little more closely with Glory and Ride with the Devil.