Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #27: Lincoln (2012)

Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln was one of his long-running projects. Earlier on, it was to be a more general biopic with Liam Neeson as the famed Abraham Lincoln. By the time it finally swung into proper production, however, Neeson dropped out and Daniel Day-Lewis took his place. Wisely, Spielberg also abandoned the idea of a film covering years, if not decades, of Lincoln’s life, a common mistake of biopics that results in unfocused, hole-ridden storylines. Instead he zeroed in on the president’s attempt to get the 13^th Amendment passed in the House of Representatives.

The 13^th Amendment was to end slavery once and for all in the United States. It was the culmination of years of policy development during the Civil War. Though he hated slavery, Lincoln knew he could not abolish it and instead had supported the Republican Party’s views of preventing its expansion into new territories. As the war progressed, however, the Union Army and Federal government could not ignore the fact that slave labor fueled the Confederacy, so runaway slaves were accepted as “contraband” enemy property. By 1865 many now believed that slavery had to be abolished, whether out of moral concerns or the pragmatic belief that it would result in more strife down the road.

The 13^th Amendment is opposed by various Democrats and some of the more conservative Republicans. A greater threat is a Confederate peace commission. If slavery’s continued existence in a restored Union ensures that a long, bloody war can finally end right now, many in the House will see the 13^th as a guaranteed war to keep the body count going. Many historians disputed the central conflict of Lincoln, arguing that there was no way slavery could remain intact after the Civil War, even if the amendment initially failed to pass.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #24: Gangs of New York (2002)

 

Gangs of New York is based on, or rather inspired by, journalist Herbert Asbury’s 1928 book of the same name. It was one of Martin Scorsese’s many long-running passion projects, and he allegedly spent over 20 years developing his ideas and then finally filming it. Scorsese was drawn to the criminal underworld of the 19^th century, a subject often ignored in favor of the Old West or the wider political movements and conflicts such as the Civil War. He saw a real conflict over the direction of the country. The director was ultimately unsatisfied with the final product, as producer Harvey Weinstein forced cuts (Scorsese is known for his looong running times). Weinstein also oversaw the addition of voiceover narration by Leonardo DiCaprio which is often unnecessary.

Still, this is probably the only major film to touch on a lot of aspects of 19^th Century urban life and was intended as a springboard for a new subgenre of crime and historical films (it was not to be). Scorsese really wanted to show the breadth of 19^th Century New York, so there are anachronisms. The movie is clearly set in 1862-1863, the Civil War being a major background event that eventually intrudes on the characters’ gang war. However, the Nativist movement was much stronger in the 1850s. While immigration was still a major social and political issue, the organized Nativists, expressed by the Native American Party, lost their steam as the sectional conflict took over. On the opposite end, Boss Tweed and his powerful and corrupt Tammany Hall Democrat machine didn’t kick into gear until after the Civil War. Here he’s a major player from the get-go, played by Jim Broadbent.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #4: The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

 

The Last of the Mohicans is the best known of James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper was the first American novelist to achieve international popularity, and for an author writing in the early 19^th Century was notably fait and complex in portraying American Indian characters, though sometimes slipping into noble savage tropes. Last of the Mohicans has been widely adapted onto screen, but Michael Mann’s 1992 offering is the most popular and enduring, thanks to its great cast, good music by Trevor Jones, and well-shot scenery.

The setting is the French and Indian War, which was a colonial theater of the global Seven Years War. The British and French fought each other with a mix of regular troops, militia, and Indian allies. Last of the Mohicans in particular focuses on events around the Siege of Fort William Henry. Colonel Edmund Monro put up a dogged defense against the Franco-Native force under General Louis-Joseph Montcalm. Reinforcements failed to arrive, so Munro surrendered under generous terms from Montcalm. However, the French’s Indian allies then set upon the disarmed soldiers and the civilians (women and children included), massacring them in one of the most controversial moments of the war.

Americas 250th Birthday Cinemathon #3: The Crucible (1996)

 

The Crucible is an adaptation of American playwright Arthur Miller’s work of the same name. The plot focuses on the hysteria and questionable trials surrounding the witch scare in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Arthur Miller used the historical event as an allegory for McCarthyism in the 1950s, with falsely accused witches representing the falsely accused Communists (as it turns out, intercepted Soviet correspondence and the opening of more material in Russian archives has proved that most of these people were indeed Communists or in league with them, but that’s not the focus on this review).

Arthur Miller actually wrote the adapted screenplay, making some changes here and there (whether of his own accord or the director's I don't know). Of course, the movie allows the actual recreation of the old Puritan town of Salem, though this is still very much an actor-driven dialogue affair. The movie starts Reverend Samuel Parris (Bruce Davison) coming upon his niece Abigail Williams (Wynona Ryder) and the other town girls performing an African ritual with the help of slave woman Tituba. Desperate not to be convicted of witchcraft, Abigail (with a lot of help from the other girls) desperately put all the blame on Tituba, then start accusing other citizens, mostly older women, of having interactions with the Devil.