Lincoln movie summary

Lincoln is a biographical war drama movie that is based on events during the life of the 16th president of the United StatesAbraham Lincoln. Lincoln tells about President Abraham Lincoln during Januaryin his efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the United States House of Representatives, which would finally ban slavery in the country, lincoln movie summary. Expecting the Civil War to end within a month but concerned that lincoln movie summary Emancipation Proclamation may be rejected by the courts once the war has stopped and the clima springfield Amendment defeated by the returning slave states.

Sign In Sign In. New Customer? Create account. Jump to Summaries 5 Synopsis 1 Edit. As the Civil War rages on, U. S President Abraham Lincoln struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on his decision to emancipate the slaves. In , as the American Civil War winds inexorably toward conclusion, U.

Lincoln movie summary

S teven Spielberg has made more obviously entertaining and more emotionally seductive movies than Lincoln , but this is for him the most brave and, for the audience, most demanding picture in the 40 years since his emergence as a major director. It's a film about statesmanship, politics, the creation of the world's greatest democracy, and it's concerned with what we can learn from the study and contemplation of history. Spielberg and his eloquent screenwriter, the playwright Tony Kushner, handle these themes with flair, imagination and vitality, and Daniel Day-Lewis embodies them with an indelible intelligence as the 16th president of the United States. Lincoln begins a year before the end of the civil war with the movie's only battle scene. It's a minute of the bloody, hand-to-hand combat at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas, that by a brilliant piece of editing legerdemain is transformed into two black soldiers recalling the battle while talking to Lincoln about the future of the Union. The scene establishes the rock-like physical presence of the war-weary president, his warmth, modesty and humanity. The picture concludes a year later with a non-triumphalist coda that follows five days after Confederate general Robert E Lee's surrender. With immense adroitness Spielberg avoids the high drama of the actual assassination at Ford's theatre on 14 April , showing us the news being broken to Lincoln's young son, Tad, at another theatre and then bringing us to Lincoln's deathbed where secretary of war Edwin Stanton pronounces the celebrated epitaph: "Now he belongs to the ages" though he might actually have said "to the angels". This is followed by a brief concluding flashback to Lincoln's second inaugural address a month earlier, with its cautious message of hope and realism. The heart of the film is a few weeks in January in an overcast wintry Washington between Lincoln's second election and his inauguration. In this brief moment of opportunity he's faced with a crucial decision. Should he end this bloody war, one of the most costly, bitter and divisive in modern history, by a compromising peace with the Confederate enemy?

Congressman Vintner welcomes the black guests. New York. Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner.

The Goodwin book is searchable through Google here. The time period covered by the film occupies only about ten pages of the book pp. The final script from Kushner is available in full text from Dreamworks here. And below you will find a scene-by-scene summary of the script prepared by House Divided Project Director Matthew Pinsker. You can also download a printable version of this summary here. Then it shows two free black soldiers conversing with a seated President Lincoln during a cold, wet evening. They are joined by two nervous, young, white soldiers, who soon begin a revealing discussion about the Gettysburg Address.

The film focuses on Lincoln's efforts in January to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude by having the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives. Filming began October 17, , [9] and ended on December 19, Lincoln was acclaimed by critics, who lauded its acting especially Day-Lewis's , Spielberg's direction, and its production values. He is concerned that his Emancipation Proclamation may be discarded by the courts after the war and that the proposed Thirteenth Amendment will be defeated by the returning slave states. He feels it imperative to pass the amendment beforehand, to foreclose any possibility that freed slaves might be re-enslaved. The Radical Republicans fear the amendment will be defeated by some who wish to delay its passage; support from Republicans in the states is not yet assured. The amendment also requires the support of several Democratic congressmen to pass. With dozens of Democrats being lame ducks after losing their re-election campaigns in , some of Lincoln's advisors believe he should wait for a new Republican-heavy Congress.

Lincoln movie summary

I've rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. He had less than a year of formal education and taught himself through his hungry reading of great books. I still recall from a childhood book the image of him taking a piece of charcoal and working out mathematics by writing on the back of a shovel. Lincoln lacked social polish but he had great intelligence and knowledge of human nature. The hallmark of the man, performed so powerfully by Daniel Day-Lewis in "Lincoln," is calm self-confidence, patience and a willingness to play politics in a realistic way. The film focuses on the final months of Lincoln's life, including the passage of the 13th Amendment ending slavery, the surrender of the Confederacy and his assassination.

Fox 26 tv schedule houston

Given this outstanding success, why did the internationalization thrust of the late s and early s fail? Authority control databases : National United States. September 10, The Huffington Post. Lincoln must. He views Lincoln as the best guy for the job, the number one President. Recently viewed. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Retrieved June 19, Lincoln Movie Accuracy. History News Network. Having great courage, acumen and moral fortitude, Lincoln pushes forward to compel the nation, and those in government who oppose him, to aim toward a greater good for all mankind. Part Outside Petersburg, VA, daytime Lincoln moves along on horseback past dead bodies that litter a recent battlefield. While consulting on a Steven Spielberg project in , Goodwin told Spielberg she was planning to write Team of Rivals , and Spielberg immediately told her he wanted the film rights. In other projects.

Sign In Sign In. New Customer? Create account.

In , he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Or should he make a final attempt to persuade the House of Representatives to reverse an earlier decision and enact the 13th Amendment to the constitution? Retrieved March 7, I've rarely been more aware than during Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" that Abraham Lincoln was a plain-spoken, practical, down-to-earth man from the farmlands of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. This is, in other words, less a biopic than a political thriller, a civics lesson that is energetically staged and alive with moral energy. New York. It's a minute of the bloody, hand-to-hand combat at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas, that by a brilliant piece of editing legerdemain is transformed into two black soldiers recalling the battle while talking to Lincoln about the future of the Union. Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens. In , as the American Civil War winds inexorably toward conclusion, U. Before he could continue to make a bigger impact on the nation, President Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, In the film, the passage of the amendment is guided by William Seward David Strathairn , his secretary of state, and by Rep. Congressman James Ashley and Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax are with the president talking about his recent comments on the possibility of allowing blacks to vote. Seward about the problem of Democrats. Hearst Communications.