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Lincoln on Film |
| Section: THE ARTS / FILM |
| Author: Frank Thompson |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1993 |
| Size: 2,028 Words, 11,891 Characters |
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In director John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), our first glimpse of the Great Emancipator is as a gangly youth dressed in homespun clothes, rough boots, and suspenders. As he sits waiting for a fellow Whig candidate to finish a flowery speech on the porch of a general store, Abe (played by Henry Fonda) leans back in a chair, writing on a slate. Introduced, he untangles his long legs, slowly walks into the light, awkwardly fumbles for a place to put his hands, and then looks out solemnly at the small crowd. "Gentlemen and fellow citizens," he says. "I presume you all know who I am."
They do. And so do we. Even before he introduces himself as "plain Abraham Lincoln" we recognize the deepset eyes, prominent, slightly misshapen nose, broad forehead. Lincoln's is a face seemingly created to be carved into stone, impressed onto coins, engraved on currency. It is a primal landscape, one that every American recognizes. We know who he is because, in addition to the countless books written about him, there have been at least two hundred films in which he has been portrayed, and nearly as many television productions. What the photographs by Matthew Brady and others did for ...
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...must be preserved." But it is that poignant walk by the river with Ann Rutledge that we remember best, and that speaks volumes about who this elusive man really was, and how he came to fulfill such a dark and powerful destiny. It is the Lincoln of the Gettysburg Address whom we respect as a great leader. It is a young Abe, bent with sorrow at a snow-covered grave, whom we take to our hearts.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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