TV Review: "Looking for Lincoln" (PBS)

Toward the end of Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s excellent exploration "Looking for Lincoln," the African-American scholar admits that his examination of Abraham Lincoln had challenged his cherished image of The Great Emancipator. "It's been deeply disappointing to me to learn that Lincoln came to emancipation slowly," Gates laments, "and that he questioned even the basic assumption of the equality of the races."

Then he sits with noted Lincoln biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, evidently a personal friend (likely given that both historians live in Boston), and has a remarkable exchange with her reflecting on how troubling it was to discover Lincoln's prejudicial attitudes toward race, even as he praises Lincoln's political skill in his actions involving emancipation and racial issues, because of his status within the African-American community as the white man who made civil rights possible.

"Do you know what's so interesting, Skip, in listening to you talk? The problem is not your understanding of what was possible for Lincoln; the problem is the infatuation, the myth, that Lincoln was presented in the first place to you," Goodwin says, getting emotional. "It's not Lincoln's fault that he got mythologized...And I think to just bring him down now to the human being, with his strengths and his weaknesses -- if you could feel that as well as you're saying it, I think you would feel more empathy for him."

"No, but you're right," Gates responds, "it's clear that I don't feel it. I can think it, I can understand it--"

"Exactly," Goodwin affirms over him, "that's what I'm feeling," and suddenly stopping to let him continue, can't finish her thought -- that's what I'm feeling you're feeling.

In the middle of a documentary attempting to detect the historical facts about Lincoln, a discussion about feelings between two historians who are obviously emotionally involved in their study of the sixteenth president. More than that, though, this extraordinary exchange represents the crux of the Lincoln myth -- Americans are as emotionally attached to the iconic Abraham Lincoln as they are intellectual attached, if not more so.

Though I am not an African-American, I know Gates' disappointment with Lincoln firsthand, having gone through my own de-mythologizing of Lincoln several years ago. For a couple of years, I didn't like the man who I discovered was not an idealist but always a practical politician. Worse, he was a rather ruthless partisan hack in his early days, and those skills never faded away, even though his attitude did. (Eventually, I gained a great appreciation for how Lincoln ultimately used his political skills.)

"Looking for Lincoln," a PBS production, is less a documentary than a two-hour visual essay by Gates, a Harvard professor of African-American Studies. Gates intercuts his cross-country travels looking for Lincoln the icon with a mostly chronological presentation of the historical Lincoln. The film moves a good clip, though it never feels rushed, covering lots of ground; Gates interviews a dozen scholars, two former presidents, and others. He visits with Lincoln presenters (people who dress up like Lincoln), and descendants of Confederate veterans who strongly dislike Lincoln. He walks the Gettysburg battlefield, visits the Soldier's Home where Lincoln probably wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. He sits in on a high school discussion about Lincoln in Chicago.

Along the way, Gates struggles to present the personal complexity of Abraham Lincoln, as opposed to the marble icon of the Lincoln Memorial. Most often he focuses on the complexity of Lincoln's racial views, which is understandable given his other research on race in the United States.

The film is a great success, owing to Gates unstinting honesty and his skills as both a historian and a storyteller. Most people will learn a lot about Lincoln and will be forced to think directly about how Lincoln the man relates to Lincoln the myth. If the film has any flaw, it is that Gates' conclusion is a bit underwhelming, but the strength of the film makes up for that.

"Looking for Lincoln" premiered on PBS on Wednesday, February 11, 2009.

TV Review Redux: "The Real Abraham Lincoln" (National Geographic)

About a month ago, I reviewed a one-hour special on National Geographic channel called "The Real Abraham Lincoln. On Valentine's Day, NatGeo (as they seem to call themselves) unveiled a two-hour version. My polite description of the one-hour version was "disappointing." Two hours stripped away my reserve.

Awful. Dreadful. A complete waste of time. And I can't believe that National Geographic put their good name on it.

By the middle of the documentary, I felt bad for Harold Holzer, Richard Norton Smith, and Allan Guelzo, who offered interviews for the special. It's one thing to be misquoted. It's another for your quotes to be contextualized by mistakes, misinterpretations, and fraudulent historic dramatizations. How the filmmaker could take their good answers and come up with this documentary is beyond me.

The film, which hurries through the Lincoln biography so that it can focus a third of its time on the aftermath of the assassination, suffers from broad misconceptions about both its subject and its own scope. I stopped counting factual mistakes about 40 minutes into the film. It jumbles the chronology of Lincoln's life, but worse, it misunderstands the context for his life. The historical anachronism of the narration is stunning at times: once claiming that "[Lincoln] sees the railroad as a uniting force that can bind together a vast nation of immigrants in far-flung regions." Lincoln may have been a '60s liberal, but he was an 1860's liberal, not a 1960's liberal.

The less said about the life-action dramatizations, the better. Despite utilizing photographs to the contrary, this film always presents a bearded Lincoln, even in the scene where the 28-year-old moves to Springfield. A low budget might explain some problems, but the assassination scenes -- evidently really important to the writer/director -- are so inaccurate as to boggle the mind. The film shows the purported assassination attempt on Lincoln, but gets every detail wrong. The film shows the assassination, but so misrepresents the setting that one might think the Lincoln's were attending a private theater performance in a converted barn.

This is not a documentary about 'the real Abraham Lincoln,' at least it is not a documentary about the historical 16th president of the United States. Perhaps it's a documentary of Abraham Lincoln, the medical pitch-man. In any event, avoid this film like the plague.

The two-hour version of "The Real Abraham Lincoln" premiered on Saturday, February 14, 2009.

TV Review: "Stealing Lincoln's Body" (History Channel)

"Stealing Lincoln's Body," a new 2-hour documentary by The History Channel, tells the almost unbelievable story of the over 35 year odyssey of Lincoln's body following his assassination. Following the story most clearly laid out in the 2007 book of the same name by Thomas Craughwell, the film by Trey Nelson precisely narrates the bizarre tale of how Lincoln's body was first prepared for burial following his death and how it was moved ten times after reaching its final resting place in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

The most dramatic event during these years, and the source of the title, is an improbable attempt in 1876 to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom. However, this story only accounts for the middle third of the documentary; it took nearly eight years for Lincoln's body finally be permanently buried after his death and then a quarter-century to permanently rebury the body after the failed attempt to steal the body. Certainly the entire story is stranger than fiction.

The film does a strong job clearly telling this story, with a strong guiding narrative and interviews from several experts, including Craughwell, noted Lincoln scholars Michael Burlingame and Harold Holzer, as well as up-and-coming Lincoln scholar Jason Emerson, Jon Austin, Director of the Museum of Funeral Customs (located just outside Oak Ridge Cemetery), James Cornelius, curator of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, and Nan Wynn, the current manager of the Lincoln Tomb.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the film is the decision to show a "virtual Abraham Lincoln." In addition to some standard modern recreations of events for the film, there are also scenes of Abraham Lincoln that are graphically created from Lincoln images and life masks -- including, most notably, the assassination itself. The effect is odd, to say the least; the rendering, by a production company called Studio Macbeth, looks more like Lincoln than any actor could. At times it was charming; frankly, though, the moment of assassination was eerie. (The company has a blog about the development of this technology.) Odder still, though, is the fact that this technology seems wasted on a documentary that focuses exclusively on Lincoln's body after he was dead.

Regardless, the story itself demands attention. Perhaps it starts of slow, with a description of Lincoln's autopsy, and then a more detailed description of the embalming of Lincoln's body -- a relatively new procedure that had flourished during the Civil War. After tracing the long funeral train journey, featuring ceremonies in a dozen cities, the documentary tells of the various stops for Lincoln's body (and his son Willie's body) while the memorial tomb was being constructed.

Then the action really begins, as a Chicago counterfeiter hatches a plan to grave-rob the Lincoln tomb in hopes of gaining a pardon for his jailed accomplice and $200,000 cash. The plan has notable problems -- none of the criminals involved has experience with this type of crime, and they plan to hide the coffin in the Indiana Dunes, roughly a two-week journey. Still, they might have succeeded if the plan hadn't been discovered by the US Secret Service -- then an agency solely focused on fighting counterfeiting. While the planned theft is bizarre, without this discovery the terrifying thought is that the criminals likely would have stolen the body.

After the break-in, the custodian was fearful of the potential for the body to be stolen in the future. In order to prevent this, he hid the body in the tomb's basement, where it was eventually buried. Indeed, Robert Lincoln, who was aware of these security tactics, privately shed his staunch Victorian image when he instructed that his mother, following her death, was to be buried in the basement beside her husband's temporary shallow grave. A more permanent solution was possible only when it became clear that the entire memorial needed to be rebuilt. This was done and Lincoln was finally buried in a deep, cement vault beneath the tomb in 1901 -- following Robert's instructions, likely cribbed from the burial of Robert's previous (and publicly vilified) employer George Pullman.

The story is fascinating, and this film tells it well. Perhaps the buildups to each commercial break are a little overly dramatic, but aside from this, the documentary is both accurate and accessible. The subject matter is a bit macabre, but otherwise the film is highly recommended.

"Stealing Lincoln's Body" premiered on Monday, February 16, 2009.

TV Review: "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" (PBS)

The stalwart PBS American documentary series "American Experience" returns to the subject of the sixteenth president with a new 90-minute documentary that offers a fairly straight-forward, and surprisingly straight-laced (even by PBS standards), look at "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln." Having previously done a three-part, six-hour, dual biography of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln in 2001, this film on Lincoln's death serves as the series bicentennial year contribution.

Like all of the American Experience films, this documentary by writer/director Barak Goodman has high-quality technical elements, features a clear narration (by Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper), and lots of good interviews. For anyone with a limited knowledge of the assassination, this film offers a basic introduction to the events surrounding the crime. It is especially strong in establishing the fundamental timeline of the night of the assassination and the days following.

The challenge for anybody tackling this particular aspect of the Lincoln biography is that the assassination has become quite a cottage industry, with significant numbers of books written over the years and, incredibly, multiple "assassination tours" offered by guides in the DC area of associated sites. Moreover, some of the information in many of these books, when carefully studied, is suspect when put under a historical microscope.

Happily, the documentary carefully wades through the material and stays, almost entirely, on solid evidential ground, except for a fleeting unsupported assertion of Mary Surratt's innocence at the film's end. And the interviews, liberally used, feature several good scholars and experts; alongside such strong general experts like Harold Holzer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, James McPherson, and Allen Guelzo are specific assassination experts: Terry Alford, editor of John Wilkes Booth's sister's memoir, Gene Smith, author of a book about the Booth family, James L. Swanson, author of the popular Manhunt about the chase for Lincoln's killer, and Edward Steers, Jr., who has published multiple books on Lincoln's assassination, including probably the best single volume, Blood on the Moon.

Early on, it becomes clear that the filmmakers are intent on exploring the assassin's motive for the crime, and there is a consistent focus on Booth's rationale for his actions before and after Lincoln's assassination. This focus leaves less time for other interesting and sizable pieces of the story, such as the public reaction and displays of grief during the elaborate two week funeral journey of Lincoln's body from Washington to Springfield. Unfortunately, the film only makes clear that Booth was not insane; the rest of the portrait is incomplete. This highlighted an omission in the film that surprised me; Michael Kauffman, author of the recent book on Booth American Brutus, was not interviewed, nor was there evidence that his careful (if sometimes unbelievable) study of this issue of motivation was consulted.

Aside from that, though, part of the problem dealing with Booth's motive is that the film devotes very little time to the kidnapping conspiracy from which the assassination eventually hatched. The kidnapping conspiracy is mentioned, as is the most particularly far-fetched plan that Booth tried to develop -- abducting Lincoln from Ford's Theater. But the very plausible plan to kidnap Lincoln riding alone between the White House and the Soldier's Home, which the conspirators testified was attempted, is never mentioned.

The reason for this, I suspect, is that the filmmakers don't want to touch the myriad conspiracy theories of who was behind this conspiracy, which have attempted to implicate everyone from Confederate leaders (notably Jefferson Davis) to Union government officials (including Edwin Stanton) to Northern businessmen. However, there is strong circumstantial evidence that Booth was somehow connected with the Confederate Secret Service, perhaps receiving funding and certainly receiving assistance during his escape from known Confederate operatives. Steers is convinced that parts of this conspiracy are highly plausible and incorporated them into his book. If he mentioned them during his interviews, those comments were not used. And I find Steers' logic persuasive.

This criticism aside, the documentary is a solid and steady retelling of Lincoln's assassination. Experts and Lincolnophiles will find almost nothing of note here -- though I was intrigued by Alford's colorful explanation of why Dr. Samuel Mudd evicted the injured fugitive Booth from his house: with his wife and children there, "Mudd simply could not afford a shootout in the family parlor." But it is a serviceable and informative film for others.

"The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln" premiered on Monday, February 9, 2009.

Lincoln on TV

In the coming week, a number of television programs will celebrate Abraham Lincoln, during this week of the bicentennial of his birth. Interestingly, several of these programs focus more on Lincoln's death than his life. Here's a list of the lineup by television network -- C-SPAN, PBS, The History Channel, and even the National Geographic Channel.

C-SPAN

As part of their partnership with the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, C-SPAN is carrying "Bicentennial Celebration of Abraham Lincoln's Birthday: A Congressional Tribute" Live on Thursday, February 12. The program, scheduled to begin at 11:30 (EST), is a joint session of congress meeting in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol (which was the House chamber when Lincoln served his single term in the House of Representatives). Ray LaHood, now Secretary of Transportation and a co-chair of the Bicentennial Commission, will serve as Master of Ceremonies, and Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Norton Smith are scheduled to speak.

At the moment, C-SPAN is not scheduled to cover any other bicentennial events, but I expect that they will add a couple more on one of their networks. There are several events to choose from, but I think that the annual banquet of the Abraham Lincoln Association, which President Barack Obama is scheduled to attend, is most likely. The dinner begins on February 12 at 7:00 (local time). Updates on the C-SPAN schedule may be seen either on the specific C-SPAN Lincoln site or the C-SPAN schedule site.

PBS

"American Experience," the fine documentary series, offers a new 90-minute Lincoln program, "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln." I imagine that this program is inspired by the recent bestselling account of the aftermath of the assassination: Manhunt by James L. Swanson. Glancing at the transcript, already available online, it looks like several big-name Lincon historians are interviewed in addition to Swanson -- Harold Holzer, David Bright, Edward Steers, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Joshua Wolf Shenk, James McPherson, Allen Guelzo, and others. The program is scheduled to premiere on many PBS stations on Monday, February 9. Here is a link to the program's website.

Some PBS stations nationally will carry a Lincoln program created by the PBS affiliate at the University of Illinois, WILL. "Lincoln: Prelude to the Presidency," a one-hour program, focuses on Lincoln's Springfield years, 1837-1860. It has reenactments and interviews with experts, including Doris Kearns Goodwin. The program premieres on WILL Monday, February 9 and may be on other PBS stations after that. Here is a link to the program's website.

Nationally, PBS will offer "Looking for Lincoln," a two-hour documentary, on Wednesday, February 11. This documentary, narrated by Henry Louis Gates, focuses on the legend and legacy of Lincoln, from the political ripples from Lincoln's presidential decisions to the growing trade of Lincoln collectors. The program features interviews with two of Lincoln's successors as president, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and numerous scholars, including Doris Kearns Goodwin (she's everywhere), Harold Holzer, Drew Gilpin Faust, David Herbert Donald, David Blight, Allen Guelzo, and Joshua Wolf Shenk. Here is the link to the program's website.

The History Channel

As part of THC Classroom, which allows teachers to record programs for use in their classroom, the History Channel is rebroadcasting "Lincoln: The Untold Stories," a two-part special on William Herndon's interviews after Lincoln's death with people who knew Lincoln, the biography Herndon wrote (with a co-writer) based on those interviews, and the recent scholarship on those interviews by Douglas Wilson and Rodney Davis. The program will air early on Wednesday, February 11 and Thursday, February 12.

On Lincoln's birthday itself, the History Channel will repeat several Lincoln programs, including the three-hour documentary "Lincoln," and two one-hour programs, "Investigating History: Lincoln, Man or Myth" and "Conspiracy: Lincoln's Assassination." The long program covers all of Lincoln's life, but focuses on trying to get inside Lincoln's head, perhaps heavily influenced by Joshua Wolf Shenk's then-recent book on Lincoln's Melancholy.

On Monday, February 16, the History Channel premieres a new two-hour documentary on the weird saga of Lincoln's body after his death. No doubt, the documentary is based on the recent book of the same title by Thomas J. Craughwell. The story, rooted in an 1876 attempt to steal Lincoln's body from his Springfield tomb, is unbelievably bizarre and true.

In addition to these programs, it should be noted that the History Channel is co-sponsoring with the Bicentennial Commission an online educational program about Lincoln on Lincoln's birthday. Featuring Harold Holzer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Matthew Pinsker, the "teach-in" is geared towards middle and high school students. It begins at 1:30 (EST) and will be available here.

The National Geographic Channel

On Thursday, February 12 National Geographic will replay its recent one-hour special "The Hunt for Lincoln's Assassin," which also chronicles the post-assassination saga.

On Saturday, February 14 National Geographic will premiere the two-hour version of "The Real Abraham Lincoln," a program which has already been shown in a one-hour format -- and which I previously reviewed on Lincolniana. I suppose that this is some sort of odd Valentine's Day counter-programming.

TV Review: "The Real Abraham Lincoln" (National Geographic documentary)

Last night, National Geographic Channel premiered their new one-hour "docudrama" about Lincoln, called "The Real Abraham Lincoln." (National Geographic has several programs called "The Real..." -- last night they followed "The Real Abraham Lincoln" with "The Real George Washington.") The program attempts to bring Lincoln to life by using an actor to portray him in several reconstructed scenes and offering occasional first-person narration.

Overall, the program is disappointing. One hour, less commercials, is too little time to present Lincoln's full cradle-to-grave biography. There were erratic jumps, complete with several misaligned images/dramatizations that did not mesh with the biographical narration. Worse, there were several misrepresentations in the film. Not only were the scenes with Lincoln dramatized, but the first-person narration was not constructed from Lincoln's own words. And to my ear they failed to sound much like Lincoln's own voice, offering too much detail about certain things in the wrong ways in the interest of quick personal disclosure. (While such personal disclosure is common on reality television, it was a very rare thing with Lincoln.)

Unlike some dramatizations, the actor playing Lincoln is very similar facially, and sometimes looks eerily like Lincoln must have in close-up. However, this impact is quickly lessened by the inadequate use of these dramatizations. In most of them, Lincoln appears alone on screen, or at most, in one scene, with a photographer and photographer's assistant. Lincoln walks alone through the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Lincoln rides alone on a train. Lincoln rides alone on horseback. Lincoln stands alone and looks out the window. The more I read about Lincoln's life, the clearer it becomes that he rarely had time to himself without people around him. Dramatizing the business and noise around Lincoln, from the war effort, to the public, to his family would have been interesting -- evidently it also would have been too expensive for this production.

By now, it feels like I'm picking on the documentary. And I haven't even mentioned the specific historical errors that creep into the narration, such as the locomotive steam engine appearing in Lincoln's life a good ten years too early and the later rather absurd suggestion that the north won the Civil War because they used their superior (and growing) railroad mileage effectively. Given that the Confederacy proved much more adept at using the railroad to move men and supplies quickly, this is certainly a dubious claim.

In the film, three authors/scholars are interviewed: K. M. Kostyal (who evidently writes young adult books for National Geographic), Richard Norton Smith, and Allan Guelzo. Of these, only Guelzo comes across very well, despite some clear quick edits in his comments. By the end, it seemed like listening to him talk for an hour (less commercials) would have been more helpful than this "docudrama."