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.

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."