Lincoln

This is a nice piece of work, but far from being ideal. It was clear the filmmakers had little funds so that they used the re-enactors to show the battle scenes, and the color scheme in those differs a lot. But that is OK. The film itself is a bit too long and bit too unrealistic. Gore Vidal was a writer and he did bring a lot of fiction onto real events. But despite all this, Watterson and Tyler did their main parts well and that counts as a big plus. In general, not bad, but still, much weaker than many other Civil War films of the era. The movie pays a decent tribute to the life and sufferings of a real great man, but it often tends to drag along or slow down painfully quite too often. Recommended but with some caution

I have watched this movie many times, as I use it to teach US history to eighth graders. It is an excellent portrait of Lincoln, showing his complexity and compassion. Yes, VerhoHo from NYC, NY, the book is better, but a movie that exactly mirrored the book would last for weeks. I think the movie does a fine job of summarizing Gore Vidal's comprehensive and historically accurate account of Lincoln's years as president. After seeing the movie the first time, when it aired on TV, I wanted to read the book and did.

Sam Waterson and Mary Tyler Moore are fabulous in their roles and bring these historical figures to life. I was also surprised to see Thomas Gibson (first from "Chicago Hope," then "Dharma and Greg") portraying Gov. Sprague. His accent and costume really disguised his identity.

I also like the way the director muted colors and added to the melancholy of the era.

Sam Waterson and Mary Tyler Moore play Abraham and Mary Lincoln, 16th president of the United States and his first lady. A rather calculating politician from the mid west who invented a cracker-barrel image of himself that has passed into legend.

When John Ford and Henry Fonda made their Young Mr. Lincoln back in 1939, Ford allegedly told Fonda that he was not playing the Great Emancipator, but a hick country lawyer from New Salem. Waterson took some of that same advice in his performance. Lincoln shows just how much image management he used in making a bumpkin persona belie an incredible innate shrewdness. This was a man with so much confidence in his abilities to deal with people that he took in his two chief rivals William Seward and Salmon Chase in his cabinet as Secretaries of State and Treasury and worked with both.

Mary Tyler Moore gives one of her most memorable portrayals on the big and small screen as Mary Lincoln who was one woman with issues. She caused her patient husband no end of grief with her extravagance in the middle of the Civil War over her wardrobe and redecorating the White House. It all of course hid some incipient madness, lot of that brought on by the death of her son Willie.

Some meticulous research was done for this series as the personalities of Civil War Washington seem to have descended on the cast playing them. I particularly liked what James Gammon did with General Ulysses S. Grant a man who had two main characteristics, military genius and an occasional bad judgment in friends.

Lincoln's legend like JFK passed into our American scene with his assassination at the moment of his triumph holding the Union together. Forgetting the course the country would have taken had he lived and retired at the end of his second term in 1869, how would he be regarded today, as quite the mythic figure he is?

This mini-series should be well regarded and seen.

This was a well done movie, particularly for television. Sam Waterson's performance as Lincoln was well done. This will be evident to people who have taken the time to study Lincoln, the man, not what he is credited for. Lincoln is known for having a high pitched, "countrified" voice, which Waterson did very effectively. Lincoln was known for normally being a bit haggard looking, which was also portrayed well. His mannerisms and use of colloquialisms in conversation were accurately handled. The supporting cast did a fine job, particularly Richard Mulligan as Seward. Mary Tyler Moore was very effective portraying Mary Lincoln as they wanted it done in the movie. She certainly conveyed Mary Lincoln's mental shortcomings well. My only complaint is that the battle scenes used the same stock footage over and over, being that one can tell it was all filmed at one location. This is a good movie in general, and if you are a student of Lincoln, the man...surprisingly so.

I must disagree strongly with the correspondant who describes this film as garbage. I believe the production team, the writer and the efforts of Waterston and Tyler Moore have brilliantly captured Vidals characterisation of Honest Abe, both as politician and as a family man. Vidals GENIUS is the bi-play between Lincoln and Seward and Lincoln and Chase but in a three hour film it would be quite impossible to portray these intense rivalries and do any justice at all to the quality of the book. Many characters from the book are missing and there is no play at all of the assassination plotters that threads through the book. Nevertheless the Lincoln that has been lifted from the page makes for a most enjoyable film and well worth a viewing