It has been noted elsewhere that the slavery prologue had not been seen for many years after the release of this film. However, this assertion may be somewhat misleading, as it is incomplete. In the introduction to a 1972 PBS broadcast of "Abraham Lincoln" the narrator noted, over some very compelling slavery footage, that the footage never made it to release prints AT ALL due to objections by studio executives. That means, probably, that UA bigwig Joseph Schenck, possibly abetted by John Considine, torpedoed a very important moral dimension Griffith was trying to insert.
Too bad. With Griffith's reputation forever stained due to "Birth Of A Nation", it would be helpful if more could see how he vigorously owned up to the full horror of slavery with this sequence, however late it came in his career. Moreover, he really needed it dramatically, because "Abraham Lincoln" is otherwise a very static and disappointing piece of prestige movie-making.
With knowledge of this director's earlier triumphs, one views this exercise with sadness and longing over what might have been. You can see the effort and high level of historical detail at work here. But almost everywhere Griffith's technique is muffled and sometimes nullified by the technology of talking pictures, and we suppose, by his own creative exhaustion. It did not have to be this way. It would have been better if this master did not allow himself to be snuffed out so early but that is a subject for Griffith biographers to pursue, not this writer.
However, for those of you able to seek out this picture, here are some stand-out scenes to look for. After being informed of a battle's losses, a general (after ensuring himself privacy) collapses in utter despair, weeping on his bed. Griffith's actor does this in silent movie stylethe actor literally crumples without a word. Here, we sense the universal horror and depression of leadership in war, knowing that this is really the strain felt by most generals, not the vainglorious image of General Patton but the anguished self-questioning of the Lees and the Grants of the modern world.
Also, in two places, Grifffith suggests a feeling of the immediacy of modern communications so passé and remote to today's viewers that we have to stop and project ourselves into the memory of the generation Griffith came from-he shows us at documentary-style remove Lincoln pacing back and forth in the telegraph room of the White House as battlefield reports come in; also, and most startlingly, a series of close-ups of a famous Civil War document with the our view skipping and skuddering down to signatures of high authority silently, blankly and suddenly; cuts handled as if we're momentarily in cinema verite editing territory. Never has the intensity and import of written, official text been expressed with as much immediacy. It is also quite ahead of its time.
So "Abraham Lincoln" is to be viewed as a historical artifact, primarily, from the period when silent film directors were trying to transition to talkies. For any of you turned off by its artificial, stilted and manneristic qualities, don't stop screening--there are a number of more successful examples then this one.
Too bad. With Griffith's reputation forever stained due to "Birth Of A Nation", it would be helpful if more could see how he vigorously owned up to the full horror of slavery with this sequence, however late it came in his career. Moreover, he really needed it dramatically, because "Abraham Lincoln" is otherwise a very static and disappointing piece of prestige movie-making.
With knowledge of this director's earlier triumphs, one views this exercise with sadness and longing over what might have been. You can see the effort and high level of historical detail at work here. But almost everywhere Griffith's technique is muffled and sometimes nullified by the technology of talking pictures, and we suppose, by his own creative exhaustion. It did not have to be this way. It would have been better if this master did not allow himself to be snuffed out so early but that is a subject for Griffith biographers to pursue, not this writer.
However, for those of you able to seek out this picture, here are some stand-out scenes to look for. After being informed of a battle's losses, a general (after ensuring himself privacy) collapses in utter despair, weeping on his bed. Griffith's actor does this in silent movie stylethe actor literally crumples without a word. Here, we sense the universal horror and depression of leadership in war, knowing that this is really the strain felt by most generals, not the vainglorious image of General Patton but the anguished self-questioning of the Lees and the Grants of the modern world.
Also, in two places, Grifffith suggests a feeling of the immediacy of modern communications so passé and remote to today's viewers that we have to stop and project ourselves into the memory of the generation Griffith came from-he shows us at documentary-style remove Lincoln pacing back and forth in the telegraph room of the White House as battlefield reports come in; also, and most startlingly, a series of close-ups of a famous Civil War document with the our view skipping and skuddering down to signatures of high authority silently, blankly and suddenly; cuts handled as if we're momentarily in cinema verite editing territory. Never has the intensity and import of written, official text been expressed with as much immediacy. It is also quite ahead of its time.
So "Abraham Lincoln" is to be viewed as a historical artifact, primarily, from the period when silent film directors were trying to transition to talkies. For any of you turned off by its artificial, stilted and manneristic qualities, don't stop screening--there are a number of more successful examples then this one.