Abraham Lincoln

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

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Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Director, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Music, Production Design

NY Times Review of Lincoln

11/19/2012 - My review for the Lincoln Film

9/21/2012 - Eonline: Daniel Day-Lewis' Transformation: "He Got Quite Thin and Gaunt" "Obviously, we when cast Daniel we knew that in many respects, physically, he would look very much like Lincoln," Kennedy said. "But it was a combination of the work that was being done in the makeup and hair trailer and also what Daniel himself took on for the physical appearance. He got quite thin and gaunt. It was quite extraordinary to see him for the first time."

 9/14/2012 - I Watch Stuff: 'Lincoln' Trailer: Being Lincoln Is a Real Rough Time

In this full trailer for the film, first everyone yells at Lincoln, then Lincoln gets sick of it and starts yelling and finger-pointing back, then Tommy Lee Jones shows up and is like, "Hey, it's me. Tommy Lee Jones. Does this hair play?" But paired with a sweeping score, it all feels expectedly epic, harrowing, and triumphant. This thing is going to win so many small man statuettes.

8/29/2012 - Lincoln at Wikipedia

8/22/2012 - From Comingsoon.net: The poster for Lincoln - released by Dreamworks

4/24/2012 - Reelz: New Set Photo of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg's Lincoln

Opens November 2012 -- The cast of the film from the IMDb:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt	...	Robert Todd Lincoln
	Tommy Lee Jones	...	Thaddeus Stevens
	Daniel Day-Lewis	...	Abraham Lincoln
	Michael Stuhlbarg
	Jackie Earle Haley	...	Alexander Stephens
	James Spader	...	WN Bilbo
	Sally Field	...	Mary Todd Lincoln
	John Hawkes	...	Robert Latham
	Walton Goggins	...	Wells A. Hutchins
	Lee Pace	...	Fernando Wood
	Jared Harris	...	Ulysses S. Grant
	David Strathairn	...	Secretary of State William Seward
	Tim Blake Nelson	...	Richard Schell
	Hal Holbrook	...	Francis Preston Blair
	Bruce McGill	...	Edwin Stanton

3/14/2012 - NPR: Review of Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation in Text, Context, and Memory. By Harold Holzer

James Russell Lowell's Essay on Lincoln:

...and we own that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was over; that a popular excitement has been slowly intensified into an earnest national will; that a somewhat impracticable moral sentiment has been made the unconscious instrument of a practical moral end; that the treason of covert enemies, the jealousy of rivals, the unwise zeal of friends, have been made not only useless for mischief, but even useful for good; that the conscientious sensitiveness of England to the horrors of civil conflict has been prevented from complicating a domestic with a foreign war; all these results, any one of which might suffice to prove greatness in a ruler, have been mainly due to the good sense, the good humor, the sagacity, the large-mindedness, and the unselfish honesty of the unknown man whom a blind fortune, as it seemed, had lifted from the crowd to the most dangerous and difficult eminence of modern times. It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of a man is tested; it is by the sagacity to see, and the fearless honesty to admit, whatever of truth there may be in an adverse opinion, in order more convincingly to expose the fallacy that lurks behind it, that a reasoner at length gains for his mere statement of a fact the force of argument; it is by a wise forecast which allows hostile combinations to go so far as by the inevitable reaction to become elements of his own power, that a politician proves his genius for statecraft; and especially it is by so gently guiding public sentiment that he seems to follow it, by so yielding doubtful points that he can be firm without seeming obstinate in essential ones, and thus gain the advantages of compromise without the weakness of concession; by so instinctively comprehending the temper and prejudices of a people as to make them gradually conscious of the superior wisdom of his freedom from temper and prejudice,—it is by qualities such as these that a magistrate shows himself worthy to be chief in a commonwealth of freemen. And it is for qualities such as these that we firmly believe History will rank Mr. Lincoln among the most prudent of statesmen and the most successful of rulers. If we wish to appreciate him, we have only to conceive the inevitable chaos in which we should now be weltering, had a weak man or an unwise one been chosen in his stead. 

1/30/2012 - Zimbio's Ridiculously Early Oscar Predictions for 2013

LINCOLN -- By Vachel Lindsay

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all,
That which is gendered in the wilderness
From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness.
Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream,
Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream,
Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave,
Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire—
Fire that freed the slave.

9/22/2011: DIY.co.uk: Jackie Earle Haley Cast In Spielberg’s Lincoln

9/21/2011 - Screen Rant: Spielberg Talks ‘Lincoln’ Timeline & Planned Release Date

  Here is what he told the Orlando Sentinel: “['Lincoln' is] not a battlefield movie. There are [Civil War] battles in it, and being in Virginia, we have access to those historic battlefields. It is really a movie about the great work Abraham Lincoln did in the last months of his life… We’re basing it on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, ‘Team of Rivals,’ but we’re only focusing in on the last four months of Abraham Lincoln’s life.

Team of Rivals Paperback at Amazon


8/23/2011 -- Richmond.com: Lincoln Stalking Guide

7/21/11 - WV FILM: Wheeling Rolling with State Made Flicks

The production company filming Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is holding an extras casting call for men ages 20 and over on Friday, July 22 from 10am to 5pm at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, 403 North Third Street, Level One, Room E11C, Richmond, Virginia. The casting department is particularly seeking men with long hair AND beards. You must bring a recent photo with you. If you can't make this July date, there will be additional casting calls in August, which will also include women and children. For more information, visit www.film.virginia.org

7/14/11 - More great casting - The Wrap: 'Justified's' Walton Goggins Joins Cast of Spielberg's 'Lincoln'

6/28/11 - Hollywood Wiretap: DAVID STRATHAIRN JOINS SPIELBERG'S 'LINCOLN' AS WILLIAM SEWARD (DH, THR, COLL)

6/15/2011: Richmond Style Weekly: Spielberg, Day-Lewis Shop for Housing

5/14/2011 - Washington Post National: Casting call Saturday for role of Abraham Lincoln’s son in Spielberg film   For Tad Lincoln

5/10/2011 - Words to remember as DDL begins filming "Lincoln:

"At some point, if I'm lucky, a life will begin to emerge, a sensation first and foremost," he says. "In other words, you might look at exactly the same objects but in a slightly different way." He adds: "The impression one might have, the subjective impression, is that a great distance has been traveled. Of course the truth, and the paradox, is that if you're not still working from the very center of yourself and your own experience, then really you're working from an empty vessel."

5/5/2011 - Reuters -- LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Steven Spielberg is rounding out the large cast of his Abraham Lincoln movie.

Tommy Lee Jones and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, along with Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Bruce McGill and Joseph Cross, are in negotiations to join "Lincoln."
The list of actors doesn't end there. David Costabile, Byron Jennings, Dakin Matthews, Boris McGiver, Gloria Reuben, Jeremy Strong, and David Warshofsky are also in negotiations to board the DreamWorks project.

4/14/2011 -- Brandon sun: Sally Field to star as Lincoln's wife opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in biopic from Spielberg
4/13/2011 - LA Times: Hollywood takes on the Civil War

Spielberg is reportedly set to start shooting this fall on his long-delayed film "Lincoln," with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role (Liam Neeson dropped out last year).

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The Huffington Post: Daniel Day-Lewis To Play Abraham Lincoln In New Spielberg Film: Makes Trip To Springfield To Prepare

The Old State Capitol, Springfield Ill

The Lincoln Home