LINCOLN
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1993 Ken Johnson
195 min., not rated, Documentary, 1992, Made-for-television Director: Peter W. Kunhardt Voices of: James Earl Jones, Jason Robards, Glenn Close, Dabney Coleman, Stacy Keach, Ossie Davis, Richard Dreyfus, Rod Steiger, Richard Widmark, Arnold Schwarzenegger, E.G. Marshall, Richard Thomas, Fred Gwynne, Eli Wallach, Oprah Winfrey, Burgess Meredith, Ned Beatty, Barnard Hughes, Cliff Robertson, Maureen Stapleton, Frank Langella, Henry Morgan, Keith Carradine, Blythe Danner, Robert Vaughn, Philip Bosco, Jim Dale, Jill Clayburgh, Robby Benson, Gordon Parks, John Shea, Laurence Luckinbill, Stockard Channing
This is a documentary on one of America's greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln (voice of Jason Robards). The documentary is narrated by James Earl Jones and covers Lincoln from his start in politics to his assassination by John Wilkes Booth (voice of Frank Langella).
LINCOLN was made much in the same way that the PBS film THE CIVIL WAR was made, using pictures of Lincoln and the other people featured in the film. I never saw the PBS film THE CIVIL WAR, so I can't say whether this one came out better. I think however, that LINCOLN was very well done, and worth seeing if you get the chance. If you missed LINCOLN when it aired on television, it is also available on video cassette, which runs for 45 minutes longer than the film did on television. On a scale of zero to five, I give LINCOLN a four. LINCOLN contains nothing that I think anyone would find objectionable.
The voice talent for LINCOLN, I felt, for the most part is very good. I think that fact that the film had experienced actors for the voices helped the film considerably. Instead of one monotone voice throughout the film, there were several different voices, which had some emotion to them. I think that it is good that the film had more than just a narrator, because hearing the same voice for the entire length of the film would get rather boring. I feel that only one of the voices was miscast, that was Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is great in his action films where he doesn't have much of a speaking role, and he was even able to pull off KINDERGARTEN COP. As just a voice talent, however, I don't think that his voice makes it. He doesn't have good diction, and I feel that voice could have been better cast. [Moderator's note: The character he spoke was Bavarian-born, and probably had the same accent.]
I liked how there were color shots of the buildings in the present day mixed in with the portraits from the time. That technique added some variety to the film and kept all the old photographs from wearing on the viewer. The photographs were well picked and were well placed in the film so that they fit in.
The only other main problem that I had with the film is that I think that it could have run for television time of two and a half to three hours, instead of the four that it ran. Even though the four hours were well done, the film after a while seemed to be going on forever.
-------- Ken Johnson blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
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