Title: Lincoln:
History Channel Original Documentary
Director-Producer:
Vikram Jayanti
Executive Producer
For The History Channel: Carl Lindahl
Running Time: 141
minutes without commercials
Media: The History
Channel Original Documentary Feature (NTSC DVD Screeners)
Premiere Monday,
January 16, 2006, at 8pm (ET/PT)/7pm (CT)
Network: The
History Channel (Check your local cable/satellite listings for channel)
TV Rating: TV-PG
Reviewer: Mark A.
Rivera
Abraham Lincoln in
many ways is a man who embodies the American Dream of being able to attain such
great accomplishments that his mythos is truly timeless, but despite everything
one learns while growing up in school and may read about in books and
periodicals or see on television, there is a whole other side to the character
of Abraham Lincoln that is both poignant and haunting. According to
dramatizations in The History Channel Documentary “Lincoln,” the 16th
President of the United States was haunted by dreams where he found himself
viewing his own wake. Though the documentary does not outright suggest that
Lincoln was a psychic or something, there are certainly touches of paranormal
explored in particular with his wife holding séances at the White House in an
attempt to contact the spirit of a departed son. The documentary even explores
the possibility that Lincoln might have been homosexual, but the evidence
yielded in my opinion seems rather weak. While human behavior has not changed
all that much in the thousands of years since we began building communities,
there are simply aspects to every culture that is on to itself unique. Anyone
who saw the first season of the HBO and BBC original series “Rome” might
have been taken back by the social attitudes toward sex, violence, and religion
to a point that one might argue that certain attitudes in antiquity appear to be
less repressed than on much of contemporary western culture, but one has to
remember that it was a different world and as times change so do attitudes.
Looking back upon the 1980s from the year 2006, one might imagine it as being quite insolated if not innocent compared to the times we live in now, but I can assure you things did not seem that way then and in twenty years 2006 will also seem quite quaint when compared to whatever is going on in the world at that time. We can’t place our values on a past that is simply not documented in the same way technology has enabled communications to develop and evolve. So if Lincoln was or was not gay or bisexual for that matter it is merely a small part of a greater tapestry that still in my opinion remains open largely to interpretation and conjecture. What we have are notes and testimonies from people who died over a century ago and in the end like the paleontologist who examines the remains of dinosaurs to understand how they lived and what they were like, a historical biography is very much like an examination of fossils left over from another era. We may think we know how someone or something walked, talked, and behaved, but in the end much of it is based on hypothesis, but not undeniable fact.
The mental and
emotional anguish Lincoln suffered only serves to make one feel more compassion
for the man and have a greater respect for his accomplishments. Lincoln’s
mother succumbed to an agonizing affliction that took away several other
relatives when he was young. His relationship with his father grew ever
estranged. His sweetheart Ann Rutledge passed away from a brief illness and sent
him into a suicidal depression. Lincoln often wrote poems about suicide. He
appears to have suffered from emotional breakdowns. He married a manic
depressive woman, that grew more ill as Lincoln grew more distant. He was
awkward in appearance and despite being an easy and identifiable target; he made
it a point to visit the soldiers out on the field to “feel their pain.” He
lost two sons to illness and felt responsible for a war that claimed more
American lives in one battle alone than in wars that have followed. It appears
that after the war Lincoln came out a more emotionally developed and stable if
not enlightened being. The documentary suggests that Lincoln’s assassination
in 1865 was the result of a speech he gave days before calling for the right to
vote being bestowed upon the newly freed slaves. His death makes him a civil
rights martyr.
The documentary
features many interview clips with various authors that include Jean H. Baker,
Michael Burlingham, Harold Holzer, Jan Morris, Matthew Pinsker, Joshua Wolf
Shenk, Andrew Solomon, Douglas Wilson, Jay Winik and Gore Vidal, who has some of
the best comments in the documentary not only on Mr. Lincoln, but on our own
current political situation. Well conceived and produced as well as very thought
provoking, “Lincoln” will premiere on the History Channel on Monday, January
16, 2006, at 8pm (ET/PT)/7pm (CT). Please your local cable/satellite listings
for channel and additional information or visit www.history.com.
© Copyright 2006
By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.