Lincoln (2012) on Netflix
PG-1320122h 30mBiographyDramaHistoryWar
In January 1865, Abraham Lincoln works to win House votes for the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. Peace would return the southern states to Congress, where they would vote it down.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.3/10287,205 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
In January 1865, with the Confederate armies near defeat, Abraham Lincoln judges that his 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, issued as a war measure, may be set aside once the fighting stops, leaving freed slaves open to re-enslavement. Only an amendment to the Constitution can end slavery for good. The Thirteenth Amendment has passed the Senate but lacks support in the House of Representatives, so Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward set out to find the votes by the end of January, offering federal jobs to Democratic congressmen who lost re-election. Lincoln also needs Preston Blair, a founder of the Republican Party, whose price is permission to approach Confederate leaders in Richmond about peace talks. At home, Mary Todd Lincoln still grieves their son Willie, and eldest son Robert wants to enlist.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lincoln (2012)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Steven Spielberg bought the film rights to Team of Rivals before the book existed. Doris Kearns Goodwin merely mentioned in 1999 that she planned to write it, and he asked for the rights on the spot; DreamWorks closed the deal in 2001.
- Tony Kushner, who joked by late 2008 that he was on his "967,000th book about Abraham Lincoln", first wrote a 500-page draft covering four months of Lincoln's life, then cut it back to the two months of the fight over the Thirteenth Amendment.
- Spielberg set the budget at $50 million to keep Paramount on board, the studio having already stalled the project because it looked too much like his commercially unsuccessful Amistad. Paramount dropped Lincoln anyway in February 2009.
- Daniel Day-Lewis turned Lincoln down when Spielberg first approached him in 2003, calling the idea of himself playing Lincoln "preposterous". Liam Neeson, Spielberg's Schindler's List star, was cast in the part in January 2005 instead.
- Neeson gave up the role in July 2010, saying he had grown too old at 58 for a Lincoln aged 55 and 56, and telling GQ that a table read brought "a thunderbolt moment" after which he asked Spielberg to recast him.
- It was Neeson himself who suggested Daniel Day-Lewis as his replacement, and Neeson and Leonardo DiCaprio both spoke to Day-Lewis to talk him into it. The casting was announced in November 2010.
- Day-Lewis rejected Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, telling her "I really saw you with Liam, I don't see you with Daniel, I just don't." Field, at 65, was ten years older than her 55-year-old co-star, the reverse of the real couple's ages.
- Sally Field won the part back by insisting on a screen test opposite Day-Lewis, arguing that harsh lighting and makeup would make them both look "old and worn and fat". Spielberg agreed reluctantly, and the next day he and Day-Lewis phoned to offer her Mary.
