As for Gore Vidal, I don't take anything to heart from a man who does not know the difference between a man's anus and a woman.
Posted on 01/17/2006 7:53:48 AM PST by presidio9
Vikram Jayanti wanted to call his portrait of the nation's 16th president "The Darkness of Abraham Lincoln."
In fact, he said, that was the production's working title for nearly three years. Rather than create a biographical documentary, he planned to show how one man "transcended depression and turned it into light."
Jayanti's three-hour film airs under a simpler title, "Lincoln," at 8 tonight on the History Channel, but it still focuses on the traumas the president endured over his lifetime, ending with a war that claimed more American lives than any other - including his own.
The New York-born filmmaker acknowledged that his own struggle with depression informs the film. "Our model of depression, as a society, is that you're broken and lost if you're depressed," Jayanti said. "Here's a man who, because of his depression, becomes a transcendant human being."
In a film he saw as youth, Jayanti said, "Charlie Chaplin says, 'Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the world.' Well, Lincoln freed himself by freeing the slaves."
Lincoln, Jayanti said, was "a very calculating guy, a bare-knuckled warrior. Had he lived, I think he was the only person who could have reintegrated the South in a wholesome way."
History Channel commissioned the film in January 2003. Jayanti spent more than a year doing research and thinking about how to portray Lincoln. He decided to go beyond the marble statuary and yellowed photos and explore the man's emotions and what drove him.
Lincoln, an up-by-the-bootstraps frontiersman, left no autobiography. But Jayanti found what Carl Lindahl, History Channel's vice president for historical programming, called "a lot of new scholarship about Lincoln." The voices of those scholars and writers, rather than that of a narrator, carry Lincoln's story. None of the actors speaks lines.
"Each person I interviewed at some point wept, they feel Lincoln's life so personally," Jayanti said. "I wanted the film to work not in the language of information, but in the language of emotions."
Jayanti, who produced "The Christmas Truce" for History in 2002 and won the 1997 Oscar for best feature documentary for "When We Were Kings," called this "a very ambitious film."
"A lot of it is done with cinema effect - things are a bit hallucinatory, the action is smeared across the screen," he said.
The film explores the emotional trauma that may have resulted in Lincoln's depression and his proclivity to hide his feelings. Experts discuss his fear that he might have contracted syphilis from prostitutes, and whether he had homosexual relationships.
"I was desperately concerned not to do a hatchet job on Lincoln," Jayanti said. "You can do a 'gotcha' on anyone, but Lincoln is bigger and better than that. What I was trying to do is to make Lincoln more human. That's not available if he's made of marble."
Lincoln was the best thing that ever happened to the South.
Segment about how she believed in him and saw a certain "greatness" when his Father wanted him to put away his educational pursuits....
What Gore Vidal missed and, the liberal, left-wing scum always miss, is the tremendous load that Lincoln had to bear in fighting the Civil war. Not only, the politics, the conduct of the war, failed Generals, political opportunists, foreign countries that wished America ill, and sided with the Confederacy against the union, insurrection at home in loyal states, undercover operations by the enemy, and the opposite political party, the Democrats undermining the war effort at every turn.
All this wishy-washy jazz about a man who lived in a different time and age is pure BS. Lincoln was the product of his time. What is common with Lincoln, is that all of us have our moments in love, family and death. and...in fact, in living life itself. Was Lincoln tormented and depressed, yes, but he rose above it, always keeping his gifted eyes on the prize that really mattered. No matter how the liberal Democrat vermin try to paint Lincoln aa a whacko or even as gay, they will never succeed. Lincoln was a blessing from God to the United States, and thus, he will always remain. Thank you, Abe!!!
"There are no 'homosexuals'. There are only homosexual acts." Gore Vidal
Uh, just `cause you're a fartknocker, Gore, doesn't mean Honest Abe was a butt-splitter as well. Those were rails.
See what happens? (Toleration v. acceptance.) You tolerate the camel sticking it's nose in the tent, and the next thing you know you got `cowboys' boo-fooing each other (and the moonies call it a `touching love story') and then they try to tell us our 16th president was AC/DC.
I went to bed.
I actually think it's about the best thing I've ever seen on the History Channel.
ping
A classical man from Victoria,
In a post-alcoholic euphoria,
Was discovered one day
In a club for the gay
Immersed in an Ars Amatoria.
"...for which..."
Sorry, should have been "...for whom..."
Yes, you're right - once the exclusive preserve of the California, Esalen, Gestalt Therapy, hippie-dippy crowd, now everyone's into the touchy-feely stuff. Indeed, apparently we're not even allowed any longer to appreciate the strong, silent cowboy type, inasmuch as, if the homosexualists are to be believed, THEY were all out on the range licking each other's six-shooters.
It's a form of cultural Marxism, in a way; egalitarianism run rampant. That is, as in a Communist society, no one is allowed to have anything that everyone else doesn't have. Well, nowadays no one is allowed to have any virtues or strengths everyone else doesn't have - so "Let's vilify society's heroes" and attempt, as best we can, to show they were no better than anyone else.
On the other hand, as we now know, in the world's Communist societies all comrades were equal, but some comrades were a little MORE equal - the commissars. Our new commissars are the homosexualists; the journalists; the Leftist politicians and their supporters; the film makers and their elves among the ranks of complicit actors and actresses; the enviro-Greens; the women's liberationists, and so on - everyone, in fact, in the Collective who is dedicated to tearing down our age-old social conventions and the Western, Judeo-Christian traditions upon which they're based.
The fact he had so little regard for human suffering and the fact he was depressed as a young man leads me to one conclusion and it's been written about before.
As for Gore Vidal, I don't take anything to heart from a man who does not know the difference between a man's anus and a woman.
The history channel's program on Lincoln was the worst slock job of yellow journalism I have seen in years. All speculation with NO facts to substaniate their BS.
I feel sorry for the youth of America and the world that would even consider this garbage worth the time they wasted watching it. This is a low point - even for a bias network like A&E.
tuck
Why all of a sudden have so many FReepers decided that limmericks were witty or cool. Did I miss a memo?
Thanks.
Guaranteed there were millions of young "Social Studies" students (it seems they only teach "History" in Jesuit schools these days) assigned this program for homework yeasterday. This morning, there were thousands of pony-tailed male teachers sitting on their desks discussing Lincoln's repressed queerness with their classes (who's desks are arranged in a circle).
"I actually think it's about the best thing I've ever seen on the History Channel."
You probably love PBS too.
Well, there is that story that, when Mary was out of town, he'd go to the Soldier's Home and sleep in the same bed as the captain of his bodyguards. And that he shared a bed with Joshua Speed back in Illinois for a lot longer than he needed to, given his income.
I'm not saying I buy it. I'm from central Illinois. My hometown was on Lincoln's circuit when he was a young lawyer. I'm steeped in Lincoln. But those are the two facts that the "Lincoln was gay" people use.
The syphilis argument does rest on some more solid ground. He is known to have eaten "Blue Mass", a mercury compound that, among other things, was used to control syphilis. Herndon alludes to a fairly wild period in Lincoln's life and the perceived subtext is that he was probably frequenting prostitutes while riding the circuit. The accepted story is that Blue Mass was prescribed for his "melancholy", but it's at least possible that it was controlling his syphilis and the melancholy was a side effect of the mercury. This theory also links Mary's love-hate relationship with Lincoln, her later insanity, the early deaths (and in one case, possible mild mental retardation) of three of their four sons
Again, not saying it's true. Just saying these are the the arguments for the theory.
As far as Lincoln sleeping in another man's bed....that's the same reason they give for their theory that Richard the Lion Heart was gay. Bunch of hogwash. Men often slept in other men's bed in the old days. VERY VERY common. They did not have the ideas of privacy that we have now nor often the resources to have their own beds. Also heating of course was not as developed so body heat was a pragmatic factor.
Only slime furthers these theories. The gay agenda is everywhere.
Other historical figures that the buttsex crowd has claimed based on this reasoning:
George Washington, William Wallace, Sir Isaac Newton, Michangelo, Willie Mays, Jesus Christ, etc.
You probably love PBS too.
I'm devestated.
Despite the danger from mindless fascism our society currently faces, I have always felt the true enemy of our Republic is this insidious Marxism that rooted itself so deeply in the counter culture of the peace movements during the 60's and 70's. Now these people are older and have moved onto different stages of their lives where they are key players within media, education, government, and even business, but they still hold onto this ridiculous ideal.
Communism is still the antithesis of our capitalistic society, and it's unwarranted influence must always be guarded against until it is finally wiped irrevocably from the minds of all men.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.