Sally Field cast in Spielberg's Lincoln (Watch out for liberals trying to steal a Republican Hero)

Actress Archives.com ^ | 9-25-2007 | Actress Archives

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Sally Field wins an Emmy and suddenly everyone wants to 'really, really like her' again. Fresh off her controversial appearance on the Emmys, when she won for Brothers & Sisters, Sally Field has been cast as Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, in Steven Spielberg's long-awaited biopic of one of the most important leaders of all time. Liam Neeson has already been cast as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln bases on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln will center on the life of the leader in the time leading up to the Civil War as he inspired the troops of the North to fight. As E! reports, Liam Neeson has been attached to the project since way back in 2005, when it looked like Spielberg might do the flick between Munich and War of the Worlds. But the film has been postponed a number of times due to casting and scheduling conflicts. With the casting of Sally Field, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is closer to actually happening than ever before.

Now, of course, Steven Spielberg is filming a little movie called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so Lincoln will have to wait. That film will be released May 22, 2008 and Spielberg has a history of doing one big summer movie and one "serious" winter movie. Jurassic Park and Schindler's List both came out in 1993 and War of the Worlds and Munich dropped in 2005. Don't be at all surprised if Spielberg drops Indiana Jones 4 and Lincoln in 2008. E! does note however that it could be tough to start Lincoln with Sally Field's Brothers & Sisters schedule. It may have to wait until her summer hiatus, but Spielberg could still get it out before the end of next year. Lincoln reteams Spielberg with Neeson from Schindler's List and Tony Kushner, the writer of Munich. It's got Oscar bait written all over it.

The 60-year-old Sally Field has a long history in television and film, recently finishing an arc on ER and being a series regular and Emmy winner now on Brothers & Sisters. Sally Field has been nominated for an Oscar twice and won both times for 1979's Norma Rae and 1984's Places in the Heart.

[the OlLine Rebel]

LOL can’t argue with your points.

As I’ve stated, the only time liberals unabashedly and unhesitatingly rabidly “LOVE” the US is during the Civil War, period. Every other year, the US is the bad guy. For us southern sympathizers, it’s generally the other way around. ;-) Which means 98% of the time, I love the US. ;-)

Ever notice the parts of the 13th A ignored?

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT AS PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CONVICTED, shall exist....”

Wouldn’t it be nice to really make convicts general slaves and have them do something useful instead of working out in gyms and learning to be good Moslems?

[Non-Sequitur]

How can you be sure? It only took 9 states to ratify, for them at least, they could not have forced the other four in.

Reading accounts of the Constitutional convention. And there were at least 6 slave states. You forgot Maryland and Delaware.

[the OlLine Rebel]

I have to add, I don’t know where they come from, but some of the tripe lately about Lincoln is just silly. Liberal push?

But then, Libs love homos. If Lincoln was homo, wouldn’t that just make him better to them?

Well, I guess it didn’t make Larry Craig better to them. Libs can’t make up their minds.

[Non-Sequitur]

Really? How did it gradually die off in the rest of the states? Were those parts so much more interested in freeing their own blacks? All states/colonies were originally slave. Only MA was “free” in 1787

The Southern states were willing to engage in a bloody rebellion to protect their rights to slavery. If they're willing to fight for it then I don't see how you could conclude they would be willing to end slavery through peaceful means.

[x]

The latter is the only thing that makes modern liberals love him, and I’ve never seen an exception.

Maybe you haven't been looking very hard. Lincoln was long popular with Northerners -- especially Middlewesterners. It wasn't a liberal vs. conservative thing, though some Southerners try to make it that.

Liberals have had some ambivalence about Lincoln. He was a Republican, part of the "business party," and in the early twentieth century, liberals weren't comfortable with him for that reason. They saw him as a supporter of industry, corporations, and capitalism.

In the days of Wilson and FDR there was more sympathy among liberals for the old South than you might think, though it was never wholehearted. Today liberals see Lincoln as racist and are ambivalent about him for that reason as well.

I think what you've picked up are normal Northern attitudes that have been around for a long time, not anything especially liberal or conservative.

[L.N. Smithee]

Well, maybe “babe” in the sense that she is cute like a baby. But “hot”, I don’t know!

That's OK. I know.

[smug]

You forgot Maryland and Delaware.

No I did not, we have no idea how they might vote on a thing they had not seen.

[x]

I misread your post. I thought you were saying that it was only liberals who respected or admired Lincoln. And I responded to say that it wasn't just them, that Southerners sometimes don't get just how widespread respect for Lincoln was in the North, and that liberals have long had mixed feelings about Lincoln.

Now I see what you were saying. Is it just because of Blacks that liberals have positive feelings about Lincoln? I don't know. Everybody's feelings about the man are more complicated than that.

I don't know what a narrow leftist fringe thinks. I suspect that when someone like Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln becomes part of history people are brought up to respect them. However much they stray later from their upbringing something of it remains.

However it is for this or that fringe, that's how it is with most people. Some people are ideologically motivated in this, but many aren't. Some people come at these things because of ideology. Others simply think how they were brought up to. And some look carefully at the facts.

[x]

I guess you like her.

You really, really like her!

[L.N. Smithee]

You really, really like her!

I've had a crush on her since she was in Flying Nun. She was outstanding in Norma Rae. It wasn't until years later I watched it again and realized it is spoonfed union propaganda. She was wasted in Forrest Gump -- as a fan of director Robert Zemeckis, I don't know how he thought she could be believable as Tom Hanks' mother. Unfortunately, the roles she plays now call for overly dramatic mood swings and crying and anger, both in ER and Brothers and Sisters.

Like I said, she's held up well for a sexagenarian. She doesn't look like she's had too much plastic surgery like, for example, fifty-nine year old Farrah Fawcett or sixty-two year old Priscilla Presley, who looks like Lisa Marie's kid sister. I hope that my wife looks that good at sixty...that is, when I get a wife.

[mewzilla]

The Racist History of the Democratic Party

[greyfoxx39]

What a shame. I thought they would have gone with Holly hunter in that role, since she and liam neeson read the letters of Lincoln and Mary together sometime ago on Cspan. They were absolutely superb.

Holly Hunter is about 50 times the actress dear old Sally is, also. Her performance in "The Piano" was superb, IMO. Here she is in her new sexy TNT series "Saving Grace".

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

No, but it should have been built into the US rules much earlier and with gradual emancipation.

If you read the ratification debates from the various states, it's pretty clear that the southern states wouldn't have ratified the Constitution the first place if emancipation had been written into the original draft of the Constitution.

Here's what they said in North Carolina's debates:

When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it will be an event which must be pleasing to every generous mind, and every friend of human nature; but we often wish for things which are not attainable. It was the wish of a great majority of the Convention to put an end to the trade immediately; but the states of South Carolina and Georgia would not agree to it. Consider, then, what would be the difference between our present situation in this respect, if we do not agree to the Constitution, and what it will be if we do agree to it. If we do not agree to it, do we remedy the evil? No, sir, we do not. For if the Constitution be not adopted, it will be in the power of every state to continue it forever. They may or may not abolish it, at their discretion. But if we adopt the Constitution, the trade must cease after twenty years, if Congress declare so, whether particular states please so or not; surely, then, we can gain by it. This was the utmost that could be obtained. I heartily wish more could have been done.

[puroresu]

What do you think the view of Lincoln will be circa 2050? As Russell Kirk would argue, once a society rejects cultural conservatism, it will inevitably collapse leftward. So the ravings on this year’s loony leftists become the mainstream opinions of all liberals next year, and the year after that are accepted by mainstream conservatives (the ones I call PC Cons).

For example, if you’ve been watching C-SPAN you’ve seen the spectacle of Gen. Pace being raked over the coals for saying homosexual acts are immoral. Only a loon would have objected to Pace’s beliefs until fairly recently. Now virtually every liberal and likely many PC conservatives object.

Or take same-sex “marriage” as another example. Only radical extremists supported it until recently. Now support for such nonsense is becoming mainstream Democrat dogma. All the Democrat candidates support civil unions. They claim to oppose “marriage” but, of course, they’re lying because the numerous referenda on the issue have forced them to be cautious. If elected they’ll pack the courts with Margaret Marshall clones. PC Cons such as David Brooks are already beginning to capitulate on the issue.

So circa 2050, when whites are slipping into minority status, and large segments of the populace are of recent immigrant heritage, steeped in multi-culturalism, how do you think Lincoln will be portrayed? All indications are that by then America will be far to the left of where it is today. Imagine someone in 1960 looking in the future and seeing 2007 America. Abortion-on-demand, multi-culturalism, millions of illegal aliens being coddled and given government handouts, same-sex “marriage” looming and top military officers ridiculed for not wanting homosexuals in the barracks, terrorist leaders invited to speak at Columbia (where a conservative was shouted down when he tried to speak), political correctness, speech codes, hate crime laws. Well, 2050 America will be that much further to the left compared to today. So how do you think Lincoln will be portrayed in, say, a typical textbook?

[puroresu]

BTW, I should have noted that I’m not asking you the question about Lincoln to be provocative. I’d just like to know your opinion about what you think the prevailing (almost certainly liberal) view of Lincoln will be circa 2050. Because other than “extremists” such as Jesse Helms or Tom Tancredo or Ann Coulter, no one seriously resists the advancement of Political Correctness in our nation. As Lawrence Auster has noted, even most conservatives are now liberals.

[puroresu]

In the third sentence, on = of. I despise typos! :-)

[Captain Peter Blood]

Actually Lincoln was not interested in the plight of those in slavery at all during most of his life until the Civil War and then only as a matter of political expediency.
He is overrated and don’t forget he suspended as many of the Bill of Rights was possible including Habeas Corpus.
He wasn't a Reagan Republican.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Actually Lincoln was not interested in the plight of those in slavery at all during most of his life until the Civil War and then only as a matter of political expediency.

It's odd, then, that most of Stephen Douglas's time in the Lincoln-Douglas debates was spent accusing Lincoln of being an abolitionist. Here's Lincoln at one of those 1858 debates:

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, covert real zeal for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty-criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.

Sure doesn't sound like someone who isn't interested in slavery, and this is three years before the war. Read the Cooper Union speech, which basically won him the Republican nomination. What's it about?

[Zack Nguyen]

Holly Hunter also read for Mary Todd Lincoln in an excellent PBS documentary of the Lincolns. Sally Fields is a fine actress though, if Steel Magnolias and Forrest Gump is any indication.

[Stonewall Jackson]

I loved Kevin Conroy as Buster Kilrain and Sam Elliot as General John Buford.