‘Lincoln’ punts on former president’s ambiguous views on race | theGrio: The opening scene of Lincoln, the finely-acted Steven Spielberg Civil War drama about the Great Emancipator, begins with a scene in 1865 where President Abraham Lincoln himself is engaged with a cadre of awe-struck infantrymen, who begin to haltingly recite bits of the Gettysburg Address from memory.
It’s Corporal Ira Clarke – a young black soldier who, after regaling Lincoln with the plight of black soldiers, finishes the president’s most famous speech word for word.
That poignant scene is one of several in Lincoln that function as an impressive bit of cinema magic: it manages to humanize one of American history’s most well-known figures and brings to life the aspirations of blacks born as slaves and yearning to be free.
It also highlights two of the film’s biggest drawbacks. It depicts Lincoln as a legend without deep exploration of his belief system, and very seldom shows him interacting with the very same people he’s trying to free.
