The award-winning film “Lincoln” will be shown at the Odell Public Library, 307 S. Madison Street, Morrison, IL, on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The film, directed by Steven Spielberg, will begin at 2:00 p.m. There is no charge.
Taken in part from the book, A Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the film centers on the month of January 1865 in Lincoln’s presidency. The President has just begun his second term in office as an immensely popular leader. However, the turmoil of the Civil War is entering its fourth year, having taken the lives of many soldiers on both sides.
Lincoln has delivered and signed the Emancipation Proclamation. However, he believes that the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which would abolish slavery forever, would also end the Civil War. The Amendment has passed the Senate and is scheduled for a vote in the House of Representatives in a short month, at the end of January.
The race to ensure this important vote is the heart and core of this movie. Lincoln and his team work feverishly behind the scenes cajoling, asking, reasoning, and compromising. Lincoln, as portrayed by the Oscar-winning Daniel Day Lewis, is a shrewd politician. He delicately balances the Radicals against the Conservatives of Congress and is ever ready to illustrate his point by “spinning tales.”
This is a great movie with an awesome cast, depicting a look into our history and the end of slavery–which is the beginning of Civil Rights for all.