Killing Lincoln
Killing Lincoln
KILLING LINCOLN (Narr./Hosted Tom Hanks, 2013, 120 minutes, for the
History Channel and National Geographic) is a deeply enjoyable
reenactor's fondest dream. With a stunningly handsome fellow portraying
John Wilkes Booth, this documentary lays out the most complex issues
leading up to Booth's assassination of our 16th president skillfully.
Tom Hanks offers an almost academic, pitch-perfect narration seated near a nice old table, the way Alastair Cooke used to do Masterpiece Theater introductions. (No fireplace though.) With reenactments and commentary by scholars, this is actually a well rendered educational work. I do not care for education-via-reenactment, as I state every time I get a chance. I think it is tawdry, stupid, badly done, nothing more than a stepping stone for whatever it is stepping on the stones.
Here it is done with panache and respect for Lincoln. While I know this is a total tie-in for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and I do not begrudge anyone that advantage, this documentary has a zest and accuracy that I really enjoyed. I even loved the man who reenacted the presidential photographer Alexander Gardener, who is the same man who reenacted him in a couple of other Lincoln documentaries from this year and last year.
It was just a bit disappointing that the actor who did Lincoln for all of NatGeo's documentaries wasn't in evidence here ... at least I don't think that was him. But then the emphasis is totally on Booth, not on Lincoln at all. If you wish to see the truth as well as know it, or hear it spoken as they probably did at the time, this is your documentary. It ought to be shown at schools, and Tom Hanks deserves some kind of Emmy for his presentation/narration.
Tom Hanks offers an almost academic, pitch-perfect narration seated near a nice old table, the way Alastair Cooke used to do Masterpiece Theater introductions. (No fireplace though.) With reenactments and commentary by scholars, this is actually a well rendered educational work. I do not care for education-via-reenactment, as I state every time I get a chance. I think it is tawdry, stupid, badly done, nothing more than a stepping stone for whatever it is stepping on the stones.
Here it is done with panache and respect for Lincoln. While I know this is a total tie-in for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and I do not begrudge anyone that advantage, this documentary has a zest and accuracy that I really enjoyed. I even loved the man who reenacted the presidential photographer Alexander Gardener, who is the same man who reenacted him in a couple of other Lincoln documentaries from this year and last year.
It was just a bit disappointing that the actor who did Lincoln for all of NatGeo's documentaries wasn't in evidence here ... at least I don't think that was him. But then the emphasis is totally on Booth, not on Lincoln at all. If you wish to see the truth as well as know it, or hear it spoken as they probably did at the time, this is your documentary. It ought to be shown at schools, and Tom Hanks deserves some kind of Emmy for his presentation/narration.
Killing Lincoln
+(2012).jpg)