While "Lincoln" has earned high honors for its stunning accuracy -- down to Daniel Day-Lewis's presidential profile -- one congressman noticed something off about the historical drama.
Rep. Joe Courtney, of Connecticut, recently took in a viewing of Steven Spielberg's film, which chronicles Honest Abe's last months in office as he fights to abolish slavery, but was miffed when he saw two Connecticut congressmen vote against the 13th amendment.
Afterwards, Courtney ran a search which confirmed his suspicion: "Lincoln" was historically inaccurate. All four Connecticut congressmen supported the amendment back in 1865. He then drafted a letter to Spielberg explaining this error.
"How could congressmen from Connecticut -- a state that supported President Lincoln and lost thousands of her sons fighting against slavery on the Union side of the Civil War -- have been on the wrong side of history?" he wrote. Courtney asked that the film be corrected before its DVD release.
No word yet from the higher-ups on this historical error. "Lincoln," is nominated for a lion's share of Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director.
UPDATE: "Lincoln" screenwriter Tony Kusher responded to Courtney's inaccuracy claims. Per the New York Times:
“We changed two of the delegation’s votes, and we made up new names for the men casting those votes, so as not to ascribe any actions to actual persons who didn’t perform them. In the movie, the voting is also organized by state, which is not the practice in the House. These alterations were made to clarify to the audience the historical reality that the 13th Amendment passed by a very narrow margin that wasn’t determined until the end of the vote. The closeness of that vote and the means by which it came about was the story we wanted to tell. In making changes to the voting sequence, we adhered to time-honored and completely legitimate standards for the creation of historical drama, which is what Lincoln is."
Kusher even threw a few zingers Courtney's way, including one that criticized the way in which the Congressman complained about the film.
"I’m sorry if anyone in Connecticut felt insulted by these 15 seconds of the movie, although issuing a Congressional press release startlingly headlined 'Before The Oscars …' seems a rather flamboyant way to make that known. I’m deeply heartened that the vast majority of moviegoers seem to have understood that this is a dramatic film and not an attack on their home state."
You can read the full statement over on NYT.com.
[via AP]
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Posted: 02/06/2013 9:26 am EST | Updated: 02/08/2013 11:01 am EST