Abraham Lincoln (1930)

D.W. Griffith's "Abraham Lincoln"

With the 1930s comes the birth of sound. D.W. Griffith, often referred to as the 'father of cinema,' utilised the sound media to film one of the last films he would ever make. Griffith, in his new venture, decided to go back to his roots. Abraham Lincoln would be his subject. He had touched upon Lincoln before when he made "The Birth of a Nation." However, this piece, written for the screen by Stephen Vincent Benet, would solely focus on the life of Lincoln, as apposed to his relationship with the Civil War (although that would be touched upon as well, since it was a major aspect of his life).

The film simply presents as a biography of the 15th president. It tracks the events of his life from the time he spent in Illinois until his death in Ford theater. The events are presented episodically, often jumping from one moment to the next without any sort of contextually thread. This at times presents a problem for the viewing experience. The hopping around between disjointed events doesn't seem to form a cohesive narrative. The film reads more like a school textbook, rather than an intricate story. Not only this, the dialogue and the way in which the characters read the dialogue appear far more stiff. The direction of the characters' behavior comes across of more like a high school production. This was not entirely the fault of Griffith, who was dealing with new sound recording devices that were cumbersome to production. The results appears to form a disjointed piece full of overinflected acting. 

Being that this was Griffith's penultimate film in his long career, it seemed to greatly reflect his interests of American heritage. The obsession with the Civil War era was reflective of his generation, whose fathers and grandfathers served in the Civil War. With "The Birth of a Nation," Griffith tried to redefine what the Civil War and the effects of its destruction. However, this racist doctrine permeated the early twentieth century and attempted to rewrite the history of its source material. Fifteen years later with "Abraham Lincoln," Griffith once again tries to stamp an official narrative of his history. With this film, Griffith was attempting to establish the idea of Lincoln through a bibliographic format, and gesture towards the common understanding of his life and beliefs. Because of this 'essense'-driven perspective, the film is full of historical inaccuracies. These blemishes of historical perspective was nothing new to Griffith. What was new, however, was the obsolete presentation of his visual presentation of American history. In 1915, Griffith's execution of his films were bold and creative, as he was creating the visual flow of cinema for all to take part in. However, by 1930, this visual style was old and tired. Although the visual narrative still tells an engaging story, the plainness with which it is told had become old hat. Throughout the 1920s, German Expressionism created a subjective experience, French poetic cinema created a visual rhythm of feeling, and Soviet Montage had revolutionized editing. With "Abraham Lincoln," Griffith demonstrated what sound could bring to American cinema, allowing audiences to hear Honest Abe for themselves. However, his visual style seemed as old as Abe himself.