prejudice" can keira knightley, and you should see belle. >> but these filmmakers are much like the publishers we encounter today. what's its future? it's good for us to be critical. but a making period is very expensive. filmmakers don't like it, television doesn't like it, so if someone comes to you and says, we want to do a reality show set in an antebellum southern scene. you might, like i have, said, great. like anything, it's the debate and discussion out there.

my sons came up with the idea a few years ago i should take p n "plantation mistress" to hollywood and say, real housewives of the old south. >> you should. >> but "the patriot," at the same time, you're sitting there and these little freshmen come in, and why are you here, what's your interest? and they saw the film. part of it is to get people excited about the past even if it's not our past, even if it's nobody's past, some fantasy past. >> vampire past. and this brings us a question of what constitutes a film about slavery? would you think of "ride with the devil" as a film about

slavery or "cold mountain"? no. there are slaves in those films, but they're very marginal and they're thereubídleh almost to establish -- "cold mountain" had no slaves, no black voices. you see a black woman being drugged, being carried. r(t&háhp &hc% nod. and i think that was a subconscious cold mountain view of the world. we know they're there, but this is our film. >> you even see nicole kidman taking refreshments out to the slaves but she never gets past the porch. i think that's one of the most ludicrous things in the whole thing. but charles does so many interesting things with his references to slavery and these other mountaineers heading off to war and the motivation of slavery with that. i think he needs to do more with that in the film, as much as i like other parts of it. >> and symbolic is interesting

because people would deny the interest of slaves in their lives. sdplz >> so true. >> on that level, i know you've gone through probably millions of planters' letters. i've only gone through thou thousands, but i know you've gone through millions. but at any rate, you see that they on don't speak about their slaves. you look and they have 250 slaves and there's nothing about them in there. so it's kind of an interesting, you know, view of our perspective of the way in which the slaveholders sometimes saw their lives, which is when they're writing to their loved ones really not -- and their family is not really concerned about the slaves, they're doing all these things archound them. >> there's a writing code, and they're also using their slaves

to write to another to tell a story. part of it is we come up with hundreds of great, interesting stories. where is the film on harriet jacob? where is the film on harriet tubman? plenty of harriets we could write about. we think of these stories. when i was working in the '90s in hollywood and i was in a meeting and talking about these wonderful stories -- this was pre-"amistad." i was talking about all these great stories and i got involved in a project about richard m. johnson. they kept pushing the story of his concubine and daughters and it was like, would it, could it, should it? at that age, i couldn't bear -- when you say you're consulting, you go to movies and the film comes out. my first viewing of lincoln was at a premier in gettysburg. i just closed my eyes, crossed

my fingers and hope. >> it was great. >> but you do not know that there will be something that is -- but at the same time, i think we have to keep trying. in the '90s, i proposed several films with black women as p protagonists, and i was told of three women who could carry a television line, and at that time their i.q. levels weren't high enough. and i discovered why actresses were so marginalizemarginalized have pita come forward and speak about her role. think about the portraits of sally hemmings. why are women, african-american women, being portrayed by non-american born women? it's very interesting, because i think our relationship -- the

legacy of slavery is still very much a part of the business of american culture, which is reflected in american films. what will make money? if slavery makes money, they'll be making films about slavery. that's really true. if presidential biopics make money, they're going to be making biopics. look for van buren at your multiplex. >> kevin, years ago, do you remember a screenplay of celia. i don't know how many of you remember that story. young girl had a black lover, ends up killing her master. almost gets away with it. her black slave lover gives her away. it leads to a trial in the 1850s amidst all the border tensions. but do you remember the screenplay turned it not into

her story but the story of her lawyer. it was turned into an atticus finch story. her lawyer was the centerpiece who was the hero for actually defending her. >> because the film business is the bankability. you looked at "12 years a slave," and you did call it a hollywood film, and i'm glad you did, because without brad pitt playing a role in it, it would not have been bankable. and that kind of thing can go on and people have these wonderful films. the documentary filmmakers that we know working in these areas, you and i know people now, and to get a film going as a documentary takes a decade of raising money. and i know spielberg had his meeting with his earliest advisers in 2006 to make -- for "lir

"lincoln." there was a writer's strike and many other things, but it had a lot to do with not just schedules but it had to do with financing. >> it was going to be liam neeson playing it, wasn't it? >> liam neeson was reading the part, and there were other people involved at that time. daniel day-lewis, i think we know, inhabited that character. >> i want to say one thing, though. it's really important when we look at these films that we also look at the films that were done early in the 1960s, 1970s, '80s, for example. a lot of them on slavery we found on public television. for example, the first "12 years a slave" i saw on public tv. it was the early film version of that. >> 1991. >> 1991. there was an early harriet tubman film with scicely tyson.

there are a lot of other films available to us that should be part of the discussion. >> definitely. >> hi, i'm ashley bowen murphy from brown university, and i have a question that i think will actually build on something you all just said and mentioned in your earlier comments. i wonder if you can talk a bit about the role that medium plays, so we're all talking about film, and i'm wondering why there aren't great representations of slavery in television. and i'm thinking particularly of kind of the current trend for, like, contemporary westerns, so "hell on wheels" and c"copper," both which are shows i like and they should keep being made. also "deadwood." but i wonder why television doesn't lend itself since we're in this renaissance of american tv with all the money and

attention going there. >> you know, the hatfields and mccoys was the biggest hit and made a lot of money which did well commercially. you know, i take your point. i just remember watching all those made-for-tv movies, many of them dealing with the south. "freedom road" with mohammad ali written by howard fast. a lot was made during -- >> the autobiography of jane pitman. >> during the '70s, you did have a lot of these films and the portraits of the period i thought were wrenching and amazing. i remember seeing a lynching on a small screen and thinking, this is an amazing moment. at the same time, i think that when i was in the 1990s and i was often pitching stories and ideas, and i remember very distinctly, which shocked me so much, being told a story that we

were trying to put across was too dangerous for television because it was black and white, and it wasn't a concubine. you could have a concubine, but anything might upset fellow advertisers. so in some ways i think television is a medium that responds so commercially and waits for -- you know, it's like something happens in film and five to ten years later, it becomes okay. and i'm thinking of this. i've been out of the country for almost ten years and i'm noticing it in the language on television, what is now acceptable. wait, they can say that on tv? you know, that kind of thing. >> on the other hand, it used to be that to get anything made with black characters, historically prominent characters, was done on television. i'm thinking of maya angelou in

"while the bird sings." those were back in the '80s, i guess, but tv was a backup where you could afford to do something like that. jane pitman -- >> "roots." >> "roots," of course. >> the last session of "roots" had more viewership than anything in u.s. television history. so that was a moment, but you also have to think about the time in which it was done. it was after the civil rights movement and people wanted to know more about african-american history, they wanted more ability to talk about in a way they didn't have to go and read ten books about it or whatever, so people would look at those films. they thought it was really a moment, as was the history itself in which there was a lot of discourse across the racial divide, you know. and everyone was talking about

various things. and so now we have a time which is very odd in terms of the way it's represented on television. we can have something like scandals, for example, but then we can't necessarily have a film about nat turner, you know. and so it's really interesting that you can have, you know, this black woman in the white house who really in many ways is running the white house, you know. you know, the dream of sally hemmings, but you can't have -- you can't have a film about nat turner, although there has been a film about denmark vici. but it's on a small screen, again, for pbs. it's kind of an odd place politically, i think, and socially with regard to race that i wouldn't know whether or not, given the figures that you gave about the large screen,

whether or not now the small screen producers would want to take a chance on doing those kinds of films. because oftentimes they do take their cue from the small screen. >> they were going to do a movie about pride, which was derailed by "roots." "gone with the wind" was shown in the first weekend in fall in november. not thanksgiving weekend, but another weekend. those two shows are still in the top 10 with broadcast audience. but "roots," i think, was higher. but in terms of the popular culture, you had "gone with the wind" rearing up again, just the cultural icon, and "roots" coming along and replacing it. and interestingly, the children of pride scuttles back into the manuscript.

when are we going to get the more complex stories to tell the side so we don't have the evil master. as we know, all the mistresses were evil because we watch all these films and we see their roles and we see there isn't any portrait that's not stereotyped one way or the other. that's why mandingo has such a continuing power because it's taking it on the wind, turning it inside-out and making it a grand, melodramatic saga. >> i had to go back and see "mandingo" because i hadn't seen it since the '70s. >> we get letters from parents about the tuition they pay. >> he know that as a scholar -- >> would you identify yourself? >> i'm sorry, terry pay at penn state. i know we're all interested as scholars that we want filmmakers to be interested in us, but i have a hunch that they are, in

fact, interested enough. the reason they want you as a consultant is they actually want th that, they want it to be authentic, they want it to be real. so when i watch a lot of these films, i'm actually struck by, did they have a kind of strange engagement, the history, but it's often just a little bit off. so when i watched demi's film, it seemed like an argument to me. when i watched "jango," i thought, okay, agency. this is agency. it's not what i meant. but in some kind of strange way, there is something going on in the popular culture that has kind of busted open a lot of the way that we've written history. and it's about breaking up a kind of cannon of black politics where you have, you know, kind of two traditions.

one is revolutionary or what have you. it came to me in james mcbride's frederick douglas as a buffoon. and i thought, when we watch these things, it's what makes it so fraud for us, that we feel like they're busting a cannon open. in some ways, maybe that's a good thing, but there's something about it that's really disturbing. so i just wanted to hear people think about, talk about, do you feel like -- how does it relate to the way we write history? >> it's interesting that you mention mcbride's novel. bird won the national book award this past year. i haven't taught it yet but i have a number of former students that are reading it and getting in touch saying this is one that ought to be taught. apparently it's going to be made into a film. it might be the next film we have on slavery. it's a 12-year-old boy disguised as a girl taken in by john brown

in kansas and follows him all the way through. we see harper's ferry and steven douglas has meetings with douglas through the eyes of this 12-year-old boy that wilson, his son, is going to play on screen. so it's actually going to get done. but it's interesting what they would choose to option and they would take a fiction book and it almost seems like it will be more like "jango" than "12 years a slave." >> i hate to disagree with you, but i think if we brought filmmakers in to hear our panels, to hear people talk, to hear them promote their views, their scholarship, don't you think there is a lot of disagreement among people and interpretations? i'm really taking this seriously. and when the filmmakers call you, they do not want the complexity. they don't want the

historiography. they will also reject the one who doesn't give them the historiography they want. >> it has to be on their own terms. >> steven spielberg had an idea. he put it all together and that's the narrative, that's the story. he has his ideas, he has his scenes. i was struck very powerfully by spielberg having scenes in his mind telling the historians what he saw, was it possible, could it be. it's just like, what was the weather at the gettysburg address? because the flag and the several-hundred-page screenplay gets shot down to a few months. so there are ways -- and so what is the question? they're saying, can mary lincoln wear this? can she wear that? and i say, well, she was actually wearing black, she was in mourning. but the larger authenticity of

the film was to portray her as a vain shopaholic, to portray her as something difficult. so she wasn't accurate. if i was someone that had said ssaid, no, she must wear the black, otherwise it's not accurate. i'm giving you concrete examples, and i don't think it's mean-spirited that they don't want to hear it, but i found most people doing period pieces have their ideas in mind, have their scripts ready for approval. can you go through and do the three things we're willing to eliminate and change? many other filmmakers, as i said, especially documentarians, are amazing the way they absorb and they consider they're taking a course. i'm very grateful that someone like tony kushner did read so

widely for "lincoln" and was able to bring "lincoln" to life. i felt like i was listening to people i knew but he was interpreting them in ways i didn't know, and i think that's a gift most of us don't have in our writing and we should try to admire these moments, these scenes at the beginning of "12 years a slave," the opening scene. i don't understand -- i'm just saying i've had more conversations with people about it, and that someone could make a film that's so powerfully open, it's about gender, it's about race, it's about slavery, and yet who is going to tell you what it's about? you know, what i'm trying to get at is i think that can be the power of a work of art, and sometimes i think it's very deliberate to not have it reflect good historical practice but to be more complex, more

open-ended, and, you know, maybe even at times just plain wrong. like in "glory," when you have someone riding down the field slashing away at watermelons. really, in massachusetts in april? at the same time, the slicing of the watermelons by this leader of african-american troops has a larger meaning. so sometimes we've got to let these people have their fantasies. except for the vampires. >> i think it's a really excellent question because i think that the filmmakers i've met and the ones who write the scripts are really smart people. they're really quite intelligent, very, very intelligent, but they're intelligent in a way -- they've been trained differently from the way that we have so that they are interested in, you know, the impact visually and what people hear and the overall

story or theme or thesis that they want to put forward. so whenever they come to historians, it's usually not as they're writing the work, it's usually after they've already worked out in their mind what the opening scene is going to look like and the rest of it, and the story holds together well for them, for what they would like to portray in one way. and then on the other side of it is in working with the producers who are going to find out whether or not they're going to finance, so then you have to take into consideration what the producers want to see in this film, too. so they kind of -- they're very collaborative, and we're only one piece, a small piece, of the collaboration. because they do come in with this. and it's interesting because i want to know whether or not steve mcqueen actually shot the opening sequence for "12 years a slave" which i really found horrific because there is nowhere in -- you know, the woman, okay, is using salmon

northrup to masturbate herself. that's totally in someone's imagination. but i know the scenes aren't shot by the director. there are companies that do only opening scenes for them and closing scenes for them. they used to just do the titles and then they did the credits, but now they actually do the opening sequence. and the director has to check that off or whatever, and the producer. but i wonder if he actually himself shot that sequence because usually the opening scenes are no longer shot by the directors. >> he would have to check it off, wouldn't he? >> that's what i said, he would have to check it off, but i'm wondering if he was thinking in terms of how it's going to open that he's going to open it in this kind of way. or if someone in that sequence who sort of really draws the

audience in says, have you thought about putting a scene in like this? they do have to get a prool fppr doing it, but they no longer have complete control over the opening sequence. >> he is drawing on a single source, single narrative, single voice in which he lets whole scenes come out. it's remarkable. where spielberg is drawing on so many multi-faceted events where the input of historians would matter more to either spielberg or any filmmaker trying to do something as complex as he was doing in those films. >> i know steve mcqueen is really visually driven, so people think about his other films, "hunger" and the other

one, and they think about him as brilliant behind the camera. i think spielberg is much more interested in accuracy than a lot of directors are and that he is in some ways much more like a historian, i think, in the way in which he decides to depict something on screen that i think steve mcqueen is, who is really also just about the art of making a visually stunning film, too, mostly, along with an important story. >> until recently, spielberg was given afterno given an award by the gild gilda lehrer event because his film is history. i know the teaching and film of "amistad" has been a lot of debate, i remember taking my

younger son to see "amistad," and the moment in the film, which is certainly taken from the xong case, where the slaves are shackled and thrown overboard is one of the most visually powerful, arresting scenes. when i went to the international museum of slavery in liverpool, they have their own version of that. so it is something that -- we deal in words and we deal powerfully in telling stories, but it's something that we now, in the 21st century -- back to media -- we have to grapple with. is it going to be streaming? who is going to look at it? but i think we have to bring both our students and the public to understand that stories can be told in many different dimensions. and i think the power of some of these scenes, so maybe we can deal with clips rather than the full film, and we can deal with the powerful medium of

historical film, is something that can bring slavery to a modern audience. >> well, that seems like an ñiñ. thank you all so much for coming and thank you very much to our panelists for their very thoughtful and insightful comments. [applause] our look at hollywood's depiction of slavery will continue in a moment. we're showing you some of american history's tv programs normally seen on weekends here on c-span3. coming up, matthew pitsker analyzes the film "lincoln." that's followed by jeffrey mcgerkin on "gone with the wind." this week, special prime

time programming on c-span networks. tonight on c-span. from glasgow, a debate on scottish independence. tuesday, an eye on conservative groups. wednesday night, educating children from disadvantaged backgrounds. thursday, a house budget committee hearing on federal, state and private anti-poverty programs. and friday night, native american history. on c-span2 this week, booktv and prime time. tonight, a discussion on school choice. tuesday night, how the poor can save capitalism. on wednesday, author of a buy g biography about neil armstrong. and friday, "in depth" with former congressman ron paul. on american history tv on

c-span3, tonight the reconstructive era on civil rights. on tuesday the end of world war ii and the atomic bomb. on wednesday night, the 21st anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. on thursday, a look at how the public opinion changed world war i. friday, apollo 11 moon landing. call us at 202-626-3400. e-mail us at comments@cspan.org. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. next, dickinson college professor matthew pinske pinsker dissects the hollywood movie "lincoln."

this is hosted by the u.s. capitol history toical society. it's about 35 michbnutes. >> our next speaker is matt pinsker who holds the chair in civil war history at dickinson college. dickinson college, of course, is the alma mater of chief justice tawney, for what that's worth. matt is the author of a number of books and articles including lincoln's sanctuary, which is a history of the soldier's home where lincoln would go during the summer. and he is the author of a fou h forthcoming book, which i think will radically force us to think about lincoln in a new way. it's hard to imagine anything that could force us to think about lincoln in a new way since

there is so much on lincoln that what else is there to say? his new book will be called "boss vn"kw"1ojlincoln." and he is actually going to look at lincoln as a party leader and a presidential leader. so i'm going to turn the podium over to matt pinsker and also let him talk to us about mr. spielberg and how "lincoln" goes to hollywood. [applause] >> well, thank you very much to paul and to don and to everyone here. it's an honor to be at a symposium like this and to speak about spielberg's "lincoln" in a place like this is an important thing for us to do. this is a movie that's now about a year and a half old, and it's not just a biopic about abraham lincoln, it happens to be a really fascinating study about congress. for those of us who care about the history of congress, this is

a wonderful event for popular culture to celebrate congress. in the title of my talk, i connected with frank capras, "mr. smith goes to washington," because i feel like there is a dark connection between them in the sense that both these classics, spielberg's "lincoln" is instantly an american classic, and frank capras' "mr. smith goes to washington" both depict congress in a dark way. the historical perception from people in my generation was generally positive. some of them were large as if the subject matter was wrong, it was the wrong subject to feature people in the abolition of slave slavery. that's fair but it's such a big criticism it's hard for hollywood to address. then some came from capitol hill

itself, things like whether or not the congressman from connecticut voted for or against the final amendment. you know, and those criticisms are fair, but they're very precise. however, now as a college professor, as a classroom teacher, as i'm preparing to teach this movie, and i have to teach it because it's such a vivid portrayal of the period, i've been compelled to think a little more deeply about the nature of the narrative itself. and in doing so, i can't escape the conclusion that at the end of the day in this movie about the passage of the abolition amendment, the 13th amendment in congress in january of '65, at the heart of that narrative, there is a conclusion that it was passed with bribery. that not only was it passed with bribery but it was passed with bribery that abraham lincoln knew about and condoned. i find that a very disturbing conclusion because there's been a lot of scholarship on this

question, and the scholarship addresses this question, although it's far, far more cautious about reaping the conclusions the movie reaches, and i don't think people realize it. and i don't think the historians who commented on the movie's release in the immediate months after it came out really addressed this in great detail. and i think that's because almost all of them, from what i can tell, watched the movie. they didn't read the script. and, you know, it's because the script wasn't readily available except to academy award voters, and it was hard at first to get ahold of it. but now that i'm preparing to teach it, and i've worked with the script in great detail, i find all kinds of examples of other kinds of connections to a movie like frank capras' "mr. smith" and i see the fiction that's in the heart of this narrative. this is a work of historical fiction. i don't think anybody should be shocked at that and i don't mean it as an insult. i wanted to talk about that today and sort of die -- diagram

it for you even though the spoiler alert, the memo did pass. in order to get there from the opening in the movie, they had to rearrange a lot of details, so i'm going through that now. as i do that, you should be aware that it's part of my effort to teach this movie, and i do think we should teach it, study it and use it. i created an unofficial teacher's guide to the movie. that's part of something we call dickinson college, the house divided transcript. if you google the emancipation digital classroom, you will be able to see an unofficial teacher's guide to lincoln that includes links to everything i'm about to talk about with primary sources and images and even links to a script so you can explore this issue yourself. so let me remind you, if you can't remember, how the movie

begins, right? of course, there is that great cinematic frame. you've got the kind of seated lincoln in the washington navy yard and the black soldier and the white soldier recite the gettysburg address to him. this is part of the poetic time in the movie. at the end of the movie they have the second inaugural. but the heart of the movie's narrative opens with him describing a dream to his wife. and in that description of the dream, you realize in early january of 1865 that he is preparing to push for an abolition amendment to the constitution during the lame duck session of congress, and this is a shock. lincoln opposes it. you'll waste your popularity, she warns him. when he explains this to wayne seward and to congressman james ashley, the ostensible author on capitol hill, they're worried and shocked. this is a dramatic and sort of surprising move. that's all fiction.

now, you know, the reintroduction of the amendment that had been defeated the previous spring is real, but it was all telegraphed out in the open. this is not a surprise and it's not something that lincoln comes up with in a way that was shocking to people. i mean, in fact, you know, in his annual message in december of 1864 after he won that sweeping reelection victory, he telegraphed it to the public and boasted it about it, you might say. i'm reading now from that annual message. this is the state of the union address they delivered back then when congress reassembled for its election in december of 1 1864. he says to congress, the next congress will pass the measure if this does not. he says, it's only a question of time when the proposed amendment will go to the states. and i read the next line almost as a taunt. you might read it differently. but he says, may we not agree that the sooner the better,

right? the sooner the better. let's get this done. of course, the telegraphing of this reintroduction of the amendment during lame duck session was done even earlier than the post-election annual messa message. the vote in the house the previous june of 1864, that had been a vote that was supported by all the republican members of congress. it failed because they required the supermajority, and the supermajority that they required meant that they needed democrats to vote for it, and they didn't have enough democrats to vote for it. but in order to reintroduce the measure later in the session, presumably after the election because they don't reassemble again until december, james ashley, the amendment's sponsor, switched his vote at the last minute so that he voted no. he's the only republican who voted against it in the house in order that he could bring it back up in january. and when he recalls after the war his strategy, he makes it

clear, right that, they had known all along that this was something they were making a platform of the now union party in the election of 1864, they were supporting an abolition amendment. they were going to fight for it during the campaign. and if they won a sweeping victory as they hoped to do, then they would introduce it in the lame duck session. and he spent the next several months after the defeated measure in the house, it had already passed the senate, that they were going to pinpoint, target wavering democrats in the north, try to persuade them to switch their votes and go after them in december. this is what lincoln is telegraphing in his annual message. it's all out in the open. of course, this is not the impression the movie gives. the movie gifves the impression they're divided over this, and preston blair, you get the feeling they're opposed to this. none of this is true.

they're radical republicans and they argue bitterly over a lot of stuff. but by april of 1865, they were not arguing unnecessarily over the issues of slavery. one of the speakers at this symposium is michael bloomberg. he is sitting over there. his book "financial freedom" that offers great details about the nuances of the debates of how to abolish slavery and how republicans came to it. but by january of '65, the republican party was essentially up with the idea that slavery had to be abolished and they knew it had to be abolished by constitutional amendment, and even those who objected against the amendment and its language, they weren't ready to vote against it. the only votes they were targeting were democratic votes, not conservative republicans. the conservative radicals were arguing over reconstruction. they were arguing over what happens next. those arguments were fierce and bitter, but when the movie

portrays this tension between conservative and radical tensions with lincoln in the middle, it's conflating two different issues that really should be separated. you know, this plays out in a host of different ways. i don't have time to go into all of it, but i do remember one scene, and i think if you saw the movie, you'll remember it, too. classic scene. arguably the most teachable scene in the movie, at least for a college professor. so there is this meeting of the cabinet where abraham lincoln defends his emancipation policy and explains to some skeptical cabinet officers why they need to push for this abolition amendment. it's like a cinematic version of that famous painting by francis carpenter which you see on the senate side of the capitol, which is on the cover of doris goodman's book "the team of rivals." this is eminently teachable. this is abraham lincoln bringing to life complicated, constitutional arguments.

and i've seen historians thrilled in their reviews of the movie celebrating this, and we should, okay? but that scene, as powerful as it is, that is circa summer of '62. so what they're talking about in '62 is what's still controlled by roger tawney and the votes are not clear. but by summer of 1865, tawney is dead. this is the court they now have the votes to control. they are still worried about the ultimate legality of the emancipation proclamation and the slaves there, but the dynamic has shifted dramatically. there is a lot that's changed. for example, in 1865, missouri has abolished slavery. the confederates are talking

about offering limited emancipation in order for service in the army. things have changed. this was not a debate they would have in the cabinet in the way that tony horowitz or steven spielberg portrayed. it's such a wonderful thing to see, a film addressing such complicated issues, but the timing is all wrong. they've conflated everything. the reason they've done that from a life perspective is totally understandable. they need to create drama and tension. this is act i, right? screenwriting 101, you set up tension and then you resolve it. i give them all the license they need to do that. but in getting to the resolution of this conflict between the conservatives and the radicals, they have to introduce something that doesn't actually appear in the book that's the basis for the film. so the film is supposedly built around the te"the team of rival

doris kern goodman's book. these are the lobbyists who were hired by william seward to help secure passage of the amendment. there is a really terrific, detailed depiction of the seward lobby in an old book by john and rawanda cox, "politics, principles and subjects." it's massive and freely available on line through the internet archive. this lobby was real. the characters that are depicted in the movie are real. james spader, the actor, plays william barbough, a real person. these are real figures.

but the actual story is totally different from what's on screen. these are like shakespearan characters. they're bribing congressmen. they're the worst kind of stereotypical obvious. but in reality, billbough, he was known for his elaborate waistcoats, his long sideburns, his elegant manners. you remember james spader in that movie, he did not have elegant manners. he was necessafarious in some w but he was not obscure. he knew abraham lincoln. they had met each other and

discussed strategy in november and december of 1864. he didn't live in a squirrel-in fested hotel, and when he was iç washington, he roomed with another congressman, and when he was in new york where he spent most of his time in january 1865, he stayed at the st. in this case lo-- nicholas hotel, e finest hotel in new york at the time. they're prominent businessmen and investors. a little shady, i'll admit, but who in wall street isn't or wasn't? nevertheless, they're prominent, familiar guys. and when they were engaged in the lobbying effort, you know, the work they did was almost exclusively in new york, not in washington. when you read books like mike warrenburg's or the coxes, what

they were doing was try to impress the democratic press in new york. if you could influence the democratic press in new york through the operations of the governor, you could affect those swing democratic votes in the state of new york. it turns out at the end of the day, two-thirds of them are going to come from new york and pennsylvania. what they're trying to do in january 1865 is affect the climate that allows democrats in states like new york and pennsylvania and connecticut to switch their votes. now, in the movie, they're bribing these guys in the worst possible way, you know. james spader says at one point, congressman in chief. he makes all these jokes about it. in practice, we don't really know. if you read scholarship on this question, they're very reluctant to draw conclusions. at one point robert latham, one of the student lobbyists, writes in a letter that we actually have, where he says about the

pa pa passage of the amendment and the lame ducks, money will certainly do it. that's a line that should have been in the movie. it wasn't. i don't understand why not. i can tell from the letter whether he was kidding or not. it's quite possible it's tongue in cheek. it's also possible that he was serious. you know, the scholars who looked at this, they'll point out that there is all kinds of evidence that they had money available, and of course, we know that there was corruption in the 19th century congress. but at the end of the day, they denied that they were bribing congressmen. there is this letter from richard shell after it was all over. he gets approached by somebody who was sent from secretary of state's seward's office to get an accounting of their expenses. and he responds indignantly in a

letter that we have. he says, a gentleman called to have me give an account of expenses which amount to nothing, he said. at any time that i can be of service to the honorable secretary of state or kwours, i he goes on to talk about the importance of the issue and the patriotism of the moment. it could mean he bribed people out of his own pocket. we don't know. almost all of the stories of the bribery that allegedly occurred in january of '65 are accounts that are recollected years after the fact. i in fact don't give them most credit. it's certainly not clear at all that any of them were apparent to abraham lincoln. the seward lobby that seward had activated is actually in motion in new york on his own initiative in many ways. i'm not clear lincoln was involved much at all in that business.

he was lobbying border state representatives like james rollins who doesn't appear in the movie but was one of the swing votes. seward is operating in new york at this moment without even the apparent partnership of thurlow weed. he thought this was a misfake. not clear at all he was involved even in this much of the operation. now, i think there's something else going on with seward, and i'll talk about that a little bit later. but this is not the impression the lincoln movie gets. you remember in the lincoln movie, the seward lobbyists hired and they operate independent of lincoln and at a certain important, he meets with them in their swill infested seedy attic of a hotel room, and he makes a comment on how to get things done, and later when he hears about their efforts to bribe a congressman from ohio named clay hawkins, he says, this is the guy who goes bird hunting with james spader and he's got this dopey look on his

face through most of the movie, sort of young, foolish congressman from ohio who's bribed with a postmastership from millersberg, ohio. that's the deal, he's going to be a post master. lincoln says in the movie, he is selling himself cheap, ain't he. selling himself cheap. this is the impression my students are going to have of abraham lincoln for years to come, but you know, there's no congressman named clay hawkins. there's a congressman from ohio, a lame duck democrat who switched his vote on the amendment. his name was wells hutchens. he was not a fool. and he wasn't bribed, as far as i can tell. there's no patronage position for him after he switched. this is a very independent minded tough democrat, kind of a hero in some respects in the wars, from ohio. he's votes to abolish slavery in the district of columbia in 1862. he supports habeas corpus. that's why he was a lame duck.

he had principles and he acted on them and that's why he was leaving office, but he's not a fool who goes bird hunting with james spader or william bilbo and gets bribed to the post mastership, and certainly nng lincoln knew about, but yet that's the impression the movie leaves them. you know, like i said, it's understandable that they take artistic license and have comic relief. i can appreciate that as long as people realize what it is. it's also true that's why the tension between the radicals and the conservatives is really hammered home with their very memorable depiction of thaddeus stevens. tommy lee jones. you know, tommy lee jones as thaddeus stevens is one of the stars of the movie. i in particular was -- have been riveted by the scene you might remember in the middle of the movie, stevens and lincoln end up in the white house kitchen

after a reception where mary lincoln has a confrontation with him. the reception is real. this is in the middle of january, but the scene in the kitchen is all invented. the scene in the kitchen, the script writer has lincoln and stevens engage in a debate about tactics. for me, this is in a nutshell what you see hollywood do so well and also do so wrong. so in the scene in this debate about tactics, there's a profound insight that lincoln offers to stevens, a kind of lesson about the difference between pragmatism and radicalism. and they're debating tactics and lincoln says to him, a compass, i learned when i was surveying, it will point you true north from where you're standing but it has no advice about the swamps and deserts and the chasms. you know, that's true. okay.

but i don't think that's anything that lincoln and stevens would have said to each other. you know, we have this cartoonish view of stevens and the popular culture from movies like the birth of nation and now from lincoln that depict him as this radical, wild-eyed figure, but he was a pragmatic politician just like abraham lincoln. he doesn't come from the new england states. he comes from lancaster, pennsylvania, where he's representing a congressional district near the mason dixon line that had produced james buchanan. this is not a place where he's immune to popular pressure. he says, "i shit on the people," he says that, he wouldn't do that in real life. lincoln and stevens had known each other for years. i could document that in a way that would be really special at a symposium like this because they first met in the summer of 1848, and they met when abraham lincoln was a congressman.

he served in congress for one term, and during that one term, he spent almost his entire service in congress trying to get zachary taylor elected as president. that was his ambition. and he goes to the whig national convention in philadelphia and he meets stevens who had at to time was a lawyer from lancaster, but who was about to become a candidate for congress and about to enter congress as a whig, and lincoln writes him a letter in september, right before he's about to leave. it's so revealing and it shows them, i think, in such a rich light that it's worth reminding ourselves about. he writes him on september 3rd,

1848. dear sir, you may possibly remember seeing me at the philadelphia convention, introduced to you as the lone whig star of illinois. i have remained here so long in the whig document room, now, there are people in the room who know what he's talking about, but this is such an insightful reference. he's been in the whig document room in the summer of 1848. what is he doing? he's literally sitting in a small room here in the capitol, signing his name to political pamphlets that they're franking out at taxpayer expense for the whig campaign operation. he's the workhorse of the whig

congressional committee which is run by a congressman from connecticut, and lincoln as the first-term congressman from illinois, the only whig from illinois, the lone star, he's proving his worth to the national operators by being their workhorse. he sits in the document room and franks out 15,000 pamphlets. he's got to sign his name to all of them. he is the most or one of the most frequent users of the franking privilege burg that session of congress. that's why he's rising as a political operative, because he's a workhorse. he's writing articles, correcting mistakes in the general whig newspapers across the country. he writes horace greely from the new york tribune and corrects one of his mistakes and he's reaching out to people, they didn't have rolodexes, but he's working his rolodex, reaching out to people he met. he asks stevens, i'm about to start for home. i desire the experienced opinion of a politician as to how the vote of that state for governor and president is likely to go. and listen to how smooth this is. in casting about for such a man, i have settled upon you. and i shall be much obliged if you could write me in springfield, illinois. this is abraham lincoln working his network, and stevens responds just as fluidly. he responds by calling abraham lincoln the wise one and asking for him about information for his state, and stevens at that

time was a abolitionist, a supporter of the underground railroad, but his advice was utterly pragmatic. we have to reach out to the know nothings, the nativists, the anti-catholics and infuse with them. this is a footnote, but it's worth mentioning. 1848 is this wonderful moment where people like thaddeus stevens, abraham lincoln and alexander steven are all young, rising whigs who are supporting taylor and working together. it was stevens who was one of the confederate peace commissioners lincoln is dealing with in the end. when we thing of the civil war in military terms, we talk about the mexican war as a precursor, a prelude, but the congress that lincoln served in has horace greely and alexander stevens and thaddeus stevens lurking on the sidelines waiting to enter. this is part of lincoln's story. it's a preview for him of what is to come. you know, i don't imagine that tony kushner or steven spielberg

could have worked all this background in somehow to the movie. i'm not complaining they didn't, but all this background is important to understand what is really going on. and the details matter. they know the details matter. if you look back at the lincoln movie, you'll realize the purpose of the scene in the kitchen is to give lincoln credit for changing stevens' mind. they have this debate in the kitchen and argue over tactics and talk about compasses and maps and stevens is talking about shitting on the people, and a week later, and he's being race baited by democrats about what would happen after abolition, stevens says he only supports equality under the law. that's a powerful scene, and

mary lincoln points out who would have thought this old man would have ever come around in that fashion, but the problem with that scene from the historical record is it never happened. that's all invented. we have a congressional globe and we see the passages from the debate. that scene isn't there. stevens did say something just like that on january 5th, 1865, after they got the official report of the annual message when they come back from the christmas break and he's responding to the debates over lincoln's prophecy in december that they would, you know, debate this new amendment, and the republicans on capitol hill are trying to actually, it's complicated, but they're trying to sort of play for a time for a day while they wait for the members show up, and the next day, ashley is going to introduce into the record the abolition amendment, and stevens is race baited on january 5th and he responds all i support is equality under the law. he did that without prompting by lincoln. in the movie, lincoln is the hero. in the movie, stevens is, you know, an important foil. he has more speaking parts than

anybody else but lincoln. if you go back to team arrivals, there's only four index entries yqfge3xtuáháuq+ens. if you look at mike's book, stevens is there more frequently, but far less frequently than the senate author or james ashley. he doesn't play the same pivotal role. stevens is a marginal figure in that book. you know, we all acknowledge his importance, but in the narrative of the movie, he is so central because he's straight out of hollywood central casting. you know, with the wig and the club foot and the crusty demeanor and even the black mistress. you've got it all working. it's perfect. but that's why he's there. and that's why this is there. you know, i think the kitchen scene has another profound truth in it. i wanted to point this out and maybe if someone wants to follow up, we can talk about it more in questions. you know, the kitchen scene is really about the politics of reconstruction, and i think that that's an underlying theme in

the movie that they bury. they can't really address because they're talking about the abolition of slavery. that's why the peace negotiations seem so important, although i think of them more as a side show, unimportant to the final narrative of the war. there are historians who disagree with this, but the reason why i think the abolition amendment is a story of reconstruction is because you have to remember the rules. and this is so important. right? in order for an amendment to become part of the constitution, of course, it can't just pass both houses of congress by a supermajority. it has to be ratified by the states, by three fourths of the state. there are 36 states at that time. three fourths of them would be 27. of course, that's the question, do you count them all? what about the seceded states? what about the confederates? they're not counted in the vote

for congress, so should they be counted in the vote for ratification. this is what the politics of january 1865 is about because this is where lincoln is pressing his advantage as a party leader where he's building a union party, not just a republican party, for the post-war period because he knows that he's going to be able to take this amendment and press it down the throats of the radicals on the basis that they have to count all 36 states in the math in order to get it as part of the constitution. as he says in his final speech, the one on april 11th, 1865, it's the only way this will seem legitimate, if we count the confederate states in the equation. in order to count them, in order to get the 27 votes they need, they're going to have to have some of those former confederate states restored to the union on

his basis, on the lower threshold, speedier process for restoration. not the wade davis process for restoration, not the higher threshold, the one stevens was supporting that would punish the south and revolutionize it. lincoln is saying to the radicals in effect if you want abolition of slavery to be written into this constitution and irrevocable, we're going to have to pursue a policy of reconciliation that goes hand and glove with it. this is what he was fighting over in the final months of the war. the movie doesn't have a chance to convey all of that, and you know, i don't blame them for that and i understand what hollywood has to do. i think spielberg does, too. again and again, he's been very gracious and modest about pointing out the difference between historical fiction and history, right? his work in lincoln is historical fiction. sometimes the script writer hasn't been quite as gracious about that. and there is, you know, an exchange he had after the movie came out with congressman courtney from connecticut over this question of how the congressman from connecticut

voted on the amendment. in the movie, one of them votes against and all of them voted for it, although one of the lame duck switchers was james english from connecticut, and in the sort of exchange over the complaint, courtney wanted a formal apology from the filmmakers. horowitz defended the historical accuracy of the movie. he said the 13th amendment passed by a two-vote margin in the house of january 1865 because president lincoln decided to push it through using persuasion and patronage to switch the votes of lame duck democrats all the while fending off a serious offer to negotiate peace from the south. none of the key moments from the story our film tells are altered, none of them, he says. i guess it depends on what the definition of key is. i think there are a lot of key

moment that are altered. the roll call is one of them, but the other one is in the climactic scene on the floor of the house on the day of the vote, january 1st, 1865, they have james spader and john hay running to the white house to get the note from lincoln. none of that happened. the note, we think, is real, though we don't have the original of it. it's a recollection from james ashley, but james spader's character, william bilbo, was in new york at the time, at the st. nicolas hotel. the lobbyists were in new york in the final weeks of the fight working the press. the race scene is just a hollywood chase scene. it's no different than the airport race scene in "argo" and i have no problem with that, like i said, but key moments in this story are altered. and they're altered for dramatic reasons. we need to understand that if we're going to teach it and appreciate it.

i call it fiction and i don't mean it as an insult, but i do think people need to appreciate the difference betweenviction and the record. the record is far more complicated. i think it's just as interesting, but it is messier. so with that, i wanted to wrap up my presentation and open it up for questions. i know a lot of people have seen this movie. i hope if i didn't cover a topic you wanted to talk up, you feel free to raise it now. thank you. [ applause ] >> yes, um, whether you're talking about ken burns and the civil war or godzilla, movies and television are first and foremost about entertainment. if it's not entertainment, it fails. >> right. >> this obviously didn't fail. my question, though, has to do with what do you think about daniel day-lewis' portrayal of

lincoln as a person, not necessarily historically accurate words, but his portrayal? i think that's why the movie is called abraham lincoln and not the fight for the 13th amendment. spielberg wanted to give us lincoln. did he? >> well, i was mesmerized. i have studied lincoln for over 20 years and for me, the movie felt like five minutes. you know, so that's hollywood magic. that's what it does. i cannot do that in my books. mike wrote a great book about the 13th amendment. it's not as magical as spielberg's lincoln, and he knows it and i know it, and there's magic involved. what i tried to do today is show you behind the curtain, magic involved deception. there's deception in daniel day-lewis' performance and there's a lot of assumptions or premiseses that are wrong or shaky, and people who watch the movie and don't realize that might be confused. i don't think daniel day-lewis' lincoln is a real lincoln, but i think it's a really powerful lincoln. >> i thought it was the best filmed lincoln i had seen, but the man himself despite all i

have read, still remains in many key ways a mystery. so i do have two brief questions. the first is, thaddeus stevens who well into the 1960s was the image, if you had an image at all, was this man who whatever his moderate origins was traumatized by the burning of his factory and filled with a hatred of the south and buried in a black cemetery. this may be cut out of whole cloth, that is even more fictitious than the movie, but the other is i have heard other talks about this and there was a scene with lincoln slapping robert, his son, and someone said this could never happen. the movie presented it as the deposition of something that had never happened before and would never happen again. my larger question is isn't any historian, however objective he or she may aspire to be, should they not have their own internal spielberg that leaves scenes out that do not conform with their image of their character just as some of jefferson's biographers until quite recently dismissed

any notion of a liaison with sally hemings because this is not something their thomas jefferson would ever do? >> we all make mistakes and we all interpret. however, we have footnotes and there's a transparency to our work that i don't always think script writers or screenwriters like tony kushner acknowledge. whether or not they acknowledge it, too many of my students get confused. it seems so real. i guarantee you, they're going to remember abraham lincoln saying he is selling himself cheap about that congressman more than anything else, or that scene in the white house right before the vote where he says, i

am the president of the united states. clothed in immense power. that's probably something he never said. it comes from a recollection from a congressman. he certainly didn't say it before those people in that moment in that way. in the script, they say he rises to what seemed like 8 feet tall. i'm studying him and appreciating him as a party leader, boss lincoln. i understand he has a gritty side, but that depiction to me seems off note. you know, historians have off notes, too. but i think the difference is that we at least try to be transparent about how we got there. >> i just want to add one footnote to all of your wonderful work and you've done all of us an enormous favor by giving us this paper, but next time you give it, there is the scene where the lobbyists drop the money on the floor. having spent eight years in

albany, new york, i can promise you the fixers from albany dropped the money on the floor. >> well, i'll yield to paul finkelman as the expert on corruption. you know, there's so many details like that that are hard to convey, but all of those lobbying scenes, every single one of them, that's all fiction. none of that comes from the record. there are accounts of bribery. none of those accounts are in the movie. every single one of those scenes is pure invention from tony horowitz. i think that's legitimate artistic license to a degree, but people need to realize what it is. >> hey, matt. as a teacher, i mean, we have an important duty to our students. and it's movies like lincoln and gettysburg that draw that desire to learn more. and for us the teachers, we have to give them the tools. >> right. >> to help them depict what is fact and what is not fact.

but i think lincoln will have a better -- i think it's more of a positive in that it will hopefully draw people to want to learn more about lincoln. >> sure, but you agree with me, right? at the heart of the movie, there is this depiction of bribery that lincoln is not only aware of but he condoned. >> true. >> yeah. >> that's pretty dark. >> i know, it's very dark, and you compare it to modern-day politics where, you know, you have congress that's been doing insider trading for years. >> yeah. >> and all of these other things that lends to support what this movie unfortunately is saying. >> your response actually puts your finger right on it because everyone including tony horowitz and steven spielberg are comparing this to modern-day politics. it's a lesson more about modern day politics in some ways than

19th century politics. 19th century politics were corrupt, but it was different. there's a scene on the day of the vote where fernando wood is waving papers saying i have affidavits. that's not 19th century congress. that's what you realize when you see a movie like lincoln. or think about mr. smith goes to washington, almost all of what we think we know about past politics comes from movies. and popular culture, and we absorb it so much, we think it's real. that's why it's so important to try to sort it out. i don't want to be one of those scholar squirrels that gore vidal used to make fun of, but that's what i have been doing, digging around in the script and pointing out the small differences, but ultimately, they matter. as much as i think you're right, the lincoln movie will produce good things, when we teach it, teachers need to be aware of how it departs from what we know about the record. greg. you need to wait for the

microphone. >> sorry, how does it skew in terms of younger audiences? because my experience, which could be -- which is only anecdotal, when i poll my question classes. many more have seen django and vampire hunter than lincoln. they see lincoln as a movie for not even their parents, for their grandparents. that could be peculiarities of who i teach. did young people see it? >> my line about the vampire hunter is, it's not all true. i went to see the lincoln movie in the theater three times, and each time i was the youngest one in the room, which i think proves your point, but i do think that even if the kids didn't see it in the theaters, i don't know what the demographics are of the audience, but they're going to see it in the classroom for a generation if not two. it's going to be powerful and they're going to get it that way.

i teach it and i'm going to continue to teach it and many vñ others will and it's really important that we focus on how they perceive it in the classroom more than anything else. one more question, paul? okay. >> if i were you, i would be chomping at the bit to try to get the early drafts of the script to see how it developed. i don't think you'll get it but it would be really interesting because i bet you anything that those scenes that are less historically accurate were the ones that evolved most. >> you're probably right. you know, there's no doubt that the script evolved. according to all the reports we have, it started out as a sweeping narrative of the whole

war and i think it was spielberg who said we have to focus on this moment. that's why he's such a great story teller. i'll be honest, in my classes, i have had a tendency in the past to pass over the 13th amendment narrative and focus more on the emancipation proclamation. now because of the movie and because of other works, you know, i feel like i'm aware in a way that i wasn't of the dramatic potential of the story, even as i note the discrepancies between the record and the film, but that's what great story tellers do, they show you drama and moments some of us miss because we don't have those skills. that's another thing hollywood got right about the 13th amendment, even as they got some things wrong. so thank you very much. [ applause ] with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the sfat on c-span 2 on c-span 3 we complement that by showing the most relevant congressional hearing and public affairs events. on weekends c-span3 is home to american history tv with programs that tell our nation's story, including six unique

series. the civil war's 150th anniversary, visiting battlefields and key events. american artd facts, touring museums and historic sites to see what artifacts reveal about the past. history book shelf with history writers. the presidency looking at policies and legacies of the nation's commanders in chief. lessons in history and our new series real america featuring government films from the 1930s through '70s. c-span3 created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local satellite or cable provider. watch on hd, follow us on twitter and like us on facebook. next, university of mary washington professor jeffrey mcclurken evaluates "gone with the with wind" looking at how it became the source on southern culture during the civil war and reconstruction in light of the depression era in which it was createded. this is part of a course on u.s.

history in film at the university of mary washington in fredricksburg, virginia. it's an hour, 20 minutes. >> good morning. as we prepared to talk about the classic 1939 movie, gone with the wind, i will review the discussion from last time and talk about the making of the film and then we will turn to your comments and questions that you posted to the class. again, remember the goal is to evaluate gone with the wind as a secondary source about the past and primary source about the time in which it was made. so our last class, we talked about the historical context in which the film operates. we will talk about the old south or the antebellum south which despite a fair amount of diversity and agricultural dominating politically by elite southern planters with slave-grown cotton. most lights didn't own slaves, but how all were invested in a system of racially based slavery

that placed whites above blacks. a system that reduced to some extent the social tensions that existed between slave holders and non-slave holding lights in the south. we talked about violence and the threat of violence that was inherent in slavery. many southern whites in this context believe slavery was reciprocal relationships between whites and blacks. we were surprised to find out that african-americans didn't feel the same way. they engaged millions of men and women on those sides. the war killed hundreds of thousands, 750,000 according to a new study done by j. david hacker and wounded or otherwise damaged likely millions. we talked about thes that women played and important varied

roles running farms and businesses and making more supplies and uniforms. teaching, nursing and fighting. we talked about the battle for atlanta and sherman's march and the ways that affected union war effort and the way it guaranteed the war for abraham lincoln and the way it impacted southern civilians. we looked at the struggles between black and white southerners about what post emancipation would emerge. we explored the ways in which former slaves worked to establish themselves as members of society and efforts to separate themselves from whites while earning a living in the emerging system of share cropping. we talked about the consequences on southern white society of the

deaths of nearly 20% of white men of military age and consequences of war for so many more including the undering of southern white men's independence and everydays by southern white women to rebuild them. we examined the resurgence in the 1870s and 1880s to retake control in association with violent white supremacist groups such as the kkk and the knights of the white camillia. beginning with the competitors, they rewrite the history of the war into a version known as the lost cause. finally we introduce margaret mitchell's book, gone with the wind in 1936 and the run away

popularity that became the basis for the movie. as we talk about the movie itself, it's not a stretch to argue that gone with the wind is the most popular historical film ever made. polls conducted by afi by the american film institute in the 1990s, indicated that gone with the wind was the favorite fame of most americans. afi itself in the top 100 films ranked it as fourth overall. until recently gone with the wind ranked in the top 20 of all time and by some estimates would be first in inflation was taken into account. "avatar," $2.8 billion with actual money as opposed to inflated money. it opened in the second week of

december 1939 and by january 1st sold over a million dollars worth of tickets and in the midst of the great depression. it received 13 act award nominations and eight oscars. it began running in london in 1940 and played for 232 consecutive weeks there. with 110 million viewers, it's 1946 that the premier was the highest rated program ever broadcast to that point. by one late 20th century estimate, 90% of americans had seen the movie at least once. the historian noted it became a worldwide phenomenon as well. the book was banned and the french resistant saw a representation of strength amid occupation. the movie was one of two films requested by the leaders after the conflict as part of the cultural exchange between the u.s. and vietnam. anyone know what the other film they asked for was? king kong. in japan, the movie was turned into a successful all female musical. the movie is probably the single most influential interpretation of the war in popular culture. it premiered in atlanta. thousands of fans came to see it. margaret mitchell herself who

praised the film for the grand things they have done. mitchell was killed by a drunk driver in august of 1949, leaving her next book unfinished. that was not a sequel. she refused to write and comment on whether rhett and scarlet would get back together. when the state approved the writing of a sequel, scarlet, both the sequel and gone with the wind were bestsellers. the book sold tens of millions of copies and never out of print. yet the movie reached millions more people than the book. as a movie, gone with the wind was meant to unify two genres. the male oriented war film and the women's picture. what do people call them today? chick flicks. it was intended to unify and by combining the role of rhett butler and the passionate intense story of scarlet o

harrah. it was the most expensive film made to this point. the cast had nearly 60 leading or supporting roles and had 2,000 extras. they built 90 sets that consumed a million board feet of lumber. production and advertising costs exceeded 4 million dollars adjusted and $62 million the initial cut was six hours long. be grateful. lots of money was spent to make sure the film reached the

details of mitchell's books. she paid attention and tried to research what the weather was like when sherman invaded. incredibly it got many of the details right, not all of them. it wanted to pay attention to the details and the sets and the costumes. many of them would have read margaret mitchell's book and partly because they were standing right there watching as they did this. she insisted on authenticity from the film. he himself stated over and over again he wanted complete historical accuracy for gone with the wind at least in some areas. he hired a southern dialogue coach, etiquette adviser and expert on architecture and art. the designer spent time in atlanta museums, collecting pieces of cloth that he duplicated. ultimately the women's costumes cost $100,000 to make and another $10,000 to wash during

the filming. two of them working on the project at the same time. it had 17 different screen writers, even an elderly f scott fitzgerald pitched in. conflicts between everyone on set including vivian and clark gable. the two lead actors who really hated each other. it also faced a great deal of pressure from roy wilkins on the outside and daniel who played miami and butterfly who played crissy on the characterizations of the figures on the film. the movie that emerged is lightly less racist and less classist and feminist than the book written. most reviewers loved the film but bruce chadwick noted that even then a few of the reviewerers had problems with the historical portrayals.

one said it is an overinflated example of the usually false movie approach to history . sounds like my kind of guy. the film does have some issues about the civil war. let's begin there and start a discussion there with what the film gets wrong. the thing that stands out, the portrayal of race relations in general and african-americans in particular. it's a way to frame the film. a number of you talked about the way that people addressed and the way particular african-americans are portrayed and in general the way african-americans are portrayed. we will talk about the character of prissy.

sighs, frustration, groans. what bothered you about the portrayal of prisz prissy in this movie? >> yes. >> yes, okay. the entire portrayal. fair enough. >> it was a caricature of every stereotype of what a black woman was like. >> okay. >> historical. her voice. >> very high pitched and squeaky. right. it is not. >> also i thought that they said that the actress that portrayed her was voicing concerns? >> she was. butterfly mcqueen expressed a number of concerns about the way her character was portrayeded. >> why did she do it? >> that's a good question. it was a good paying job at the

actor act ress were not that far away from birth of a nation. in fact, many of the black actors were white. there was thought that part of what they were doing was working within to try to make it better than it was. i understand your skepticism. yeah? >> she was also very simple-minded. she didn't understand a lot of what was going on. >> played as a fool, really. yeah. sam? fluz >> she and a lot of black actors and actresses were almost portrayed as comedic relief at times. they were sarcastic. that is one potential explanation we might see as not so bad. they are being used in a certain way. i think we have problems with that, but i think right.

other comments? yeah. >> she knows how to rear a child when she knows nothing about it. she says, i have gone to touk to this person and she hasn't. it's kind of silly. >> i don't know nothing about birthing no babies is the famous line, but she doesn't actually know anything. what about big sam? the other slaves are going to the lines and dig ditches to create the confederate fortifications. >> big sam is concerned about scarlet's well being and paternal towards her in lack of her father being there.

big sam, i'm so concerned for you. not even to the front lines. it's dangerous. >> okay. other comments about big sam? >> they were happy. they were thrilled to be going frontlines. >> they were all marching in unison. there was a mind of the blindside and with big sam was talked to the other characters almost. grateful to be there when that's not the way it was. it was less racist than the book was. >> hard to believe, yes.

we will talk about it more later, but there ways that the book is much more explicit in the terminology. it uses the other one and that was a decision to take that out of the film. still slightly less racist and still racist. we have big sam and parisy and by the way, there was a study done in which people were asked about how they felt about scarlet smacking prisz -- prissy and the vast majority said people said it was appropriate. it made her such an annoying character that it seemed appropriate. and warranted, right? it made her such an annoying character that it seemed somehow appropriate. what about mammy? i think mammy complicates the notion of the stereotyping of african-americans. she is incredibly loyal and

always there. you would never know emancipation happened. there was no sense of that. even big sam comes back and sticks around and prissy is still there. they are still around. mammy is a constant presence. how else does she complicate our notion? >> [inaudible]. in reality -- [inaudible] >> in a respect scarlet would listen to her and value her input. it would be like whatever and ignoring her. >> mammy is listened to. she is seen as in some ways as a

positive influence. yeah? >> there was an effort to portray her. the part where rhett said she is one person whose opinion is valued. >> she stands out. you are right. that's well put. she's a three-dimensional character and more than one-dimensional characters. mammy represents a larger nuance to southern white understandings of african-americans.

the name mammy was not incidental. the name was chosen by margaret mitchell in part because many elite antibellum families had a black woman integrated into the families. did they care about these white children? they may have. it was still a relationship of power. it was still a relationship in which any infraction could result in punishment. it was a relationship in which there was a long-term, long standing threat of violence if something went wrong. rachel raises the question about the notion that this was an almost equal relationship. does it come across that way as an almost equal relationship

between mammy and scarlet? and mammy and rhe tt? >> my initial -- is to say no. >> right. >> she did take into account mammy's account. she doesn't always listen. she's kind of nasty to her. but scarlet is kind of nasty to everyone. is it because she's black? >> that's egalitarian. >> at the very least it's reciprocal. >> you get closer to that ideal from the southern white perspective of how the relationships work, right? >> you don't always listen to

your mom and she had an i'm looking out for your best interest, and said to me the almost equal relationship is almost correct whether it's a good one. it makes me question the hollywood academy, but i think it's almost equal because she can get away with so much more than anyone else personified. >> yeah? >> i think the scene where scarlet is putting on the party to go to 12 oaks and mammy is like, you can't wear that until 4:00. mammy is pulling the dress down and scarlet is pulling it back up. she is saying you have these rules and you have to follow these. scarlet is not -- they're struggling. mammy has power and scarlet has power and mammy is not so much a mother figure as she has been. it's a complicated dynamic that would have been hard to portray especially during this time period. >> okay. yeah. jason? >> on tuesday you mentioned that the structure of race and how it played and, you know, even the

poorest white person would have been seen as better than any black person. and mammy gets away with saying white trash this and that and it's accepted and she's not punished for it or anything like that. >> yeah. >> mammy represents the comfort of the old life especially after scarlet's mother dies. scarlet looks to mammy as what she holds onto and what she's comfortable with. >> she's a surrogate. >> she continues to play the role. representative of her mother and representative of the world that is lost, they get to be the point of continuity for tara and scarlet. okay. we don't talk much about 25% of all slaves go away to union

lives after the war and everybody else leaves as well. you don't get much sense of that. that's not surprising, i think. given the type of movie this is and the role. it's not surprising. there are more slaves at terra than there are blacks after the war. they just sort of disappeared. right? brooke brought up three points here that i think are worth talking about. one is about the mammy image that is still around us today. that concept of the mammy is an incredibly powerful advertising concept. right? even something like aunt jemima3 who you can see evolving over the years was until recently ñ still looked an awful lot like mammy in this film.

that i think is one important point. the other two things that brooke brings up is she challenges our ability to keep this movie because it's not based on history. it is based on a book of romantic fiction. she challenges the notion that the black characters are not smart. let's take each of those things in turn. do you agree that with her contention that the movie is not based on history. the second part of that is, if it's not based on history, does that matterer in our evaluating it? amanda, go ahead. >> i thought it was because they tried to make it so historically accurate, they are trying to make an historical film. if they took it as a romantic

fiction and they try to get any of of the facts right you would say that's fantasy. because they tried to make it so accurate, they have a responsibility to then be accurate. >> right. >> and they're not. >> mary quinn? >> i would argue that they are attempting to base it on history. it's explicit on attempting to sketch this image of a dying age. the moonlight and magnolia image. extremely romanticized. they are pretty obvious about what it is they're trying to do. >> right. okay. kerry? >> they even open the movie with "a story of the old south." they set themselves up from the beginning to really play into what you were saying, the moonlight magnolia image. like you were saying, they tried to take it to be accurate and they are basing it off of fiction based off of history, they made an attempt and so they did have a certain amount of responsibility. it's a complicated character to complicate the representation.

>> okay. yeah, sara? >> i think unlike "the patriot," what was it they said? a family story set against the backdrop of the american revolution. the proximity of time in comparison to the actual event makes it more historically relevant and important that they are attentive to accuracy than "the patriot" which was, what, 225 years later. >> it's based on romantic fiction, but based on the memory of the south. that is important because it's a nostalgic picture. it's complicated. in a way it's not historically accurate because it is based off memory. so you have different ideas of what's going on. that's the most important part. it is a memory of a time long ago that we are nostalgic about remembered in a very specific way. >> okay. all right. brooke? >> my point is it is because it is so close to the time that it was portraying that, it is a

warped sense of the south i guess is what i was trying to get. they do remember the south. they can't accurately portray it to how we would do it now. we don't have that memory. we don't talk to our grandfathers. >> they are looking at it emotionally and from firsthand memo ris as opposed to academic reconstruction. >> yeah. >> going back to the movies, they have set this whole public memory thing up. you can see how it's a land of knights and ladies fair and cavalier in a situation that was gone with the wind. [ inaudible ] >> at the very beginning, they were basing it on -- they thought they were making a historically accurate film. wilson said it was anyway. it was still playing towards the prejudices of the time which i'm sure we will get to soon.

it's what they had to work with. general belief of at least the people who were in power and making decisions about these things. this was the general sense of how things actually were, right? i think brooke's point about not being far enough away from it. something that southern whites in some ways were living in and with is a really important one. it's difficult to get the distance. >> not just southern whites. i read that hattie mcdaniel, mammy, was a daughter of a slave. >> it has a particular resonance to her. that's part of why perhaps. you can imagine why she would be frustrated with the characterizations. mary? >> i believe the civiler war

veterans were alive at the time. i believe some veterans were at the premiere of the film. >> very old, but there. >> it was still a living memory. >> okay. what about the second contention here or the third here was that african-american characters were smarter and more sensible than many of the whites. the second part is that that's on purpose. right? that's intentional. what do you think about that? sam? >> i bring up spike lee's point. the magical negro who comes in, tells the white characters how wise we are and never does anything with themselves. they are passive observers of the white characters who are all the agency and they get married and do anything else. the black characters are all static. they don't do anything with their lives.

even if they are wiser in a way they don't have any kind of agency. >> mammy fits that role and you see that role in lots of other films as well. okay. other comments on that idea? mammy is the complicating factor here. i don't think anyone would make the case that prissy is smarter. it's not played that way. certainly not being played that way. big sam is not being played that way. mammy is that complicating factor. what are other examples of caricatures? of african-americans and slavery in this film? >> the girl's family? >> absolutely. the young slave girls, fanning

the daughters of slave holders while they take their beauty rest in the afternoon. can't stay up for the whole picnic, right? yeah. sam? >> like the black politicians politicians coming in after the war oppressing the white people. taking all the power. wearing suits. being superior to everyone else. >> right. so there's that scene right after the war where you have jonu sf jonus wilkerson who gets fired at the beginning riding in this carriage with this well dressed black man. there's the implications with these veterans staggering home. >> we talked about the happy slaves going off to fight the yankees, right? what about the moment where pork

gets the watch of gerald o'hara, right? ties the white family and black family together. oh, i can't take that, i can't take that, right? or the moment in atlanta, right, where, you know, you have these former slaves sounding foolish, sounding ignorant. almost minstrel-like in the language they are using. easily being manipulated by that slimy carpet baggers promise of 40 acres and a mule if you vote as your friends do. this easy trope of manipulation. the movie doesn't address any of the real problems of slavery or racial reconstruction or the development of share cropping. instead we see african-americans as infantalized and loyal to southern whites unless they had

been corrupted by northern whites. certainly it's different than the images of african-americans as near animals we saw in d.w. griffith's "birth of a nation," as animals. it's not necessarily better, right? other stereotyped white characters? yeah. completely useless. others. >> hannah. >> there's ashley. the true gentleman. live for honor. don't disgrace your family kind of person. >> yeah. in some ways ashley is almost one dimensional, right? there's not a whole lot to him. what about bell watling, right? so this is a trope. julia roberts made her career on that stereotype.

"pretty woman" is, that notion of the prostitute with a heart of gold is absolutely this incredibly powerful, but stock character, right? go ahead. >> i felt like it was trying to expose some hypocrisy within the white community. there's the hooker with the heart of gold character that is looked down upon. then there is ashley, the honorable man who is leading scarlet on even though he is married with a wife and child. there's all of these useless wealthy white elderly women floating around the film as well. i felt like it definitely was not trying to make the white characters look good. >> plenty of useless white males system per simpering after scarlet. >> it was interesting they didn't seem to have any poor whites at all. >> it was intere didn't seem to have any poor whites at all.

>> right. >> they talk about what's her face at the beginning who's the white trash but you never see her until she turns up after the war and she marries way up. so there's no real portrayal of anything accept the rich plantation owning elite. even bell watling she's rich. >> you don't get that sense of diversity of white economic classes there. yeah. >> jason. >> before the war you don't see anybody that's poor struggling. it's only because the northern aggression and everything they've done. they've ruined everything and now people are poor and dressing, making clothes out of drapes and stuff like that. >> the slaves in the movie were like the poor white people because no matter how they were,

they were pushed away. the blacks call them white trash. they actively push them away and the blacks are actually higher than that. >> in some ways you see mammy get away with talking about white trash the way she does. you do have some of that sense which is a turnabout in the way that it would have worked in southern society. >> what about melanie hamilton wilkes. is she a one dimensional character or three dimensional character. >> i think she's there to be loyal to scarlet. she's too good to be true. there's no personal live that could forgive the stuff she does. i think it's just -- i think she's a literary device for scarlet. just a foil. >> anybody else? >> i kind of disagree because there are times in the movie

where she frustrated me because i was like you can't be that happy all the time, but at the same time i think she was a strong character because she changed the way rhett thought about things and then she also -- at the end when melanie was dying and scarlet was crying, i felt like some of that might have been real but then i feel like even though she had the same perspective throughout the whole movie she did a lot more other characters so i think she was a little bit more than just there. >> just a foil. kendra. >> to me she was the strength cause. the purity of the cause. she was always behind it and they had to be strong for it where scarlet hated it but melanie was the one -- the justness of it. that sort of thing. >> margaret mitchell herself said melanie was the real heroine.

she was the real romanticized of the southern belle. she's the old symbol of herself in doing so she plays a foil for scarlet. scarlet is very much a product of the new south. i want to talk about later how we think that works out for her and what the implications of that are. are there -- i want to talk a little bit about gender relations. i want to raise the question about mr. o'hara because he doesn't seem to be the one in charge of the plantation, right? why do you think that is? how does he come across? is he -- what does this say about masculinity and male authority during this time period?

>> it's hard to decide if he is portrayed as masculine, but it's hard because after his wife died he kind of loses it. >> right. >> i wish we could have seen another male figure like him portrayed so i could decide. >> we see him -- i mean, yeah. before he snaps like we only see a little bit of him, right. >> even in that snap, he didn't have the authority. it was his wife walking up to him saying fire this man because of something he had done. he really didn't have the authority. it was his wife so maybe that was how scarlet saw that households were run but he never really had authority. >> but just think about what you just said, right? his wife went to him and told him to fire someone, right? she couldn't fire the overseer, right?

he had to do that. >> he had to do that but it's still his wife -- >> i'm not trying to take away from that, but i think that's important. ultimately it is still a society in which the father, the husband, is the one to make that ultimate decision he could have said no. it might have been very unpleasant for him if he did, but he could have said no >> we talked about in class the other day where women were in charge of the household. they had a lot of power themselves as far as taking care of the household and the slaves and in charge of it. i didn't see it as that much of a stretch that she would go to him and tell him that, if it was part of how the household was run and affecting that. >> what are the grounds on which he is fired. >> she goes to deliver the mistress' baby who we get is a

lower class person so i thought her role was in the social aspects, not in the actual running of the plantation itself. >> all right so in this case it's about morality. she's making this decision on moral grounds. that's something that women would have absolutely had the superior role in. >> doesn't he also repeatedly say we're going to wait for mrs. o'hara? she says it beforehand, too. >> ellen o'hara is a very strong woman, right? i want talk about her in a little bit. there's no question that she stands out, but let's come back to that. >> what about the nursing scenes, right? brooke brings up that the nursing scenes didn't necessarily fit what we learned in class. what is the role between t