Related Events
On Writing History
Attend a panel discussion On Writing History, featuring Wills and four distinguished members of Berkeley's Department of History. Tuesday September 25th at 3:30 pm, Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall.
Civil War-Era Prints at Berkeley Art Museum
View Civil War-era photographs and a print of Lincoln and his family at the Berkeley Art Museum. Wednesdays-Sundays through the end of the fall semester.
Our American Cousin
Leading man Alan Schneider, as the actor Harry Hawk.
Enjoy a free concert featuring selections from Our American Cousin, a new opera based on Lincoln's final night at Ford's Theater, playing in Hertz Hall on August 23.
Movie Screenings
Free screenings of The Young Mr. Lincoln (7:00 p.m. Monday, August 20) and Glory (1:00 p.m. Thursday, August 23) will be held at the Pacific Film Archive. Tickets will be released one half hour before each show, first come first served.
The PFA Theater is located across the street from Urban Outfitters (on the campus side of the street), just below the intersection of Bowditch and Bancroft.
Young Mr. Lincoln
Few historical figures are as revered as Abraham Lincoln, and few director-star pairings embody classic American cinema as perfectly as that of John Ford and Henry Fonda. In Young Mr. Lincoln, their first collaboration, Fonda gives one of the finest performances of his career, as the young president-to-be, struggling with an incendiary murder case as a novice lawyer. Compassionate and assured, this is an indelible piece of Americana.--Criterion
Glory
One of the very best films about the Civil War, this instant classic from 1989 is also one of the few films to depict the participation of African American soldiers in Civil War combat. Based in part on the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein and One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, the film also draws from the letters of Robert Gould Shaw (played by Matthew Broderick), the 25-year-old son of Boston abolitionists who volunteered to command the all-black 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Their training and battle experience leads them to their final assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina, where their heroic bravery turned bitter defeat into a symbolic victory that brought recognition to black soldiers and turned the tide of the war. With painstaking attention to historical detail and richness of character, the film boasts superior performances by Denzel Washington (who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, and Andre Braugher. Directed by Edward Zwick (cocreator of the TV series thirtysomething), this unforgettable drama is as important as Schindler's List in its treatment of a noble yet little-known episode of history. --Jeff Shannon
