“Ford’s mythologizing has seldom seemed stronger or more subtle.” – David Kehr
“Explodes in the histrionic splendor and ‘excess’ of the celebrated final sequence.” – Time Out, London
“A Masterpiece of concision, yet it breathes an air of casual improvisation.” – Geoffrey O’Brien
Sunday, March 1, 6:00 p.m. | Aptly described by Dave Kehr in the Chicago Reader as a film that “stirs feelings about the American past that most of us, I suppose, have missed since childhood,” YOUNG MR. LINCOLN is a deft portrait of the future president as a country lawyer and autodidact, winningly embodied by Henry Fonda. Although the film aspires to hagiography, that state-sanctioned sheen is frequently punctured by instances of backwoods levity and unsentimental business. (Even when Lincoln takes on a legal case to illustrate that justice is a simple matter of right and wrong, he still wants to be paid.) If Lincoln’s greatness could be glimpsed when he was a young man, Ford and screenwriter Lamar Trotti suggest, it’s most evident in these unadorned moments of Abe splitting rails, judging pies, and cheating at tug-o-war. Lauded by Sergei Eisenstein as “daguerreotypes come to life,” YOUNG MR. LINCOLN is a studio pastorale of the highest order. Preceded by AMBITION (1991, dir. Hal Hartley, USA, 9 mins / 16mm) 35mm and 16mm prints from the Chicago Film Society collection at the University of Chicago Film Studies Center. (Chicago Film Society)
WHAT IS CFS?
Founded by projectionists in 2011, the Chicago Film Society promotes the exhibition and preservation of film in context. CFS screenings provide access to the restoration efforts of archives, studios, and private collectors, the work of artists exploring the film medium today, and the experience of seeing film projected live in a theater, with an audience. As physical artifacts, the film prints we show hold the stories told by films—but also the stories of the industries that produced them, the labs that printed them, the places where they were exhibited, and the people who watched them. Through screenings, writing, film preservation projects, and workshops, CFS works to make all of this context visible and accessible to the public. Learn more about Chicago Film Society at chicagofilmsociety.org.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu