Lincoln
In 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern was forced to drop Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running mate when it was revealed that the latter had twice undergone electro-shock therapy for depression. Imagine, then, what the national media (who played a significant role in Eagleton's downfall) would have made of the Abraham Lincoln portrayed inLincoln. This startling program depicts our 16th president as a man who was not simply depressed, but suicidal; who had dreams portending his own death; who survived a childhood of Dickensian suffering; who endured a loveless marriage in which two of his and wife Mary's sons died young; and who was brooding, tormented, possibly a closet homosexual, and by his own description "the most miserable man living." What's more, some of the historians and other talking heads taking part in director Vikram Jayanti's two-part, 140-minute documentary suggest that Lincoln's greatness came not in spite of these burdens but because of them, as his own "forced introversion" made him supremely empathetic to others. Produced for the History Channel,Lincolncommingles various elements--biography, interviews, re-enactments (especially of the events of April 15, 1865, the day he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth), excerpts of Lincoln's letters and speeches, etc.--to support its thesis, and the results, while sometimes melodramatic, are compelling. The mood lightens up a bit in the second part, which details Lincoln's years as president, when his vehement opposition to slavery engendered his extraordinary oratorical skills, his steely determination to hold the country together through the horrors of the Civil War, and his inevitable death (which is attributed not to his having freed the slaves but to his insistence that they be given the right to vote). Was Lincoln one of our finest presidents, then? No doubt. But it's a safe bet that had he come along in the mid-20th Century or later, given the kind of scrutiny he'd be subjected to, he wouldn't have stood a chance of being elected.--Sam Graham