Directed by AFI Life Achievement Award honoree Steven Spielberg (who co-produced alongside AFI Board of Trustees Chair Kathleen Kennedy) and featuring a score from honoree John Williams, LINCOLN (2012) was shot by AFI Alum Janusz Kamiński (AFI Class of 1987). The film earned an AFI AWARD in 2012, recognizing it as one of the year’s most outstanding achievements in the art of the moving image. According to the official rationale, “LINCOLN belongs to the ages. Steven Spielberg’s landmark motion picture enriches the American canon – freeing the Great Emancipator from his tintype image and exploring the wit and wisdom that made the man. Daniel Day-Lewis is instantly iconic, demonstrating an immersion into character that is as honest as it is immediate. Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones and an extraordinary acting ensemble breathe humanity into history, while Tony Kushner’s brilliant screenplay illustrates the power of words to dazzle above the most special of effects. Film legends D.W. Griffith and John Ford each depicted their versions of America’s sixteenth president, and Spielberg’s now stands beside them with this telling for our time – and for all time.”
Visit the AFI Catalog to learn more about LINCOLN.
