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Movies are the source of much of what we know — or think we know — about history. Currently, Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is being recommended as a source of knowledge not just about Lincoln and the Civil War but also about politics in general. For example, Ruth Marcus, writing in The Washington Post, has praised the “instructional value” of the film for both President Obama and the current lame-duck Congress. “It presents,” she says, “useful lessons in the subtle arts of presidential leadership and the practice of politics, at once grimy and sublime.” David Brooks has similarly endorsed the film, and in a post in the Civil War series Disunion, the historian Philip Zelikow explains how the film may have actually put forward its own plausible interpretation of the events surrounding the passage of the 13th Amendment. But there are limits to the extent that we can rely on movies to convey historical truth.

Any historical film, particularly one so richly and meticulously realized, will be misleadingly complete and concrete.

Like most popular historical movies, “Lincoln” is not a documentary, but a dramatic presentation. It tells an engaging story, depicts fascinating characters, and has sets and costumes that seem to take us back to Washington in 1865. But to what extent can we trust “Lincoln” (or any other dramatization of history for popular entertainment) as a source of historical fact and understanding? A film drama can present historical events, vividly and movingly perhaps, but it has no place for evidence supporting the truth of the presentation. As a result, simply looking at the movie, we have no way of knowing to what extent “Lincoln” is accurate. This applies to particular details (did Thaddeus Stephens actually wear a wig and have a black mistress?) but most important to the overall interpretation: was Lincoln really a noble politician, reluctantly using patronage and countenancing bribery to achieve a greater good?

We might think that questions about the accuracy of “Lincoln” are resolved once we learn that, unlike many historical films, it makes serious use of historical sources and historians’ interpretations of them. We’re told in the credits that the film is to an important extent based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s well-regarded history, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” and an array of prominent historians are listed as consultants. Still, the film, unlike a historian’s book, cannot provide the sources and arguments that might support the countless decisions of its makers about controversial claims and interpretations. Further, since it is a dramatization, the filmmakers — even rigorously faithful ones — are very likely at points within the film to exercise their right to override historical accuracy for the sake of better theater.

To pursue the problem of the film’s historical value, it will help to reflect on one of the highlights: Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane tells us, “What we derive from Day-Lewis, though, is the mysterious — and accurate — sense of a man who by instinct and by expertise reaches out to the people he leads while seeming lost in himself.” Similarly, Kenneth Turan in The Los Angeles Times comments on “the marvelously relaxed way [Day-Lewis] morphs into this character and simply becomes Lincoln. While his heroic qualities are visible when they’re needed, Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is a deeply human individual, stooped and weary after four years of civil war but endowed with a palpable largeness of spirit and a genuine sense of humor.” The performance “rings true,” as we say, and it’s satisfying to believe that Lincoln was so complex, so human, but finally so great.

But how can Lane and Turan have reason to believe that Day-Lewis’s portrayal is “accurate”? They would have had to — as Zelikow did in his focused analysis — refer to history books (Goodwin’s and others) that sift through the evidence and painstakingly construct a plausible account of Lincoln’s character. As I’ve emphasized, no dramatic presentation in itself provides a basis for accepting its view as even close to the truth.

Another problem is that any historical film, particularly one so richly and meticulously realized, will be misleadingly complete and concrete. For example, in the movie, Lincoln orders two congressmen to do what needs to be done to pass the 13th Amendment: “I am president of the United States, clothed in immense power, and I expect to you procure those votes.” Goodwin’s history cites a memoir that quotes Lincoln as saying this. But no source could give us the volume, tone, facial expression, or contextual nuance that characterized his actual statement. Acting in a movie, however, Day-Lewis has to utter the words in one specific way in one specific situation, and he does so to great effect, conveying a moving interpretation of Lincoln’s complex state of mind at the time and of his overall personality. But what Day-Lewis conveys inevitably goes far beyond what our sources tell us Lincoln said and did. His performance may be highly realistic, but we cannot know how close it is to what really happened.

But Day-Lewis worked from Tony Kushner’s thoroughly researched script, read Goodwin’s book (and much else), and discussed details with her. It may well be, then, that his portrayal in this scene gives us an “essential truth” about Lincoln’s mental state and character, even if what the movie presents is in fact quite different from what those at the actual scene saw and heard.

A similar point applies to the excitingly orchestrated climactic vote on the 13th Amendment in the House of Representatives. We no doubt have records of how people voted, perhaps even of what they said, and of how the crowd reacted. But none of this could underwrite the authenticity of the film’s concrete re-enactment, which sweeps us up into its overpowering feeling of justified triumph. But if Kushner and Spielberg have done their historical homework, it may well be that this portrayal expresses the real meaning of the House vote, even if it falls far short as a depiction of what literally happened.

Related More From The Stone Read previous contributions to this series.

The Times’s film critic A. O. Scott notes that “some of the ambition of ‘Lincoln’ seems to be to answer the omissions and distortions of the cinematic past, represented by great films like D. W. Griffith’s ‘Birth of a Nation,’ which glorified the violent disenfranchisement of African-Americans as a heroic second founding, and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ with its romantic view of the old South.” In purely cinematic terms these two movies may be as compelling as “Lincoln.” We resist their force only if we have historical information that undermines their narratives. Apart from such an intellectual substructure, “Lincoln” is no less propaganda than these classics. But once we know that “Lincoln” has superior historical grounding, doesn’t that give reason to believe what it presents?

Still, merely seeing the movie — even if we know that it is based on a great deal of sound historical research — does not allow us to tell which details are accurate or even which aspects of its interpretation are plausible. To learn this, we need to put the movie in dialogue with the work of historians, as Zelikow has done in his post. (A recent interview with James McPherson, an eminent biographer of Lincoln, also gives a preliminary idea of what can be gained from such an approach.) Without the active engagement of such dialogue, our experience of “Lincoln” will be entertaining but not instructive.

But, particularly with a film as well done as “Lincoln,” the dialogue will be a genuine two-way exchange. In the end, of course, any truth the film presents needs to be grounded in the meticulous work of historians. But good historians do not merely accumulate data. They need sympathetic perception and imaginative interpretation to turn their data into a plausible historical story. The sympathy and imagination of creative artists can also operate on the materials historians supply. This is why a good historical film (or novel or play) can make its own contribution to our historical understanding. Actors, writers and directors who have immersed themselves in the history can provide their own distinctive insights into its meaning. But to benefit from these insights, we need to make our own connection with the historians’ work. It’s not nearly enough just to go see the movie.

Gary Gutting is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and an editor of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. He is the author of, most recently, “Thinking the Impossible: French Philosophy since 1960,” and writes regularly for The Stone.

