I liked most of the choices for the voices in this film, but always felt Sam Waterson as Lincoln didn't fit. He's too indifferent sounding. I don't mean that they should have gotten Gregory Peck or anything, but I thought someone humble-but-friendly sounding like Fess Parker or Andy griffith would have been wonderful.
shareGregory Peck had already played Lincoln (in the 1983 miniseries The Blue and the Grey). I suspect Ken Burns wanted a fresh casting sound.
I thought Sam Waterston was perfect. He didn't strike one false note as Lincoln.
Fess Parker or Andy Griffith? Neither of them would have been good. Lincoln sounding like the sheriff of Mayberry or Davy Crockett? Uh-uh.
Actually, it has been said that Lincoln had a very thick southern accent, spoke fairly quickly, and while he was a good speech writer, had a very difficult voice to listen to.
shareSam Waterston had also already played Lincoln prior to the documentary.
shareGeorge Plimpton's voice for a Northern personality? Immediately recognizable. Yeech, how contrived...
shareActually, Plimpton'v voice is a little too New England for the New Yorker Strong, but other than that I have no objection.
The best Lincoln voice I think I've heard was Hal Holbrook's - forget the miniseries, it was over 25 years ago. But Holbrokk's voice was the right mix of "country" and "statesman." Peck has the stature but his voice is wrong for the part.
But when I think of voices from this doc, I think first of McCullogh (the narrator.) Specifically, I hear him saying, "Still, McClellan would not move."
The Troika of Irrelevancy: bringing off-topic enlightenment to the masses since 2006
Hey Splat, the series you mentioned was "North and South Book II" which came out in 1986. Hal Holbrook played Lincoln very well!
What do you primitive children know what you call God?
-Count Iblis
Never saw N & S II. But I think Holbrook was reprising Lincoln there. His first turn, IIRC, was a short miniseries called "Sandburg's Lincoln" or some such thing...
The Troika of Irrelevancy: bringing off-topic enlightenment to the masses since 2006
Holbrook's first portrayal of Lincoln was way back in the early 60's on one of the Ed Sullivan Show's.
He definitely has a voice that Hollywood/TV believe fits their impression of not only Lincoln but a host of other famous Americans such as Ben Franklin/John Adams/Mark Twain/George Marshall and a prolific amount of fictitious Presidents/Senators and Judges.
Heck! He was even Deep Throat in "All the Presidents Men"
Yes and I loved him in "Magnum Force" as the corrupt Lt. Briggs!
What do you primitive children know what you call God?
-Count Iblis
Yea, McCullough has an amazing voice and delivers his lines incredibly well.
it's judgement that defeats us
i like how in the beginning of the series...Lincoln is described as being "from Illinois". He was most absolutely not. :-)
He was born and raised in (or around) Hodgenville Kentucky. :-)
granted, this is from Wikipedia, not the most reliable source of info these days...but here you go..
..."Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, the second child of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Lincoln (née Hanks), in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky(now LaRue County)..."...
Why, oh why couldn't the phonograph have been invented so much earlier than it was, so we'd know what these people REALLY sounded like? Grant and Sherman holding a strategy meeting: Jefferson Davis having dinner with Robert E. Lee; a Union regimental band playing a concert at sunset; Walt Whitman reading poems to the injured while he changes their bandages. The list is endless. It's one thing to have someone's voice described, but to actually hear the nuances of region, education (or lack thereof), age and context is beyond measure. What would you pay to HEAR the voices of everyone from Garibaldi, Otto von Bismark, Charles Dickens, a Russian serf, Crazy Horse, Sacajawea, Benito Juarez, a Japanese fisherman watching Commodore Perry's ships arrive; Calamity Jane, Harriet Tubman, even John Wilkes Booth? (BTW, Edwin Booth's voice WAS recorded).
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?