He's also on Pilgrimage (R1 dvd) and The Hurricane (blu-ray). I've listened to them all and I think they're all great. Pilgrimage stuck in my mind especially for his love of this lesser-known film.

Don't wait too long on the Olive Signature release of The Quiet Man. Last year's Olive Signature releases, including The Quiet Man, will be going out of print in the near future.

That looks very soft and even blurry in some of the grabs. The Criterion dvd must have been edge enhanced. If not, then this is very disappointing...

We'll remember two things, lenses were much softer in 1939.

And contrast increases perceptual sharpness, so slightly less contrast might make it seem less sharp if you looked at them side by side but does not indicate any change in sharpness. Also you will never look at them side by side on equally calibrated monitors in motion, so the point is moot.

Here's my vid, for those who want it:
https://1fichier.com/?o88ambmmwg

I'm wondering if Svet's totally obvious pro-Trump stance is still vastly hilariously misguided (especially in the context of where and how it's written) or if just misguided and already not funny at all anymore.

Uh... if he was pro-Hilary would he be suddenly funny and well-guided? Good lord this political worship.....

Anyway, looking forward to this release as I saw it on TCM and loved the simple story telling. Even if Lincoln is a republican....

Svet's political stance certainly isn't one I share because I feel it's vastly out-of-touch with reality and often overly-simplistic, which as whole makes it look in my eyes as a Pro-Trump stance, which is why I summed it up this way.
However, I couldn't care less about whether it was Trump or somebody else. It just seems to me like an old sour man's reactionary over simplistic ramblings, on top of twisting movies to make them fit his views of the world (this last part being, for me, the most misguided part of it).

First off, I never found Trump's supporters funny, but what's made his administration so troubling and damaging goes beyond simple partisan politics - as different as the Clintons or Mitt Romney or John McCain, etc. may be, supporting any of them would be far more rational.

Second, it's probably not well-known outside of the U.S. but the current two major parties were never politically consistent during their entire existence. This is true going back just a handful of decades, but it's especially true in the 19th century. In Lincoln's time, the Republican party was pushing for policies that put far more control in the federal government, which logically made sense when they were also pushing to end slavery in a divided nation.

I would not.

Additionally, the GOP were a left wing American party before the realignment that happened between the 1932 and 1968 elections where the two parties swapped idology.

Note that I don't care so much about Trump or Clinton. What looks to be either a tremendous running-joke or a very poor critical approach is, to me, how Svet seems now to feel totally free to use any movie containing social or political content and twist it to make it fit his own view of the world.
We've seen already with Dheepan, The other side of hope or (on another topic) Festival how misguided this approach can be in its hands, but its now recurring aspect gives it a whole different level (in my eyes).
Especially on a website who has a notorious "no politics here" policy.

This is what I wanted to point out with my remark.

The Republicans were NEVER a "left-wing party". While the "radical Republicans" of the 1860s were abolitionists (and then-pro-Reconstruction), they were never the mainstream of the party. Grant (in part) leaned toward this side of the party -- which made him increasingly unpopular with the party's pro-big-business mainstream (of the party's leadership, if not of its voters). The unfettered-capitalist-leaning mainstream dominated the party through Teddy Roosevelt (who was himself very ultra-capitalist -- albeit one who recognized utterly unbridled capitalism and wealth--worship was undermining both the country and a properly-functioning capitalist system). After TR, the party (as a whole -- despite some progressivist hold-outs here and there) reverted to its support of extreme laissez-faire capitalism. Wilson (alongside his ferocious racism) started moving the Democrats towards semi-populist "controlled capitalism" and FDR moved the party further in this direction. So, if one looks solely at economics, the Dems actually started following up on Teddy Roosevelt's direction almost as soon as the GOP repudiated it. What happened in the 60s was not any economic policy shift but rather the beginning switch of white racists (and later virtually all white evangelical Christians) from the Democrats to the Republican Party, in response to the Democratic Party's decision to begin supporting equal rights (social and political) for black Americans.

There's a lot to unpack here. My comment was that compared to the Democratic party in the 1860-1864 elections, they were the left. If you'd like to talk economics, TR (R) began the idea of Third Way econ. (which had already taken hold in Europe) of using government to mitigate the disastrous effects of unrestrained capitalism with his Square Deal program. And, you accurately say that the GOP reverted to a laissez-faire capitalism approach after TR, best exemplified under the Coolidge Administration. TR was the last grasp of the GOP being the party of the left. If FDR had run as a Republican (which Brands points out was a huge betrayal in the Roosevelt family), we wouldn't have seen the shift and realignment of the two parties between '32-'68. Just a cleaning of house.

The American political system is incredibly complex as political parties have shown that they can be in flux and are unaffected by standard ideological and political science norms.

Talk about derailing a thread. Excuse me while I go vomit . . . .

This is still a great film and I hope the flash sale is soon so I can get it and watch it again for either this thread or the biopic list. I'll edit this post for something more substantial hopefully soon.

Growing up in Illinois, the mythology of Lincoln was pretty ubiquitous. (Our holiday isn't Presidents' Day - it's his birthday.) So the first time I saw this film, it didn't leave a big impression because it seemed to regurgitate so much that was very familiar. But after I grew to appreciate Ford and learned to appreciate what he does here, it really sank in that for someone unfamiliar with American history, this was probably a fascinating and insightful look into the types of myths that do shape American culture and the values associated with it.

I'm still making my way through the extras, but so far they're quite wonderful, especially McBride's commentary and of course the long television interview with Fonda. Not surprisingly, Fonda's a very charismatic, down-to-earth everyman. His personal anecdotes about growing up can be pretty remarkable - they paint a very different world, a reminder of how distant his childhood years are to now. For example, he makes a passing remark that they had cars in Omaha, but it wasn't unusual for someone to get on a horse if they needed to get somewhere fast. He actually mentions this while talking about the time his father let him watch a lynch mob, and it's harrowing stuff.