One Hundred Years Later

‘The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here.’ (A.L., 1863)

At the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, a second unit filmed scenes for the Hollywood classicMr. Smith Goes to Washingtonwith a double and extras. The succession of the rejected sequence shots subverts the usual film narration: plot is not advanced here. The neo-classical architecture is simply the setting for a recurrent ritual. The attendance of the unprepossessing protagonist dissipates between the columns in the hall. Often, he remains in front of the monument of Lincoln as if he himself were turning into a statue.