A manhunt set in the past, but with an eye fixed on the present and the cycles of history. There is this and much more in Manhuntnew series Apple TV+ in 7 episodes (the first 2 available from March 15th and the others published weekly) focusing on the assassination of the 16th President of the United States of America Abraham Lincoln. A tragic and fundamental event for American history, arriving right at the end of the bloody war of secession and emblematic of a nation perpetually poised between union and conspiracy, progressive forces and reactionary opposition.
At the center of the story is obviously the evening of 14 April 1865, in which the theater actor John Wilkes Booth he shot Lincoln point blank as he was watching the show Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Washington, ending his life after several hours of agony. The killer (played by Anthony Boyle) then began a 12-day long escape together with his conspirators, hunted by soldiers and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Tobias Menzies), the first to realize that there was a larger plan behind Booth’s actions. Manhunt focuses on this long pursuit, without however failing to give space to Lincoln’s political thought (Hamish Linklater) with several flashbacks, also focusing on the ambiguous actions of the new President Andrew Johnson (Glenn Morshower), particularly tolerant towards the Confederates and in open contrast to the process of liberation and emancipation of the African-American population.
Manhunt: premises and consequences of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the new Apple TV+ series
The series is created by Monica Beletsky and based on the book by James L. Swanson Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, one of the most in-depth and detailed essays on this event. This time too, Apple offers its subscribers an ambitious show with a production level well above average, which seeks to reflect on the present through the past. It is evident, in fact, that the personalities of the protagonists of this sad story reverberate in contemporary society, apparently progressed and evolved but in reality still affected by well-rooted problems within it. Thus emerge both the figure of Booth, a mad egocentric suspended between the frustration of the comparison with his father and brother and the mythomania of those who think of changing the world with violence, and that of Stanton, on the contrary the bearer of healthy values and Lincoln’s political and moral legacy.
The two become the protagonists of a long-distance duel with a Western flavour, a genre which, not surprisingly, set some of its best pages during the Civil War. As the episodes go by, Manhunt it then veers in the direction of thriller and legal drama, documenting in great detail the escape of the conspirators and the subsequent trial. In the various time jumps, resulting from a non-linear narrative, various drops in rhythm occur, which penalize the story. The greatest advantage of Manhuntthat is, the look at Lincoln’s assassination filtered by the problems of the present, also turns into a boomerang, in particular with regards to racism, faced with a very modern awareness, alienating when put into the mouths of people from the 19th century.
A brilliant historical fresco
Despite these flaws, Manhunt it turns out to be a brilliant historical fresco, brilliant both in the moments of real investigation into a decidedly complex political plot, and in the most agitated passages of Booth’s escape, which explode in bursts of violence. Despite the extensive use of the figure of the assassinated President, the show also manages to avoid the danger of what has already been seen, delving into territories and nuances different from those explored by Steven Spielberg in his Lincoln.
Manhunt is available March 15 on Apple TV+.
Stay updated by following us on Google News!