Hail to the Chief! Flix@5, on WRTI every weekday after the news at 5 PM, salutes U.S. Presidents the week of February 15th with movies that cover more than four score and seven years of history at The White House.The 2012 film, Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones piled up award after award including an Oscar for Best Actor for Lewis. The score by John Williams combined original themes with period-type music.
Watch Stephen Spielberg introduce John Williams and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s performance of music from Lincoln:
Watch Daniel Day Lewis deliver Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
Watch Stephen Spielberg discuss how he came to tell the story of Abraham Lincoln:
Thirteen Days is the 2000 film starring Bruce Greenwood as John F. Kennedy and Steven Culp as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The score is by Trevor Jones, whose music brought drama and pathos to fantasy films like Excalibur and The Dark Crystal, and dramas like The Last of the Mohicans and In the Name of the Father, brings tension to the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
2012’s Hyde Park on the Hudson features comedian Bill Murray as Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt, and their friendly meeting with the King of England at Roosevelt’s country house. Composer Jeremy Sams came to prominence as a director on such West End London plays as Noises Off and a stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He has written music for television films and over 50 theater productions.
Kevin Costner stars in the 1991 drama JFK about an investigation into that fateful day in November of 1963. Gary Oldman plays Lee Harvey Oswald, said to have fired the fatal shot. John Williams again helps elevate the thriller with a taught score. Director Oliver Stone followed this film with two more about presidents—Nixon with Anthony Hopkins and W. with Josh Brolin.
