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Lincoln focus of Lebanon native’s film

Caitlin Grogan documentary profiles 3 Lincoln impersonators.

Caitlin Grogan interviews Abraham Lincoln impersonator Larry Elliot during the filming of her debut documentary ''Life As Lincoln.'' Contributed photo

Submitted Caitlin Grogan interviews Abraham Lincoln impersonator Larry Elliot during the filming of her debut documentary ''Life As Lincoln.'' Contributed photo

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By Justin McClelland, Staff Writer 11:02 AM Thursday, February 25, 2010

LEBANON — Caitlin Grogan knows a thing or two about honesty. As a documentary filmmaker, her job is to capture the truth. Especially when the subject relates to the 16th president of the United States, “honest” Abe Lincoln.

Grogan, a 2003 Lebanon High School graduate, recently completed her directorial debut, “Life as Lincoln,” a documentary exploring the lives of three Abraham Lincoln impersonators.

Grogan, 25, said her family had instilled a love of history within her that motivated the making of the documentary. Her parents, John and Christine Grogan, raised her in a 160-year-old home on Cincinnati Avenue in Lebanon and she spent summers watching historic recreations at Glendower and taking historically themed vacations with her family.

“Going on all those trips and seeing the re-enactors, I always thought about them and what their lives would be like at the end of the day when they go home,” Grogan said. She said she chose to follow Lincoln impersonators because of the huge shadow the former president casts over history and the sheer number of Lincoln presenters that exist.

“A lot of people love Lincoln and there is a tendency to claim him by all parties,” Grogan said. “Anybody could play an 19th century man off the street, but to be Lincoln, you have to know what you’re talking about.”

Grogan followed three different Lincoln presenters, one from each of Lincoln’s “home states” (Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois) and documented their differing portrayals and ideas about the 16th president.

Grogan, who graduated in 2007 from Northwestern University in Chicago with a degree in journalism and works in Chicago as a reporter, had never made a movie before apart from a few shorts in college. She was encouraged by friends to explore her idea and was surprised in 2008 to get hooked up with Split Pillow Production, an nonprofit independent movie production company in Chicago.

“We had wanted to do something about Lincoln for his bicentennial and lo and behold, here was Caitlin and she’d already done a lot of the footwork,” said Dennis Belogorsky, executive producer of Split Pillow.

“Caitlin got great material and developed a good rapport with her subjects which are the most important things for any documentary filmmaker to do,” Belogorsky said.

The film debuted on Feb. 12 (Lincoln’s birthday, naturally) at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago. Two of the three Lincoln presenters attended the premier, as did Grogan’s parents.

Grogan said she and Split Pillow are shopping the film to festivals in search of a distributor that would put the movie into wide circulation, possibly even the Dayton area.

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