This is not your average film biography. Only the last four or five months of Lincoln's life are covered as we see his drive to get the 13th Amendment passed. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a performance which turns the Best Actor Oscar contest into an actual race as I honestly can't decide if I liked him or Joaquin Phoenix better (and if Philip Seymour Hoffman decides to try for Actor rather than Supporting, count him too). Interestingly, the role of Lincoln is in total contrast to Day-Lewis' most recent lead roles in "There Will Be Blood" and "Gangs Of New York". There are a handful of scenes where Lincoln raises his voice, especially once the deadline to the amendment vote draws near, but for the most part this is a very reactive performance. We learn more about the character from what others say about him, rather than directly from his actions.
I read the first half of the 700 page "Team Of Rivals" (the direct inspiration for Spielberg's "Lincoln) which covered everything up to his first inauguration and I loved how the historical person I read about was accurately portrayed on screen. Day-Lewis chooses to give Lincoln a high reedy (almost annoying) voice which is nothing like the deep bass most people imagine him having. Lincoln had a massive sense of humor and loved to tell stories and anecdotes in his argument all of which is represented here during his various meetings with his cabinet, other politicians, and his family.
Most striking about Day-Lewis' performance is how he's able to bring a sense of gravitas to Lincoln's life by just inhabiting the role so he becomes a real person. Lincoln is the closest thing American history has to a "god" and by the end of the two and a half hours, the tragedy of his death is very apparent. But alongside that, we get to see Lincoln close to how he probably was, with his first scene being of him basically chilling with some Union soldiers before a battle. His legend looms large today, but back then he was just a guy and it's nice to see that.
The Presidency and White House have changed a lot over the past 150
years. I didn't even realize Lincoln's small dark office was suppose to
be the West Wing until the very end of the film. There are no secret
service agents as Lincoln and Secretary Of State William Seward ride
around Washington DC in a topless carriage. There are lines of people lining the walls of the White House waiting for a chance to pester the President in some fashion and there seems to be little fear of him being attacked, even during the end days of the war.
The House of Representatives back then was a precursor to pro wrestling with both the Democrats and Republicans basically shooting promos at the other side like they were building up to a match. And with everyone having some sort of bizarre facial hair or wig, it's self-explanatory why the upper balcony is full of audience during these House meetings and votes. I originally registered as a Republican in college due to learning about the old Republican party in history class, but somehow over the past century and a half, the two main parties have totally switched agendas. Here the Democrats are the clear bad guys, wanting to squash the anti-slave amendment for both political or personal reasons.
The way Spielberg shows the proceedings firmly places the Democrats as the villains which is how I see most politics today (being black and white, I mean). There is always a clear good guy and a clear bad guy. During the elections this year, the Republicans basically came across as the super villain party, looking to impede the rights of various groups (minorities, homosexuals, the lower classes) while spouting Christian bullshit. Alongside the southern Democrats of 1865, these are two parties who stand for hate, while claiming the opposing side is evil.
Spielberg builds the whole film towards the big vote at the end and somehow is able to make it suspenseful even though we all know slavery has been abolished for over a century. The tricks he uses aren't the most genius, but they sure are effective, as we learn that the timing of this amendment is crucial to getting it passed. Some of Lincoln's cabinet members feel that the war is almost over and that he should focusing on receiving the South's surrender rather than push this vote through, but Lincoln intelligently feels that once the war ends, the push to end slavery will lose momentum due to the returning Southern states putting the kabosh on it. So it's a race against time to gather the votes needed to succeed, with all Republicans needed to vote "Yay" and various moderate Democrats needed as well.
James Spader, John Hawkes, and Tim Blake Nelson provide a lot of humor to the film in their scenes as operatives who go around to different congressmen, lobbying for their vote. Alongside those three and Daniel Day-Lewis is a veritable who's who of quality actors, with Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Strathairn, Hal Holbrook, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce McGill, Lee Pace, and Jackie Earle Haley being just some of the names here. Jones and Strathairn especially stand out as abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Secretary Of State William Seward respectively, with both probably on the shortlist for a Supporting Actor nod.
It's impossible for Jones to give a bad performance if he's motivated and here he's called on to play a man who's so anti-Slavery, he may prove to be an obstacle to the Amendment passing as he thinks it doesn't go far enough. Strathairn plays Seward who was the largest contender to Lincoln heading into the Republican convention where Lincoln was chosen as the Presidential nominee in 1860. Lincoln chose to make Seward Secretary Of State as he was more interested in getting the best quality of cabinet rather than just his friends and the two ended up becoming great allies and friends. Seward was just as anti-slavery (if not more) as Lincoln, but is forced to stand in as the voice of reason as Lincoln chooses to make the end of slavery a more important issue than the end of the war.
The first thing we see is a Civil War version of the
famous opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan" with a huge bloody battle
taking place. Unfortunately it only lasts a matter of seconds, but I'd
love for Spielberg to revisit this time period for an actual film
focusing on the war itself.
This is Spielberg's strongest film in well over a decade and is one of the greatest films of American history I've ever seen. Still, Spielberg doesn't seem to know how much is too much regarding sentimentality and comes very close to over saturating the film with it, especially near the end. I could do without the sun's "heavenly glow" shining down on both Lincoln and Stevens during key scenes in the movie and Spielberg still doesn't know how to end a film, with "Lincoln" peaking at the conclusion of the amendment voting process, but still continuing on for another fifteen minutes or so. Also, despite adoring Day-Lewis' performance as Lincoln, I still think the Abraham Lincoln we see here is too flawless. We get some very minor moments where his golden veneer starts to crack, like a scene with him and his wife Mary (Sally Field who would be more appropriate playing Lincoln's mother) where she confronts him on his seeming insensitivity toward her when their second son died many years before, but even that blows over it's explained that he just kept his own emotions bottled up. I loved his character throughout the film, but I feel there's a disservice done to his memory to just portray him as a perfect human being.
In general though, you're not going to find many big Oscar-bait films of better quality than "Lincoln". A large amount of information and events are able to squeeze into 150 minutes and make total sense which is not always easy to accomplish. When I wrote about "Argo", I explained that I want every story from history to be made into a film and "Lincoln" only serves to increase that wish tenfold.
Rating - 4.75 out of 5 stars
This will be my last post for around a couple of weeks. With the holidays coming up, I'm getting kind of busy, but I plan on recharging and reviewing stuff like "The Hobbit" and "Django Unchained" in December as well as more vintage films.
Check out my older stuff if you haven't already and if you like what you read, leave a note and let me know. I'm doing this purely for myself, but I'd love to get some feedback, positive or negative as long as it's constructive.
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