Review: Lincoln (2012)

[Mark Leeper]

LINCOLN
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: With very interesting release timing and with
considerable historical accuracy, Stephen Spielberg tells
the history of the two great conflicting goals Abraham
Lincoln had toward the end of the Civil War. He wanted
both to free the slaves and to end the war. Spielberg
does not simplify the issues. Much of the film is talk.
Spielberg respects his audience's intelligence enough to
tell the complex story and maintain a great deal of
historical accuracy. The film even looks very accurate to
the period. The viewer may have to work hard, but the
work is worth the effort. This is a film for an
intelligent audience. Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4) or 8/10

During the United States Civil War the Union had hundreds of
thousands of men in the field fighting (whether some realized it or
not) for the rights of others. But in the last year a parallel war
was being waged in the Union's Congress to determine if that
government would emancipate the slaves. That war was fought just
as dirty and with nearly as much fury. Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN
is a paean to the people who fought for justice for the Southern
slaves, a war that was headed, just as the battlefield war was, by
Abraham Lincoln.

One can read in high school history books that under Lincoln the
13th Amendment was ratified. One rarely reads about what a hard-
fought battle getting it approved was against both the Democrats
and members of his own Republican party. Based on a script by Tony
Kushner, Spielberg tells with some tension of Lincoln's quest for
the twenty additional votes he needed to get the amendment ratified
by the House of Representatives. (Curiously, little is made of the
fact that it had already been passed by the Senate with what must
have been much of the same political wrangling.) Lincoln finds
himself in the peculiar position of desperately wanting to end the
war, but knowing that if it ends too soon the House of
Representatives will never ratify the 13th Amendment. He has to
extend a war that he greatly hates. He must balance ending the war
with ending slavery. His slow and complex efforts to get the
additional votes draw on the same sort of tension that TWELVE ANGRY
MEN had. The final count is reminiscent of the film 1776.
Frequently when I review a historical film I will have a paragraph
or so after the main review telling where the film got the history
wrong. All the research I have seen has said that LINCOLN gets the
facts fairly close to recorded history.

The look of LINCOLN gives a good impression of what living in 1863
would be like. This means a lot of the film is dimly lit in a
manner we expect from film noir, often with the shadow on a face
fading into the background. Do not expect bright, saturated
colors. Many of the officers in the armies had very big bushy
beards that are generally portrayed in films much shorter.
Spielberg works hard for great accuracy, and we see some really
large beards. This is a smart film but not really a pretty one.
Do not expect it to just wash over you like a James Bond chase. It
is hard work to follow what is going on. Be ready at the beginning
of each scene to listen carefully to what is being said in this
dialog-heavy film. And I hope you have a better memory for names
than I have. (Don't worry, that would not be difficult.)

Spielberg populates LINCOLN with a very large cast of many popular
actors. Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln leads the cast. He is not the
sort of Lincoln that Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, or Raymond Massey
played (and certainly not the Lincoln who was on STAR TREK). This
Lincoln fills his conversation with anecdotes and jokes, to the
point that he made exchanges with him a little trying. Lincoln
scholar Harold Holzer says that Lincoln's voice was probably a
little shriller and higher than it has been played. Day-Lewis
plays him as a man who could have his mind on several tracks at the
same time, hence the self-interruption and his propensity for the
quick quip. The film also suggests that his arguments with Mary
Todd Lincoln (played by Sally Field) could be fiery and loud.

LINCOLN is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's accounts of the
emancipation in her book TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I imagine that on third or fourth viewing much
more of it will be clear. I rate LINCOLN a low +3 on the -4 to +4
scale or 8/10.

Spielberg gives us an account of a lame duck Congress being coerced
to work on bi-partisan lines to act for the good of the country.
It was released a little too late to affect the voting in the
United States election, but it is an account of an embattled
Congress eventually doing the right thing. It would be great if
our own Congress would do the same thing. LINCOLN is a distant
mirror of our own times and politics.

This does seem to be Abraham Lincoln's year of being a hero in the
movies with this film following as it does close on the heels of
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER.

Film Credits: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lincoln_2011/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2012 Mark R. Leeper