Lincoln (Movie Review by Bob Racine)

                             (2 hrs & 30 min, color, 2012)

It is my supposition that by this time at least 95% of you reading this have already seen Steven Spielberg’s superb film dramatizing the last four months in the life of our sixteenth President, four months that chronicle a marathon movement of forces shaping history, though they seem in retrospect but a brief moment on the world stage.  No piece of legislation ever passed by the U.S. Congress has ever been more pivotal and fundamentally altering of national character and compass bearings for the life of the nation than the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, to which Abraham Lincoln devoted the lion’s share of his energy during those hazardous weeks.

Here is a motion picture that the American movie-going public has not only seen and liked; it is one that a vast majority of them have taken to their hearts.  And would we not expect as much of any film pertaining to his life!   Lincoln is one historical figure who has had very few detractors during the century and a half since his death.  His life and memory seem to have transcended the ideological variances and political party-line disputes and shifting fads and ferments of government in each succeeding epoch.  Even in our polarized times, even amidst legislative deadlock and dissension, just about anyone aspiring to be a leader of the people or a catalyst for change, whatever the party label, will sooner or later quote from him or refer to him to support their political philosophy.  It is and always has been kosher to be identified as a descendent of the man.  But in the light of this lasting esteem we forget that during his time in office he was not liked by many in the government and certainly by most southerners.  He was regarded by some as nothing short of a despot, and this biopic will not let you forget that fact for long. 

It is strange that this particular portrayal of Lincoln should have the appeal it has enjoyed, when you consider that Spielberg has not come forth with a bright and happy movie.  Not by a long shot!  We need mention only the opening brutal combat scene and the vast landscape display of the battlefield dead among which he rides astride his horse in the closing minutes.  No, Spielberg does not come crashing onto our brain pans with flourishes and fanfares and high-sounding acclaim.  His approach to his subject is studied and measured and somewhat brooding.  The camera (wielded by Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski) lets in very little of the blaze of noon.  The images are dark and shadowy.  They simulate candle lighted spaces and interiors.  The pace is never brisk.  And though the expected outcome, the passing of the amendment, materializes wondrously at the movie’s climax, there is a pall that hangs over every scene before and after, an aura of sadness in anticipation of the tragic death we know this President is going to suffer and the turmoil into which we know the nation will be thrown upon his untimely passing.  Slavery’s demise will be much slower and more agonizing than a mere legislative achievement, however landmark, would suggest.  Few movie makers other than Spielberg could have gotten away with this approach, even as few if any others could have gotten studio approval in 1993 for filming “Schindler’s List” in black and white.  The barons of Hollywood have come to trust him; they know what a commercial best bet he is.   

The man Lincoln has been extensively analyzed by the scholars and pundits who have come and gone throughout the last one hundred and fifty years.  And out of their ruminations have emerged many portraits of him.  There is on the revered side The Liberator, The Noble Statesman, The Eloquent Speechmaker and Writer, The equally Eloquent Debater, The Supreme Leader, The Determined Warrior, The Visionary, The Beautiful Dreamer.  On the more sobering side we have The Pragmatist, The Loner, The Melancholy Man, The Private Sufferer, even The Shifty Politician who was not averse to sleights of hand and the bending of the law when it suited his purpose, as this screenplay is so scrupulous in demonstrating.  The character of House Rep Thaddeus Stevens, dynamically portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones as an intemperate and troublesome ally in the fight to end slavery, provides us with a few more choice designations to add to the list – “The Inveterate Dawdler and the Capitulating Compromiser.”  All of these Lincolns – all of them – stride across the screen in limp shouldered, somewhat stoic gracefulness during the course of the film’s footage, all of them made vivid and tangible in the brilliant hands of Daniel Day-Lewis.  His body language and his unassuming manner of speech bear this out.  In my estimation this actor can do no wrong.  Once again we look in vain to find any trace of other characters he has so powerfully portrayed throughout his career.  Someone has observed that from this point on it will be difficult for many Americans to think of Abraham Lincoln without seeing Day-Lewis in their minds’ eyes.  Who could conceivably improve on the work he has done?

We could also add to the list of titles The Unhappy Husband and Father.  Many of the most reliable sources have opined that Lincoln was subject to depression.  Molly, his grief stricken wife, was even more so, if Sally Field’s unforgettable profile of the woman can be believed, and I for one believe it, from all I have read.  The ordeal she underwent after her husband’s assassination, not only emotionally but materially and legally, is yet another reality that the consistently brooding temper of the movie foreshadows.  They do not make dramatic scenes more lucid and penetrating and air clearing than the one in which the two of them have a go at each other over the issue of whether or not to allow their son Robbie (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) to join the army and fight.  They have already lost another son to the war, a loss from which Molly has never totally recovered, and this altercation brings forth daggered words about other resentments and feelings as well, ones they have both suppressed – of betrayal and neglect.  Almost as explosive is the scene in which Robbie finally stands up to his father over the question of his desired enlistment.  This one even comes to blows.  The young man then stalks off bitterly and does as he pleases.  Father and son are never reconciled, not that that much time was left for that reconciliation to take place, as it turned out.  Lincoln’s private life was no bed of roses. 

   

Also broodingly foreshadowing but far more gentling and reassuring and hopeful is the candid conversation Lincoln has with his African American household servant Mrs. Keckley, a former slave (portrayed with deep sensitivity and restrained passion by Gloria Reuben) on the steps of the White House at night.  She opens her heart to him about how vital to her is the impending vote on the proposed amendment.  They both realize they are strangers to each other in many ways, but they manage in those few moments to cross the barriers and touch at a profound level.  I was brought more to empathetic tears by this scene than any other in the entire picture.  It pours healing waters over the impending sorrows and sufferings of her race and those of the nation itself in the coming decades.                  

The cast and crew are huge.  Space does not allow a listing of everyone who had a part in the movie’s making, but in addition to those already noted I make special mention of David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward, whose practical mind was both a help and an irritant to Lincoln in his fight.  A word of praise is also due Tony Kushner who wrote the intricate and exceptionally intelligent screenplay, each word of the script rapier sharp and swift to find the ear.  Nothing is soft pedaled.  Lincoln’s immortal, time honored words are not neglected either.  And Spielberg adds another star to his glowing crown.  Here he treads where other movie treatments of Lincoln have feared to tread.  He plays nothing safe, but he leaves most American citizens shrouded nevertheless in national pride and soulful wonder.

I have a suggestion for all of you who have seen the film: See it again, and maybe again.  You will never feel from repeated viewings as if you have learned all that is to be known about this iconic figure, but you just might wish to keep feeding your lingering appetite for more.        

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