Lincoln

We live in troubling political times where it seems that everyone is at everyone else’s throats over something as trivial as what political party you belong to. With as angry and outspoken people are against this and that, it seems like this whole country is on the verge of tearing itself apart. We have a tendency to forget that this is nothing new and that this country has made it through worse than this. Social media has made it more prevalent for bullying and hate speech to be put out there without the fear of immediate reprisal in the form of a punch in the nose. This mentality is nothing new, though, just more readily available. 

The history of the United States includes many instances of political dissidence, perhaps no more so than during the American Civil War, a time when this country really was on the brink of tearing itself apart. The South was proclaiming that the Federal government was trying to force their own set of laws on the states, overriding state law and their way of life. The Federal government was facing a crisis: give in to the individual states’ rights that allowed the African race to be viewed as property or force the states’ hands by passing a Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and risk destabilizing their entire economy.  

The Civil War broke out, a war with the intent of allowing the Southern states to succeed from the Union and become their own country, free from the laws coming out of Washington. In the middle of this war was Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States and a man determined to end the war and free the slaves. We are taught the basics of how he eventually made it all happen but are generally not told what it took to make that happen. Steven Spielberg’s film, Lincoln, covers that ground in just enough detail to get across the seemingly insurmountable mountain he and his supporters had to scale to finally get one of the most important amendments through Congress and ratified. 

Lincoln started out as a far more ambitious project, focused on the entire life of the president while in office. The original script came across as unwieldy and better fitting a longer format such as a television miniseries. Steven Spielberg, who had been attached to the project since 1999, wanted it pared down to what he felt was the most important element of Lincoln’s presidency, the 13th Amendment.  Liam Neeson, who was attached in the title role, dropped out of the project right around the time the scope was narrowed. Ostensibly, this was because Neeson felt he had aged out of the project. He also stated that he felt he was the wrong person for the part during a table read and requested to be released from it. Spielberg then returned to Daniel Day-Lewis, whom he had originally approached years before and had been turned down back then. It took some convincing, especially from Neeson and fellow actor Leonardo DiCaprio, but Day-Lewis finally relented and took the part. 

To say Daniel Day-Lewis is tremendous in this part would be like beating a dead horse. I have yet to see Day-Lewis in a film where he was not dead on perfect. There are no known recordings of Lincoln, but there are several written accounts that speak of his voice and mannerisms, and Daniel studied them and incorporated them into his performance. Daniel is a method actor, and so during production, he stayed in character and insisted on being referred to as Mr. President. Whether this aided in his acting, or it’s all in his mind, only those around him would know for sure. Either way, it won him an Academy Award and further emphasized just how good an actor his peers consider him to be. 

 We get a sense of the man himself right from the opening scene. This moment is there to establish Lincoln’s character, and it does that well. However, it also feels Spielbergesque. This scene feels like a scene written for a film and not something that plausibly happened. In it, Lincoln is at the sight of a recent battle and is being greeted by two Black soldiers who are just eager to meet him. Two other soldiers approach, white Anglican men, and start reciting the Gettysburg Address verbatim like they had memorized it in school. The scene ends with the soldiers walking away, the last of the Black soldiers finishing the recital as he turns and leaves. We get what this scene is presenting to us, but it doesn’t feel organic. It reminds us of the words he spoke at Gettysburg as well as his respect for the soldiers regardless of race, both things we could have learned in a more organic way.

A good deal of this movie reminds me of the lyrics from Hamilton: “No one really knows how the game is played. The art of the trade. How the sausage is made. We just assume that it happens.” We know from history that the 13th Amendment was passed, but the machinations that went on inside the rooms of the government that paved the way for the vote are more of a mystery. This part of the film, which honestly is a majority of the runtime, is a fascinating look at the inner workings of the government and how politicians can put pressure on, or even outright blackmail, someone to get the vote to go their way. Right or wrong, this kind of political manipulation can and does happen all the time, and seeing it in this context can be both humorous and horrifying at the same time. 

Abraham Lincoln was a man who knew how to wield that kind of power, understanding people and their motivations to the point that he could sway them. He also had people that worked for him that could go out and do that for him as needed. But he wasn’t the only one in government with strong convictions and a powerful voice. Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) is also a vocal supporter for equal rights and is shown to care little that it makes him an unpopular man amongst his peers. He is able to channel his convictions into some pretty fiery monologues at times, including one where he seemingly moderates his position on equality to simply legal equality, not actual equality. In this way, he placates some of his more boisterous opposers and helps along the vote. Thaddeus Stevens, who in reality was in a relationship with a Black woman, has a far more progressive view on things than even some people today. 

Peppered into this narrative of political jargon and underhanded politicking is a very human story, too. Lincoln’s grown son, Robert Todd (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is studying to be a lawyer but wants to enlist and fight in the Civil War. He was the only one of four children born to Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) to survive into adulthood, and his desire to fight was very taxing on his mother. There is a scene late in the film where he sees a large number of discarded limbs, amputated from wounded soldiers, and you think he will be moved to not enlist, but the opposite ends up being the case. This leads to Sally Field’s Oscar reel scene where she has a complete breakdown while fighting with her husband over it. He feels he cannot force Robert to stay out of the war, and she feels it will destroy her. This whole film could be a stage play, and that is exactly the way Sally is playing it.  

This is a film that, on paper, should come across as boring, filled with white men arguing in formal settings for long stretches of time. It matters not that what they are arguing about is something that affected the lives of millions of people throughout the decades since; just the format of this film should make for a dull experience. Yet that is not the case. This film is set up with so many colorful characters that bring to light this experience in such a way as to make it interesting to follow. That it has gone mostly forgotten in the decade since its initial release is disappointing. For a film that was once considered the forerunner for Best Picture, it has almost dropped into obscurity. 

You don’t hear a lot about this film anymore. When people talk about Spielberg films, they inevitably fall back on his work in the 1980s and 90s, back when he was making pictures that dazzled the imagination. There’s nothing wrong with that. E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Arkwere childhood favorites that I still love and appreciate. Spielberg was one of the only directors I knew by name when I was growing up because of that. But in the mid-1990s, he started to mature as a director, and I can appreciate those films on their own level, too. Lincoln is one of those. It will never be as endearing to me as Indiana Jones or E.T., but it works for me on a different level. It should be seen more than it is, not just for the history but because it is also a darn fine movie, too.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy

Best Director: Steven Spielberg

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (won)

Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones

Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field

Best Adapted Screenplay: Tony Kushner

Best Cinematography: Janusz Kamiński

Best Costume Design: Joanna Johnston

Best Film Editing: Michael Kahn

Best Original Score: John Williams

Best Production Design: Rick Carter and Jim Erickson (won)

Best Sound Mixing: Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom, and Ron Judkins

____________________________________________________

Release Date: November 16, 2012

Running Time: 150 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, and Tommy Lee Jones

Directed By: Steven Spielberg