Lincoln | B+
There’s
a perfect final shot in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, in which the
celebrated 16th president stands silhouetted in the doorway of the White House,
late to join his wife at Ford’s Theatre. The image is gorgeously composed and
emotionally stirring, hailing the quiet but dogged humanity of “Honest Abe” yet
tinged with just the right amount of foreboding. History has taught us what
happens next.
Unfortunately,
Spielberg — true to his baser instincts — runs his film for another 10 minutes,
taking us through that fateful night (albeit without actually showing the
assassination), then doubling down with a final rousing speech, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural. Surprisingly, it’s one of only a few artistic lapses in an
otherwise handsome and discriminating historical drama.
What’ll
be interesting to see is whether Spielberg’s reputation for grandiose set
pieces and shameless emotional button-pushing will attract robust audiences for
a restrained, two-and-a-half-hour period piece that focuses on the true spirit
of politics: speechifying, extortion, lobbying and ego. Don’t let the battle
scenes in the trailers fool you, Lincoln is less about rifles and
cannons and more about dandified lawyers and crotchety politicians in powdered
wigs pounding the desk, adjusting their waistcoats, and hurling old-timey
insults at one another. In other words, Spielberg is revisiting his Amistad days, only with a lot less bluster and sanctimony.
Written
by playwright Tony Kushner and using portions of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s 2005
biography Team of Rivals, the film is set in 1865, during the final
months of the Civil War. Lincoln (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) recognizes that
he has only a small window of opportunity in which to pass the 13th Amendment
abolishing slavery. It is explained that his Emancipation Proclamation was a
war powers act, which not only brought with it limited enforcement (it didn’t
apply to border states) but also would, ironically, legitimize the
Confederacy’s claim that slaves are property. Should the war end without the
13th becoming law, it is unlikely that the highly partisan and constipated
Congress would ever allow its final passage. What ensues is a game of political
manipulation, horse-trading, bullying and bribery, where Lincoln must unite the
interests of radicals and conservatives in his own Republican Party while
picking off a few of the oppositional Democrats — all while secretly delaying a
treaty with the South to end the bloodshed. A risky proposition given that the
House had rejected the amendment less than a year earlier and the country was
profoundly weary of war.
Things
kick off slowly as Lincoln carefully lays its narrative footings with
background history, a long list of characters, and finely honed exposition.
Truth be told, it feels a bit like a mega-budgeted episode of Masterpiece
Theater, as the plan to end slavery becomes an elaborate and messy
political puzzle that accents just how untidy democracy can be. It depicts a
particularly fractious time in America history, when our government was very
much a work in progress (as it remains to this day). But this isn’t a dry civic
lesson. History comes alive (to indulge in cliché) as Kushner’s script revels
in the nuances of rhetoric and the sport of power. The men of the 39th Congress
embody high principles and base instincts, wrestling with their loyalty to
party, conscience and personal fortune. Some are sincere, others connive, and a
not insignificant number are fools, unworthy of the offices they hold. It
demonstrates how little the character of the House has changed over the last
century and a half, and parallels to the battle over “Obamacare” can be seen in
its subtext.
Where
things have notably changed, however, is in the use of language. Spirited
debates, flowery oratory, and homespun parables blossom throughout the movie,
and it’s a pleasure to play spectator to Kushner’s rich dialogue. “Oh, the joys
of being comprehended,” Lincoln states, and it’s hard not to agree. This is a
movie that embraces the fullness of English eloquence and dares the audience to
keep up.
Spielberg’s
film is similarly triumphant in its casting. John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson and
a wonderfully pudgy James Spader play a trio of delightfully amoral lobbyists.
As Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, David Strathairn brings a
watchful gravity to the proceedings, and Jared Harris makes for a well-worn
Ulysses S. Grant. Even minor characters benefit from the talents of Hal
Holbrook, Lee Pace and Jackie Earle Haley. And though playing the cantankerous,
radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens may seem like old hat for Tommy Lee Jones,
his singular mix of thunder, humor, pride and moral decency will inevitably
attract Oscar notice.
Which
leaves us with Daniel Day-Lewis. Putting aside the remarkable physical
likeness, Lewis’s portrait of Lincoln is both modestly grounded and masterfully
complex. His shoulders are stooped, his smile warm and weary, and his voice is
both higher pitched and more timorous than we might expect. But the tenderness
and melancholy, no doubt authentic to Lincoln’s character, hide the great
president’s droll sense of humor, razor-sharp intelligence and cunning
instincts. To some, he is a gentle and affable man who is given to homespun
anecdotes that pack a metaphorical punch. To others, he is a shrewd and
seasoned lawyer who knows how to wield the power of his personality and office.
Lewis shows that he needs neither bluster nor gimmicks (as he is sometimes
given to indulge in) to command the screen.
And
yet, despite this, Lincoln remains an emotionally detached experience.
The movie doesn’t really give us any insight into who the president was as a
man, but it does give us a sense of what it might have been like to be around him.
Perhaps sensing this, Spielberg insists on inserting some family drama, with
Abe’s son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) insisting that he be permitted to join
the war, and Sally Field’s Mary Todd fretting and frothing that she won’t lose
another child. It’s hokey, distracting and dramatically ineffectual stuff and,
frankly, unnecessarily cheapens Field’s performance and character. How much
better would have Lincoln been if Mary Todd were treated as
another rival (albeit an emotional one) to be enlisted into Lincoln’s cause
rather than an underwritten stereotype of history? How much more would we learn
of the man, had his wife provided a space where his personal doubts and fears
could be expressed?
In
the end, Lincoln demonstrates that history is made by ordinary people,
and that true leadership is the ability to overcome the drama of the moment in
order to fulfill the wisdom of time. Spielberg’s film illustrates how both
Abraham Lincoln and members of Congress overcame the former in service of the
latter.
It
is a lesson in duty and compromise that both the American electorate and its
elected representatives would do well to learn.
This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2012.