The other half and I finally saw
Steven Spielberg’s
Lincoln over the Thanksgiving weekend, at our usual spot at the Edwards Renaissance 14
theaters in Alhambra. The film has an eye-caching pedigree with the involvement
of high-profile talent such as Spielberg himself, of course, along with
screenwriter
Tony Kushner (openly
gay playwright of the Pulitzer-prize winning
Angels in America). The cast includes 2-time Oscar winners
Daniel Day-Lewis and
Sally Field as Abraham Lincoln and his
wife Mary Todd Lincoln;
fellow Oscar
winner
Tommy Lee Jones as the
celebrated anti-slavery activist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (R-PA);
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (from
Looper and
The Dark Knight Rises) as the Lincoln’s eldest son,
David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward and
Gloria Reuben (television's
E.R.) as free Black woman who works in
the White House. The story of the film is adapted from material in the
Pulitzer-prize winning
Team of Rivals by
Doris Kearns Goodwin; the book is
about Lincoln’s cabinet which famously contained many of the same men who he
defeated for the Presidency in 1860.
The movie based on the book is focused on a very short
3-month window of Lincoln’s life in 1865, a period when three historic events
of significant national import happened: the 13th Amendment to the
United States Constitution discharged from Congress and sent to the States for
ratification, the Civil War (“War of Northern Aggression” or “War Between the
States”) came to an end, and President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by a
Confederate assassin.
The vast majority of the film’s duration is spent depicting
the events around the first of these events. In fact, some people have really
said the movie should be called
The 13th
Amendment instead of
Lincoln. The
13
th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and thus
insured that the Confederate way of life that included profiting from the
involuntary servitude and dehumanization of millions of people would cease to
exist once the Civil War came to an end. As someone whose skin color would mark
me as a slave if I had been born in 1818 instead of 1968, I appreciate the
significance of the 13
th Amendment and am pleased that Hollywood
found this topic a subject for a major motion picture released (deliberately)
in the heart of the year-end gauntlet known as Oscar season. As a dilettante of
American history, I am somewhat chagrined that almost no mention of the 14
th
Amendment is made, although its penumbra can be seen in one of the critical
moments of high drama in the film. If you know the historical context or
understand the legal implications of the crucial debate between the main proponent
and opponent of the anti-slavery measure on the floor of the U.S. House of
Representatives right before the vote, the rhetorical decision made (to accept
formal equality between the races versus actual or social equality) has a
particularly piquant resonance.
That being said, although
Lincoln works as a educational history lesson about important
topics that all Americans should know it doesn’t really work as a movie, i.e.
filmed entertainment. Day-Lewis is astonishing as Lincoln, he completely
embodies the part and almost eerily looks like history come to life. However,
at its core
Lincoln is about politics
and the men who practice it. The passage of the 13
th Amendment
clearly would not have happened without Lincoln’s insistence, cajoling and
persuasion. But the film also shows that the end of slavery in the United
States was also accomplished through appeals to sheer greed, political
cowardice and blatant bribery. I believe this unsanitized view of history is a
good thing, but I’m sure there are others who will object that it tarnishes the
legacy of the person who by universal acclaim is one of the Top 3 Presidents of
all time.
Lincoln demonstrates
how presidents can use their powers to do good and that perhaps in politics the
ends do justify the means. (It is particularly interesting to view
Lincoln in the context of our current
political partisan moment since back then the
Republicans were the party fighting for the rights of the minority
and the
Democrats were the party
staunchly committed to maintaining the saliency of white privilege—oh how
things can change in a century!)
Going to see
Lincoln is something that you should go do, and you will be edified for doing so. I’m
just not so sure how many people when they are making their weekend’s
entertainment plans think to themselves “I think I want to do something
edifying this weekend!”
Title:
Lincoln.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Running Time: 2 hours, 29 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language.
Release Date: November 16, 2012.
Viewing Date: November 24, 2012.
Writing: A.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A-.
Impact: B+.
Overall Grade: A/A- (3.75/4.0).