Lincoln

Like its unfortunate title, Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln is film trying to accomplish far more than it actually can without the help of an audience willing to project greatness onto it. The story is ostensibly about the political and historical events that lead to the ratification of the 13th amendment. But the opportunity to tell this captivating story of Abraham Lincoln’s genius at navigating the radically divergent interests of his Republican Party, his Union, and his country as a whole at this critical time, is somewhat squandered because Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s seem more interested in attempting to make the definitive film about American’s 16th president.

Alas, bio-pics are almost never great films and character studies are not Spielberg’s strong suit.  The film lavishes attention on distracting subplots like Lincoln’s relationships with his wife and sons.  While these story lines are not irrelevant to the main events in the film, and might make for a compelling movie on their own, they crowd out the characters that are directly connected to the more intriguing historical narrative at the film’s core. Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn), Republican Party founding member Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook), and other key characters (not deemed worthy of star-casting) are reduced to a bit roles, representing a faction or position that Lincoln must win over or defeat. Only Thaddeus Stevens, played by the always-welcome Tommy Lee Jones, has any significant screen time.  The rogues whom Lincoln employs to secure Democratic votes are entertaining, but their scenes are few and brief and ultimately only serve to hint at the larger story that surrounds these political proceedings.

Kushner is a great playwright, and his love of language and oratory is certainly appropriate for this time period and these character, but a film needs more narrative complexity than Lincoln has in order to fully engage--and perhaps fewer soliloquies.  We see scene after scene of people making grand public speeches or engaging in heated arguments, but we rarely get to see anyone other than Lincoln in quieter, more contemplative moments.  This focus on the President's inner life makes the film's scope seem too small for the monumental events in our country’s history that it portrays. 

Yet, like many modern movies, the film also feels bloated because the filmmakers try to stuff too many things into a contained running time. Lincoln wants to be a quite contemplative study of this great man’s mind and an epic tale about critical historical events. If Lincoln had been an HBO mini-series instead of a movie, there might have been room for everything it is trying to pull off, but its a not--and its depressing when you find yourself wishing a Spielberg film was an TV series.

However, where this film does succeed, it succeeds brilliantly. First and foremost is Daniel Day-Lewis's magnificent performance. In addition to the striking physical resemblance he bears to Lincoln, Day-Lewis delivers his lines in a thin and reedy voice that, according to historical accounts, is more accurate than the rich, commanding baritone usually attributed to this heroic figure. As Merle Streep made last year’s flat and unfocused bio-pic The Iron Lady into a must see on the strength of her performance, Day-Lewis makes Lincoln into one of the year's can't miss pictures. His Lincoln feels human, but also a larger-than-life character, and he plays the role with a world-weariness that feels just right for the setting. Kushner and Spielberg also don’t give into the temptation of hinting at any of the revisionist speculation about Lincoln's mental health or sexual orientation, and refrain from imbuing Lincoln with prescient awareness of his impending assassination--something I wouldn’t put past Spielberg. 

If the rest of the characters in this story had gotten the same careful treatment, Lincoln might have portrayed the final events of the great man’s life as affectingly as John Ford’s 1939 film Young Mr. Lincoln depicted his early years. Instead, Lincoln feels a bit more like an extremely long and much better-written version of the old Disney World attraction, “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” with one of the greatest living actors doing the talking rather than an animatronic figure. Lincoln is presentational and surprisingly lifeless; from the opening scene, in which black Union soldiers quote the Gettysburg Address to the tired President, to the unnecessary final twenty minute which take to story all the way through the assassination that we all know ended the great man’s life. As powerful as much of it is, this is a muddled biopic rather than a great cinematic slice of history.