Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, and David Strathairn
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox
Runtime: 153 mins. Reviewed in Jan 2013
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This thought-provoking, historical drama is set at the conclusion of the American Civil War when President Abraham Lincoln held office as the 16th. President of the United States. The film is based in part on the biography of Lincoln, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Abraham Lincoln faced an extraordinary crisis of conscience. Amidst the horrors of a brutal war, Lincoln believed passionately in the freedom of all peoples, and the immoral nature of slavery. He knew that a quick conclusion of the civil war, would bring a peace that could mean the voting down by the House of Representatives of the abolition of slavery. Lincoln’s moral crisis was to act to end slavery, or to act precipitously to end the war in a way that would mean the defeat of his amendment on slavery. He was told by the confederate forces that repeal of the slavery amendment would be an acceptable condition to them for their surrender. Not willing to compromise, he chose to continue the war.
Daniel Day-Lewis gives the performance of his career as Abraham Lincoln, and is very ably supported by Sally Field as his highly strung, emotionally unstable wife, Mary, and by David Strathairn, as William Seward, the person who worked loyally against his own judgement to secure the necessary votes for Lincoln’s critical amendment. For his performance, Lewis deserves fully his 2012 Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
The film is visually stunning, and never loses contact with the political reality that lies behind the complex politics of Lincoln’s presidency during his final months in office before he was assassinated. Lincoln’s assassination in April, 1865, at the Ford Theatre, is announced in a brief scene that carries unnerving relevance to the state of politics today.
This is a tightly edited movie of sweeping dramatic force, which is acted magnificently. The special power of Danjel Day-Lewis’s performance is that you are made to feel as if it defines what President Lincoln must really have been like. He captures Lincoln’s measured words, stooped shoulders, and non-verbal expressions in ways that give a human face to an iconic figure in American political history. Lewis’ acting makes Lincoln less a victim of US history than a dignified, conflicted individual of great influence, who felt compelled to satisfy his moral conscience in turbulent times. In doing that, he delivers a riveting, hypnotic-like performance.
There are definite moments of contemporary relevance in the movie. The 44th. President of the US, fights today to try to canvass key political support on both sides of the House for what he thinks should happen. His tactics have obvious parallels with Lincoln’s strategic efforts to find a winnable number of votes for a moral cause. In real life and on the screen we see American political power, battling against the odds.
This is a powerfully dramatic, historical movie, that expresses moral conflict in an understandable way. Spielberg characteristically opens the movie with gruesome scenes of the brutality of war, and the film lapses occasionally into sombre tones of piety in defence of the principle of democracy, but Spielberg has directed one of the best historical movies made for a long time.
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