Aside from the KKK, who doesn’t love Abraham Lincoln? Not only did he lead the United States through its great existential crisis—and the elimination of slavery in the process—but he did so with a humanity so idiosyncratic that his historical stature in no way distances him from the rest of us. He is equal parts man and icon.
Steven Spielberg’s greatest success in Lincoln is the degree to which he brings home the humanity the Great Emancipator. Ironically, it’s also his greatest failure, as he not only fails to do so with the film’s other characters, but too rarely does he focus on the subtleties that the great Daniel Day-Lewis brings to every role.
Because it covers less than a year in Lincoln’s life (aside from a few auxiliary minutes, the timeframe of the film is completely confined to Lincoln’s push for passage of the 13th Amendment), Lincoln is not so much a biopic as a historical portrait. As such, it seems like a missed opportunity that Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski didn’t do things more naturalistically. Spielberg has more money than God, and so you expect—and, with Lincoln, get—super fine costuming and art direction. So why not show it off as naturalistically as possible (à la Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon)? If you want to evoke period, go period!
Truth be told, cinematically Lincoln is not a very interesting film. But that’s Spielberg, the guy who (according to his pal George Lucas, if I recall correctly) once upon a time differentiated between filmmaking and movie-making and said he wanted to be a filmmaker, only to end up as perhaps the world’s greatest movie-maker. Lincoln is more movie than film.
Nonetheless, this is not a throwaway movie. With a screenplay by Tony Kushner (best known as the playwright of Angels in America) based largely on a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin (a tremendous talent for personalizing historical figures and events), Lincoln lets us see a man “clothed in great power” feeling the full weight of the garment while never letting it cloak his humanity, that empathy and humor that made this most uncommon of persons truly connected to the people he governed. These are film’s most satisfying moments: Lincoln as storyteller or frustrated politician demanding that the greater good be served by whatever means necessary.
Day-Lewis is more than equal to the task (and damn, does he look the part). But what keeps his performance from being as compelling as Denzel Washington’s in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X is distance. Because of a lack of intimacy, Spielberg’s Lincoln remains an external figure, someone we never get to know as well as we’d like, even when the dialog is bringing him home to us.
Far more flawed is the handling of other characters, who range from too-obvious fictional composites (such as the soldiers Lincoln encounters in the film’s second scene) to historical figures that lack dimensionality. Even Sally Field’s solid turn as Lincoln’s wife can’t create her character as a fully flesh-and-blood human.
{loadposition latestnews}Part of the problem may be that, as Ben Affleck did with Argo, the movie Lincoln supplants at the Art, Spielberg seemingly lacked the confidence that the historical truths were compelling enough not to be embellished. Thus do certain strands of Lincoln depart from the historical record, such as a vote-buying scheme that seems embellished so as to gives us a few charming James Spader moments. The truth is probably interesting enough, but Spielberg passes on the chance to more truthfully educate the general public—for surely many people will get a portion of their knowledge about our 16th president and his epoch from this film—in the supposed service of drama.
The film’s most compelling scene—and the one the best epitomizes President/Citizen Lincoln—comes relatively early, and it is nothing more than Lincoln sitting at a table with members of his cabinet. But as Lincoln draws upon his background as a lawyer and discourses on the Emancipation Proclamation—which he fully understands may not be legal— Spielberg puts a clear face to one of American history’s great decisions, his Lincoln admitting that he created certain presidential powers because he felt he needed to, that much of what he is doing comes down to whether feels “right with myself.” It’s a lesson on the improvisational nature of history, and on how Lincoln was a mater improviser.
Lincoln‘s success is its glance behind the curtain of power and iconography, and its reminder that history is made by people. To paraphrase from Hamlet (as Lincoln does early in the film): Abraham Lincoln was a man, take him for all in all. Yet we shall not look upon his like again.
Lincoln is playing at the Art Theatre of Long Beach (2025 E. 4th Street, LB 90804). For info on show times call (562) 438-5435 or visit arttheatrelongbeach.com.