I saw Steven Spielberg's film "Lincoln" and was tremendously impressed. This History Professor scores it an A+. Whether your interest is historical accuracy, a compelling story or fine cinema, you will not leave the theater disappointed. Spielberg's dramatic portrayal of the successful passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forever ended American slavery, is a masterwork.
I was most gratified to see the care with which the film scrupulously remained faithful to the historical record and the sense of the era it portrayed. Spielberg retained the consulting services of eminent presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and it showed. I've read Goodwin's book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She knows the history and how to spin it into a good yarn. The movie apparently consciously included scenes recreated in intricate detail from Civil War era photographs and lithographs, such as the conflagration that consumed Richmond, Virginia. The public events and words were spot on, as were the attention to period fashion, attitudes, technology and patterns of speech. Private conversations, as between Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln or between Secretary of State William Seward and the political operatives charged with securing votes in the House of Representatives, are not part of the historical record but were faithful to the sense of what we know and highly plausible renditions. And yes, President Lincoln did actually meet with Confederate peace envoys scant weeks before the end of the dreadful conflict.
The story has an edge of your seat quality, both because of the great stakes involved within the setting of the nation's most terrible ordeal, but also as a result of the fine script. I was reminded of the film Apollo 13, in that as a viewer you already know the outcome but get so wrapped up in the story that it is gripping anyway. Lincoln is a political story of strategy and maneuvering, but it also transcends that due to the timeless nature of the human rights it's concerned with, the interpersonal electricity between the people involved, and the fierce urgency with which the president pursued the fight over the Thirteenth. His political and historical sense told him it was a moment that might pass, given the sweeping changes about to envelop the nation with its terrible war coming to an end. The story is an object lesson in the scope of an individual with a firm moral compass to drive events and of the individual struggles many faced in making their fateful choices pro and con.
As a piece of movie making I feel only Schindler's List can compare with this film in all of Spielberg's lengthy repertoire. It will be nominated for Best Picture and Best Director and I'd say will be odds on to win, as may well the script by Tony Kushner. Although portraying an issue and a time fraught with high emotion, he strongly depicts those emotions clearly without shading off into the oversentimentalism that has sometimes infected Spielberg movies. The characters are vibrant and vivid. Expect to see nominations for Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role, Best Actress for Sally Field as Mrs. Lincoln, and Tommy Lee Jones as Best Supporting Actor for his brilliant portrayal of fire-breathing abolitionist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. Some, accustomed to the stentorian and somber voice Abraham Lincoln has often been given in previous theatrical depictions, will be surprised at the high pitch and storytelling felicity Day-Lewis gives the Sixteenth President. There were no recordings of Lincoln's voice, but make no mistake, those are precisely the qualities ascribed to Abe by the contemporary sources.
On all levels then, I loved Spielberg's Lincoln. It was true to the history and presented it in such a way as to bring it alive for a general audience. The cinematic values were high, the cast superb, the script outstanding and the concept and direction magnificent. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself to Lincoln while it's still in theaters. You'll be glad you did.
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