LINCOLN

[3.4]

Tepid drama that reveals very little about the titular man, leaving me only with the impression that he was quiet, introspective, and had a knack for telling rambling, folksy tales that most listeners dreaded sitting through.  Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a technically proficient interpretation of Lincoln, but there is too much hiding behind his pale, sad eyes.  Writer Tony Kushner is likely to blame, with his excessively talky script that lets the characters pointedly tell us what they want and what they believe, but leave us wondering who the real Lincoln might have been.  What does Lincoln really think about Black people (different from his view on slavery), what is his ultimate agenda in passing the amendment and why is he so stubbornly insistent on it? Lincoln mouths some explanations, but very little of his speeches ever feel genuine.  While at times feeling like a small-town rube in over his head, at other times he seems like a manipulative lawyer who says whatever he needs to in order to get his followers to do what he wants.  And yet, who is Lincoln? He doesn’t seem to love his wife, he seems attentive yet disconnected with his youngest child, and he acts oddly distant from his oldest son, the rebellious Robert (played with sleep-walking boredom by Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  We spend a significant amount of time behind closed doors with Lincoln and his family, but these scenes are generally forgettable and unrelated to the main plot (Lincoln trying to get the 13th Amendment ratified by Congress).  Incredibly fascinating details emerge about Lincoln’s character, his lying to Congress, mischievous buying of votes, his extensive and unprecedented powers (which he gave himself, much to some people’s horror)… but few of it is actually addressed by Spielberg.  It’s just assumed that since Lincoln is a mythical hero and everything ended “for the good” that he was right to make near-dictatorial decisions; this is simply dismissed by saying that “the people spoke” in their re-election of Lincoln. So, alls well that ends well. Right?

Spielberg also seems to have avoided any sense of style in his directorial decisions, and there is an uncomfortable disconnect between the tone of Lincoln’s scenes (brooding, lethargic) and the high-energy shenanigans that take place in the House.  There’s an immediate problem when I am far more entranced and interested in the political debates and vote-buying of “minor” characters than by any scene featuring one of America’s most famous presidents.  For me, Tommy Lee Jones stole the show with his barbed one-liners and strong characterization of Thaddeus Stevens.  His motives are clear and his resolute stance for equality is seemingly unshakeable, and yet we can sense years of struggle and a bitterness toward the system in his weary eyes.  Not only do I feel like I understood Stevens, I wanted to know more about him.  I can’t say the same for any member of the Lincoln family.  Robert makes a grand entrance into the drama, but is barely used for anything other than a point of contention between Lincoln and his wife.  Mary Todd, meanwhile, is relegated to the role of a mad shrew, prone to near-hysterical fits and outbursts, which Spielberg seems to mock with Lincoln’s frequent (joking?) references to being afraid of his wife.  The script does a fair job of explaining the political situation at the time, and the pressing need to pass the amendment before seeking peace with the South, but I felt as if too much had also been lost in this simplification of historical procedure.  It all wrapped up too neatly and I’m sure there are other, fascinating political thorns that never made it into this version of history.  In the end, we get the “powerful” conclusion that we all have been waiting for (the South’s surrender and Lincoln’s assassination), even if it does mostly occur offscreen.  Then a bizarre “ghost” figure of Lincoln emerges from a flickering flame, delivering the end of some powerful speech as that typically soaring, cheesy score from John Williams rises in the background.  Its too bad the movie hadn’t focused more on its most interesting and memorable character:  Stevens.