There are few figures in U.S. history more polarizing as Abraham Lincoln. This might come as a bit of a surprise to any readers from the northern United States or from other countries, but anyone from the South would know what I mean. Depending on where you were brought up Honest Abe is seen either the Great Emancipator: the freer of slaves who preserved the Union, or a tyrant who trampled the Constitution while waging a war of aggression against sovereign states. Then there is the middle ground of intellectuals who deny that slavery was a cause of the Civil War, or that Lincoln freed anyone in bondage. The reasoning goes that the War was fought to definitively establish the power of the Federal Government over that of the individual states, and the fall of slavery was a byproduct of such a conflict. I've always been skeptical of this third, revisionist, view, but that very prominent thesis is conspicuously absent from the new Steven Spielberg directed film Lincoln. What we have is a rather straight forward telling of a pivotal month in the life of our 16th President. While Lincoln is always a sympathetic figure, we do get a more complex picture of the man, and can see why some stood against him, even if we never doubt for a moment that they were wrong.
The setting is Washington, D.C., January 1865. Abraham Lincoln, who has just won reelection, feels pressure to have a proposed constitutional amendment formally prohibiting slavery passed through the House of Representatives before the end of the month. The consensus is that the Civil War will be over by February, and then the Emancipation Proclamation will be challenged in court as an unconstitutional wartime overreach by Lincoln. The Senate has already passed the amendment handily the year before, but the House is much more reluctant to follow their lead. He needs a three quarters majority of a divided chamber to accomplish his goal. Democrats are firmly against it, the Radical Republicans are enthusiastically for it. But "conservative" Republicans are more ambivalent about the whole thing (I put that in quotes because I'm not sure such a thing existed back then). If there is proof the administration is negotiating peace terms, they'll vote for it, if not they'll vote against it (it gets more complicated than that, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave it right there). Lincoln needs to swing 12 votes to the "Yeah" column, and the film is taken up how that happened. Honest Abe is still honest, for the most part, but is not above using promises of patronage jobs and stretching the truth at times to get the job done. He employs some unsavory characters as his agents while keeping himself above the fray. He not only has the fate of a nation in his hands, he is struggling to keep his family together. Through it all we see a man of great calm, good humor, and more than a touch of melancholy, who nonetheless is sly enough move the alternately slippery and intractable gears of government.
In some ways this is a difficult movie to review. It has an insanely talented cast, many of whom obviously showed up, in some cases for brief cameos, simply because of the film maker and his topic. The sets and costumes are meticulously designed. The dialogue is crisp, while staying stubbornly nineteen century in tone and style (one critic I saw didn't like this, but I found it refreshing). There really is little not to like in this film, unless you are looking for Saving Private Ryan style action, which does not exist here (one brief battle scene at the start is intense, but doesn't rise anywhere near to that graphic level). I can't call this the best film made by any of the participants involved, or the best movie of the year even, but it is such a well crafted labor of love (Spielberg spent 15 years getting this to the screen) only the most hardened Scrooge could find fault with it.
The great strength of the film is it's cast, and there are just too many names to mention, so I'll stick with three stand out performances among many. Daniel Day-Lewis is his usual remarkable self in the title role. Much was made of the high pitched voice he employes in an attempt to stay close to how contemporary witnesses described Lincoln's tone and timbre. I found it a non-issue; after the first scene I didn't think about it again the rest of the film. In general Day-Lewis does his typical job of immersing himself in the role and having you forget he's acting. After a short time he was Lincoln for me, and that was that. Sally Field, as Mary Todd Lincoln, brings depth and humanity to a character that could have been played simply as an overwrought neurotic. The real hero of the movie is Representative Thadeus Stevens, the radical Republican abolitionist (accent on radical) played by Tommy Lee Jones. He doesn't trust Lincoln but recognizes the gravity of the moment and puts his full efforts behind a cause that is not just a matter of principle but, as we find out, is also intensely personal.
Lincoln is one of those movies that deserves a second viewing, for no other reason then it's one of the few mainstream films that deals in ideas, in firm notions of right and wrong and the complexity of human relationships. It's at once about big ideas and small intimate moments.
Lincoln's religious views are not really explored, and neither are those of the abolitionists, which is too bad. We get slogans about natural law from both sides, but that's about it. It's true that Lincoln was never baptized, nor was he a believer in any organized religion, but he was far from the atheist some present day intellectuals try to say. One reading of his Second Inaugural shows a clear belief in a providential God. I don't take this as a slight by Spielberg, who is one of the few religiously sensitive film makers out there. But it's helpful to understand that the historical Lincoln saw the severity of the Civil War as a divine judgement on the entire United States, not just the South, for having tolerated slavery for so long. After emancipation and abolition, his goal was reconciliation. The great tragedy is that his assasination kept him from completing that mission.
Needless to say, I recommend Lincoln. It's educational without being didactic, inspirational, but also surprisingly humorous. It is the perfect confluence of director, subject matter and leading man, as well as of a great cast in general. A must see in between Christmas shopping and parties.
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