"Lincoln" represents the first time that a Steven Spielberg movie
will be remembered not for the filmmaker's signature flair for
direction, but for the astonishing, destined-to-be-classic
performance of its main star.
Oscar-winning Brit Daniel Day-Lewis tackles the riskiest role of
his celebrated career as the 16th president of the United States, a
historical figure who still looms large in our national psyche, and
is still so cherished that the slightest misjudgment in his
portrayal could significantly ding a career.
He conjures up a quiet, introspective man with a penchant for
spinning anecdotes laced with political points -- modern-day
parables for politicians immune to frontal assaults on their
beliefs.
He speaks in a voice far from wispy, yet higher in timbre than
you might imagine, and deeply steeped in folksy earnestness.
To say that Day-Lewis gets it right wouldn't be accurate, because
nobody really knows how Abraham Lincoln sounded as an orator. (For
an amazing look at how the actor discovered Lincoln's voice, go to
the YouTube video at bit.ly/Tadti8.;http://on.fb.me/U7dgwe)
So, Day-Lewis' performance, even if it's not historically
accurate, feels right. It sounds right. So it is right, at least for
his portrayal of an aging president fighting against overwhelming
political opposition to ban slavery.
It doesn't take long before we realize that "Lincoln" isn't the
staid Hollywood biography of the Illinois rail splitter we expected
it to be.
No, Spielberg treats this like an old-fashioned war movie, except
this is a war of ideas. It's all about strategy, persuasive tactics
and bartering for votes as we glimpse the political animal lurking
under Lincoln's gentlemanly facade.
Wisely, Tony Kushner's screenplay -- based on Doris Kearns
Goodwin's 2005 book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham
Lincoln" -- focuses narrowly on the president's life in 1865.
That's when, during the waning months of the Civil War, he
spearheads a campaign to pass the 13th amendment abolishing slavery.
He does so against a fierce contingency dead-set against the
Northerner meddling in states' rights and threatening to destroy the
economic structure of the South.
The guys in Lincoln's corner make the pols in George Clooney's
"Ides of March" look like rank amateurs.
The president has Secretary of State William Seward (David
Strathairn) as his closest, cautious adviser.
Not so cautious is Republican representative Thaddeus Stevens, a
political bullfighter played by Tommy Lee Jones. (Ironically, Jones'
performance as the bombastic, wig-wearing, clubfooted abolitionist
nearly steals the movie from Day-Lewis.)
Stevens takes on the Democrats, such as Lee Pace's posturing
Fernando Wood and Peter McRobbie's George Pendleton, as the
president enlists the aid of an unsavory trio dispatched to buy
votes for the amendment however they can. (They are riotously played
by Tim Blake Nelson, James Spader and John Hawkes.)
"Lincoln" amounts to a visual oddity for Spielberg, who opts to
make his feature not a cinematically inspired work, but a virtual
chamber play captured on film.
Shot by his longtime collaborator, Columbia College grad Janusz
Kaminski, "Lincoln" barely leaves stuffy rooms, then overdoses on
rushing close-ups as if to compensate for the story's conservative,
TV-like visual treatment.
In between the Civil War and the political battle, we glimpse
Lincoln's intense personal life, his marriage to a headstrong Mary
Todd (a plucky Sally Field) still suffering from the death of one
child and firmly opposed to allowing her other one, Robert (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), to enlist for the Union army.
Weirdly enough, these slow and personal vignettes make the
political chess game in Congress all that more exciting, with a
political climax as effective and moving as any sports movie ever
made.
