Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln in a movie still from "Lincoln"
The period epic Lincoln may
be the least Spielbergian movie that director Steven Spielberg has ever made.
Not only is it shot in a remarkably straight-forward way for such a visual
stylist, but it is also an unhurried, contemplative, and actually quite subtle
film for a director whose recent ventures were War Horse and The Adventures of TinTin. Therefore: never say never. Lincoln is proof that Spielberg can be a great storyteller
when he has a great script.
He has that here, thanks to perhaps America's most intellectual and politically passionate playwright, Tony Kushner (Angels in America). The dialogue is a thing of beauty -- both literate and folksy, touching on grand ideas as well as the frailty of ordinary humans -- and it often feels like the thoughtful, opinionated discussions by the Founders in HBO's John Adams. Like that award-sweeping miniseries, which was based on a 650-page biography, Lincoln accomplishes an impressive feat -- it adapts a door-stopper, in this case Doris Kearns Goodwin's 750-page history Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, and winnows out the important and meaningful information. It feels rich and alive but not rambling (the graveyard of lo, so many bio-pics), because it focuses with determined precision on a 4-month period around the end of the Civil War when Lincoln was most actively and most urgently pursuing an amendment to outlaw slavery. At the same time, however, Kushner and Spielberg leaven all the epic stuff about changing America forever with just the right number of small details: Abe's animosity toward wearing leather gloves; how much he spoils his youngest son; the unhappiness of his marriage; and the look in his eye when his aides want decisions and instead he digs in his heels and tells a drawling anecdote.
Though the characterization of the eponymous character, as written by Kushner and performed by Daniel Day-Lewis, is mesmerizing, Lincoln is not just a biography of a president but also a biography of radical change -- a process story about the passage of the 13th Amendment, with some similarities to earlier types of process stories, like Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, though more monumental. It turns out that the steps on the road to the abolition of slavery were anything but noble: there are nowhere near enough votes to pass the amendment, and the imminent end of the Civil War hangs over Lincoln's head, making him fear that those he has freed will be ordered back into servitude if his Emancipation Proclamation has no peacetime equivalent. A point is reached when the only way to secure the needed support for a firm end to slavery is to bribe, threaten, cheat, and deceive. Or in the words of a Lincoln ally near the close of the film: the 13th Amendment was "passed by corruption aided and abetted by the purest man in America." (Lincoln was never quite a saint, though, as this article shows.)
The sausage-making of politics is not supposed to be
palatable to watch, but in this case, the hijinks are quite delightful. Like
the Godfather, or Nixon, honest Abe has to take a back seat so his name cannot
be linked to anything unsavory. This leaves lots of the most dynamic work up to
supporting players -- who are bursting with vim and vigor, and deliciously
well-cast: James Spader, John Hawkes, and Tim Blake Nelson play three low-lifes
hired to extort co-operation from members of Congress; Peter McRobbie and Lee
Pace are vociferous Democratic congressmen staunchly opposed to abolition;
Tommy Lee Jones is the radical, hotheaded abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens;
Michael Stuhlbarg is a timid politician pressured into doing the right thing;
and David Strathairn is the reserved, pragmatic Secretary of State, William
Seward, who finds Lincoln's plans ill-advised and yet helps make them happen.
(His characterization has met with the approval of the director of the historic
Seward House, though two significant moments from Seward's relationship with
Lincoln were left out of the film.)
President Lincoln is in almost every scene, and with
Day-Lewis in the role he quietly dominates each one. But there is also an
enveloping tapestry of Republicans, Democrats, abolitionists, soldiers and
advisors, all of them struggling through a uniquely turbulent time. Neurotic
Mrs. Lincoln (Sally Field) is there, adoring yet resenting her husband -- she
seems to wish she had married a more ordinary man. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays
Lincoln's defiant son, ill-suited for following in his dad's intellectual
footsteps. Jared Harris is the Union's dignified General, Ulysses Grant; Hal
Holbrook (who has himself played Lincoln on TV) is Francis Blair, a southern
Republican with contacts on the Confederate side (he will later turn Democrat);
and Jackie Earle Haley is a beady-eyed emissary from the South, registering all
the humiliation and anger of his people when he realizes slavery -- the region's
economic staple -- is history.
Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln in a movie still from "Lincoln"
Though there are ignoble actions going on, there's never any
doubt in the movie that Lincoln possesses a fundamental morality, that he cares
deeply about ending slavery. He is down-to-earth and modest, but we can see the
remarkable person underneath: wise, shrewd, humane, and committed. Day-Lewis
plays him as an idiosyncratic but consummate leader who listens intently to
even the humblest interlocutors, his eyes peering into their souls. He is introduced,
in fact, at an army base, meeting with soldiers one-on-one. He is the epitome
of gentle courtesy and rapt attention, whether listening to his boisterous
pre-pubescent son or to a challenging black soldier who wants to make sure
Lincoln understands the issues. Yes, it's a hagiographic depiction, with the
crowd-pleasing humor and warmth that fits so comfortably with a holiday season
release, but it's also a layered portrait, permitted by the director to flower
slowly. Day-Lewis' Lincoln draws people to him simply by thinking, and
he manages to radiate energy just sitting and staring at the floor.
And there's a lot of thinking required. The burdens of leadership weigh heavily upon his shoulders. Like Shakespeare's Henry V, he likes to perambulate among the common people because he is faced with an awesome responsibility -- and difficult choices. The long and winding path to abolition hits a pivotal crossroads when ending the Civil War and ending slavery come to be at odds with each other. Lincoln could engage with the South's proffered peace delegation right away, or he could delay so as to have the leverage to pass the amendment. (His public argument having been that the South is fighting to preserve slavery, and that they won't sue for peace unless they see that slavery is no longer an option, he stands to lose the support of those on the fence, those who don't care much whether slavery continues or not.) Lincoln's dilemma becomes even more terrible and personal when his own son enlists -- and Mrs. Lincoln has a meltdown over the prospect of losing a second son in the war.
I had expected Lincoln to glorify militarism more, especially considering Spielberg's recent foray into the First World War. I think he's consciously trying not to do that: the movie's very first imagery is the silent ugliness of the Civil War, as soldiers from both the North and the South, the Northern regiment being black, wrestle bitterly in a muddy drizzle. But it's not actually a war movie: most of the film seems to take place in wood-paneled drawing rooms and offices, in a dim gloom broken up by cold natural light. The war is referred to frequently but barely glimpsed; it is a merely abstract, background concept. I'm sure Kushner could have conveyed the horrors of the Civil War if that had been the assignment -- besides writing a heart-rending play on Afghanistan, he co-authored the last serious film Spielberg directed, the espionage drama Munich (an action thriller about a Mossad agent's soul-searching), and he adapted Bertolt Brecht's classic anti-war play Mother Courage in 2006. But that was in fact not the assignment, and at the end of the picture, Lincoln's speech to the troops, about fighting until every last whiplash is avenged, rings in the air.
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