typical spielberg

Rating: 1/10 (14 April 2013)

Spielberg never was a really great director, not when compared to Bunuel, Tykwer, Truffaut, Peckinpah, Tarkovskiy, Kurosawa, Fassbender or Wenders, just to name a few, but he's done the odd good movie. "Lincoln" is not one of them. It is an extremely boring movie, boring because Spielberg has white- washed history ( and that's what he always does), and by that I mean: anybody that studied history and preferable not in the US, knows that Lincoln was not a good president. He had no real concern for the black people, this war was all about giving the North an economic edge and pounding the South into never ending submission. So when you know that you are watching an unfolding lie, the monologues become torture. And torture it was since D.D.Lewis was pretty much all you saw, telling one anecdote after the other. I am a big fan of D.D.Lewis, but his part could have been played by many actors. No, this was definitely not an Oscar worthy performance, "There will be blood" was. I turned the movie off 20 minutes before the ending, and yes, that wasn't very smart of me since I should have done it after 20 minutes of watching, but like in countless American movies one should know that most ( not all) American directors know how to f.ck up a movie in the last 20 or even 10 minutes. And for all the brainwashed Americans reading my comment and getting upset, read James W.Loewen "Lies my teacher told me" and "Lies across America" ( that is, if you don't have a basic understanding of American history, like Spielberg). Oh, I just realised that I might have forgotten to mention something: obviously Lincoln is portrayed as a good man/ father/ president, yup, he really was such an exceptional human being and the director must have seen a need to point that out. If Spielberg would have used the script to point out that Lincoln actually was a racist and that his true interest in "freeing the slaves" was driven by the North to become more competitive ( and that is putting it mildly), then he would have had my attention and interest. With movies like that it is no wonder that many non-Americans look towards the US, and the way they deal with their own history, and just shake their heads. If you want "honest" movies, watch Australian or Spanish films.