Lincoln Can Show Us The Way

Rating: 9/10 (30 November 2012)

The United States is in a state of suffering. Close to a month after we reelected our first black President the nation is still bitterly divided along ideological lines. Many say that we are now more divided then we have been since the Civil War, and despite what President Obama says it is hard to believe that we are not just a collection red states and blue states rather then the United States. Especially now that hundreds of thousands of Americans have signed petitions of secession, I am beginning to believe that we are as divided as our politics suggest. It is under this backdrop that we look to Lincoln. And Lincoln delivers.
This is a film about our greatest President in the last months of his life as he and the Republicans in the House hastily try to pass the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery before the end of the Civil War. At the same time the old Conservative Francis Preston Blair convinces Lincoln to seek a peaceful end to the War. It's all about politics. Some may find the focus on procedure in the House of Representatives to be tedious and uninteresting, but to me it was quite fascinating(however I am a history major so that may be the reason). This is a film unlike any other Spielberg film in that it relies almost entirely on the cast. And the cast is brilliant. Daniel Day-Lewis proves again that he is one of the greatest living actors with the most realistic Lincoln portrayal that I have ever seen. Some have complained that his voice was too high pitched and didn't sound like Lincoln. To these people I must remind you that the only people who have ever heard Lincoln's real voice have been dead for a hundred years, however according to written accounts of his speeches Lincoln's voice was at a fairly high frequency. Day-Lewis is able to show us the many ranges of Lincoln, as a jokester and story teller, as a master politician who's skills at persuasion were extremely fine tuned, and as a man haunted by a lifetime of hardship including the death of many family members and his destructive marriage to Mary Todd.
Despite the brilliance of Day-Lewis, my personal favorite member of the cast was Tommy Lee Jones as radical Thaddeus Stevens, who's sharp wit and fiery tongue make the movie much more fun to watch. Sally Field is also quite amazing, and it is she who probably had the hardest job. Many people these days tend to exaggerate her mental illness, but Field was able to refine herself and accurately capture the severe melancholy that faced the first lady during her time in the White House. Other great performances include David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward, James Spader as W.N. Bilbo and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln.
On top of the the amazing cast Lincoln boasts a compelling screenplay written by the great Tony Kushner, wonderful production and costume design, and beautiful cinematography that brings the 1860s alive before our eyes. But above all else Lincoln serves as a lesson for our own times. We can see in Lincoln the very destructive nature of division. Pure, unrestrained ideology will never amount to real progress or change. Lincoln shows us, through the character of Thaddeus Stevens as well as Lincoln, that we have to be willing to compromise, and it can't always be about our own interests or our own beliefs, but the greater good of the society as a whole. Passage of the 13th Amendment ending the evil that was slavery was more important than political grandstanding. If only our lawmakers today could heed this message. More importantly, I think the American people should take a good hard look at ourselves and remember just what these bitter divisions we create can birth. Perhaps the time has come for us to ignore the forces of hatred and division that scream at us from the television, the radio or the pulpit and realize that politics can be messy and divisive, but it does not define us and it should not divide us. I doubt many will learn these lessons from Lincoln, but I can always hope.