This year, the Academy Awards will be drooling over a movie that is worthy of getting the gold

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2013)

About a month before the release of Steven Spielberg's newest movie "Lincoln," one of my fellow students in the film course I was taking at the time made what he perceived to be a very funny joke. We were discussing the pre-release hype for the picture and he, obviously not having seen it, said he was going to give away two spoilers as to what would happen: the 13th amendment would be passed and the president would wind up being shot in the head. The only profundity to come out of my colleague's remark (which only got token-chuckles from a few other students in the room) would, ironically enough, tie into one of the movie's ultimate strengths: the way it relies upon and bases its power upon the audience's pre-existing knowledge of its subject matter.
Like any audience member over the age of ten, I knew walking in that Abraham Lincoln was the president who oversaw the end of the Civil War, the abolishment of slavery, and who ended up dead before the American South underwent Reconstruction. Mr. Spielberg, the director, and Tony Kushner, the screenwriter, obviously expected this of their audience, hence why their immensely powerful movie plays not as a history lesson but as a psychological study of what President Lincoln and the people he was associated with underwent during those heated years of 19th century America. We already know that slavery ends and the president dies, so what's the point of talking down on us about it? After all, this is not the story of some obscure man, but the most-loved president of the United States.
Mr. Kushner's screenplay gains most of its strength in the backstage material: the politicians from both sides debating with each other, trying to win over the other side. This is a movie that is equally reliant upon supporting roles as well as the titular lead. As acted by Daniel Day-Lewis (virtually unrecognizable underneath all the make-up), Lincoln is presented as a cipher. An emotionally inspiring and coercive cipher, but a cipher nonetheless. And what he ciphers are the actions and reactions of the people underneath him: a sobering reminder that nothing in dictator-free politics, good or bad, can be achieved by one person alone. He makes the decisions and gives the oft-quoted speeches, but does not actually work the miracles himself. In fact, he's shown to be somewhat ignorant of what's going on around him. He knows there is a war and he knows that it is resulting in the deaths of many, but it is not until late in the third act, when he personally looks over the results of the Petersburg Campaign that he understands just how horrible things have become. Mr. Day-Lewis also makes the right acting choices by being restrained, not going for the cheap teary-eyed gimmicks for sympathy. So much more is accomplished with so little.
One of the best performances in the movie is the one by Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Thaddeus Stevens as a withering, somewhat arrogant dreamer forced to deal several blows to his pride (in a marvelous courtroom sequence regarding the interpretation of slavery and freedom) to see an issue even opened up for debate. And this is just one example. It is refreshing to see a movie about achievement in which the victory is obtained by a team as opposed to just one man. In the passing of the 13th Amendment (again, giving this away is no spoiler, contrary to my former colleague's would-be funny remark), I felt a big wave of emotion rushing through me. But it was not emotion from having seen the amendment pass (as I knew it would happen all along) but as a sort of reminder of one of my country's most important landmarks.
If only I could feel that good about what politicians in American do today.
Some of the opening segments of "Lincoln" are a little stagnant. Good-looking as the interior art direction (White House scenes) is, I was beginning to grow tired of seeing every political and intellectual conversation being set in an ostentatious, glowing room with the camera zooming and dollying from spot to spot. Surely Lincoln must have had a few interesting powwows with somebody in the outdoors. I was also growing a little weary of every scene culminating with Honest Abe telling somebody a story. One of his anecdotes resounds with a very funny joke about George Washington, but for the sake of pacing, I would have recommended Mr. Spielberg to excise it and cut straight to the subsequent sequence of Lincoln being informed of the war casualties. For the former scene was only filling space before the latter.
However, as the movie progresses (and many of the scenes shift to the outdoors) the momentum begins to pick up. And the silent stretches are even more fascinating as the dialogue-packed monologues. For Mr. Spielberg has yet to lose his ultimate gift: his acknowledgement that film-stories are told visually with the camera. That we can get dialogue from books and plays, but only movies can give us moving pictures.
"Lincoln" is not one of Steven Spielberg's masterpieces. The narrative structure is a tad uneven (Lincoln does not seem to have a real connection to either of his sons in the picture) and, again, the start is a little slow. But the film does have plenty in it to admire. After all, it goes on for 150 minutes and is much more gripping than any of Michael Bay's "Transformers" pictures, which were just as long and packed end-to-end with ear-stuffing explosions. This could very well be the best picture about Abe Lincoln's life since John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln" from 1940 and will most certainly be drooled all over come time for the Academy Awards. This time, however, they will be drooling over a movie that is worthy of getting the gold.