Lincoln - Out of the Dark

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2013)

People mumbling history books in near darkness. I couldn't even call it a period piece as the darkness seemed to be a dodge to avoid having to make realistic and detailed sets and costumes. Well, they got the stark and emotionally impacting silhouette of Lincoln, but that's it. Good performances? Couldn't tell because it was like watching a play with no lighting. Any film that requires such close attention be paid and then makes it visually unwatchable shouldn't be rewarded for being obtuse. I even checked it in several formats to be sure it wasn't just the DVD.
Quite frankly, the attempt was to emulate the lighting conditions of the time, however, human eyes are sensitive to a huge range of luminosity. EVEN BY CANDLELIGHT, WE CAN SEE VERY FINE DETAILS IN OUR SURROUNDINGS. This film's dark field with very small bits of light on it feels like the paintings of the time, but doesn't effectively communicate the period and certainly gets in the way of enjoying it. Even in my dimmest memories there aren't huge areas of black. I doubt there was more hatchet lighting and inverse silhouetting in the past as very few of their light sources would produce such hard edges..
So, it felt unrealistic or at least not at all like humans see. The only conclusion I can draw is that people had decided they would like it solely because it's about Lincoln and is a Spielberg film. When released they were blinded to it's faults by the subject matter and poor lighting.
The truly sad thing is these were probably decisions made in post while designing the color feel, the original exposures were most likely fine. When someone decides to remaster this film for humans, I'll be right there waiting to finally see it.