Marval Movie

Legends are a tricky thing to really nail down in terms of portrayal's and performances. The legend that is the sixteenth president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln has been something that's been hard for people to get through the myth and see the man.

The story of Lincoln takes place during the American Civil War and Lincoln and his secretaries are trying desperately to get the thirteenth amendment passed. The thirteenth amendment would abolish slavery and according to Lincoln and his administration this would end the Civil War, they hope that they can get the bill passed before peace is declared so that the slaves can go free, only twenty votes stand in their way.

When thinking of great Lincoln performances I think of Henry Fonda in Young Mr Lincoln, as a man of unmatched wit, charisma and great modesty. I never thought about it until Grace Randolph pointed it out but Abraham Lincoln wasn't alive when there was film or audio recording technology, seems obvious but what this means is that nobody really knows what Lincoln moved or sounded like. Daniel Day-Lewis makes a Lincoln that is real and realized and well researched. Day-Lewis Lincoln is a little more tired and aged than we've previously seen him in other interpretations, Day-Lewis is slow-moving, hunched over and has a bit of a wheeze to his voice. Who would have guessed that it would take an Irishman to play one of Americas greatest icons.

Steven Spielberg is as everyone knows an American film-making living legend, so maybe he was perfect to make a movie about another American legend. Spielberg is typically known for spectacle and his sentimentality, here are neither of those qualities. Spielberg is always grounded and restrained while shooting Lincoln, his mastery goes into the setup of the scenes and the actors and characters, there hasn't been a Spielberg movie like this since The Color Purple.

Tony Kushner delivers a screenplay that is rich with wit and heart but still always sees the characters as real people first more than anything else. The screenplay is partly based on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin and it focuses on the politics and how Lincoln would always bend (but never break) the law to get his vision of justice to the people. Kushner has written mostly plays and it shows with long dialogue sessions that hold on the actors, it takes a special type of actors to hold the audience attention through those type of long shots and the cast of Lincoln hold and sucks us in to the scenes like magic.

To some this film might be considered "slow" and indeed one of my friends said it was before I saw the movie. The movie is not slow its perfectly passed, I fear that this may be because modern movie audiences are becoming more and more impatient and find it impossible to get engaged in obrolan without an explosion happening every fifteen minutes. But I myself was engaged and payed attention through all the dialogue sessions.


The cast is, of coarse, top notch. Tommy Lee Jones plays Thaddeus Stevens as a radical Republican who wants the thirteenth amendment to be passed with fury. A note to make about Tommy Lee Jones is that whenever I see him it always seems like he's saying "Hello I'm Tommy Lee Jones!" he never disappears, even a little, but still he is poised with the presence and the voice of a true star. Joseph Gordon Levitt as Lincoln's son who has his own goals and agendas in his life is well played but I had some trouble accepting that the two were father and son.

One goal that every movie about a real person should accomplish is that by the time the audience leaves the theater then they should feel as if they know the title character. I felt that I knew Lincoln, a great man who was more morally high and dignified than any-other man he was surrounded by or would be for many other years to come and still saw every as an equal, regardless of their race color or creed.

The movie Lincoln sees through the the legend  of Lincoln and shows us the man of Abraham Lincoln. The rest belongs to history.

Rating: 4 stars out of 4