It’s always a great day when a great actor, a great supporting cast, a great director and a great subject are all put together in a movie that could be 10 hrs long and you’d still watch it.
Must admit as a foreigner, this movie will make me pick up a book on Lincoln and read it. However, I was lucky to read The New Yorker article on Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward and the story of a man who could have been a president if Lincoln was not so popular intrigued me. Their dynamic and relationship in the movie is done perfectly.
Aside from some patriotic scenes I’m simply in awe of Daniel Day Lewis performance - it has Oscar written all over it; especially in the scene with his son when they visited war hospital and one of the best scenes in the movies when Lincoln is trying to persuade his wife to let their son join army instead of going back to law school. The intensity of Lincoln when they recall grief of his dead son is heart wrenching.
I’m going to see this movie in the theater, and I haven’t seen one outside of the home in over a year. It looks as if it will be another win for Spielberg.
I haven’t seen it, but everything I’ve heard says that it it’s a bad movie, grinds on forever, and compeltely fails to communicate Lincoln’s real brilliance and character. It focuses on externals, and hell, half the mvoie isn’t even about Lincoln.
Also, the move evidently utterly fails at understanding Lincoln’s position on the Emanicpation Proclamation, the legal standing it had, the purpose of the 13th Amendment, why and how the adminitration got people to vote for it, and so forth. In short, complete fail all around.
What patriotic scenes did you have an issue with? It’s a movie about an American President during a time of American Civil War. Did you expect there to be no flags? An unhappy ending?
I ask because I found the movie to incredibly honest, subtle and grounded. Lincoln is a massive figure who just might actually live up to the hype. Certainly there is some bravura in the movie but this is a movie about big ideas and dynamic positive political change. It would have been easy to turn this movie into jingoistic tripe, and I thought it was deftly avoided.
I’m a bit surprised that this movie doesn’t have a thread and that the first half-dozen or so posts are jokes and misinformation.
Yes, we all know Willie did not die of TB but instead a Vampire attack, but can’t we save that for page 2?
Anyways, I saw this movie last night at a midnight showing and simply loved it. I’ll admit to being a bit of a Lincoln fan-boy and I also concede to not being a complete Civil War honk or presidential historian so it possible there are some gaping holes in this story, but it’s impossible not to recognize that this was a masterful performance from a great cast and a great producer and director. As a guy from Illinois who just visited Springfield and Washington D.C. in the past 5 months primarily to soak up some U.S. history and Lincoln stuff I guess I’m the target demo for this thing. That said, I don’t think this movie is overly idealized and I don’t think it watches like a attraction at EPCOT Center.
Daniel Day-Lewis disappears into the character of Lincoln. It’s actually pretty amazing since Lincoln was such a weird looking dude. It’s getting a little lazy to say the guy is great, but it’s impossible for anyone to walk out of this film with any other opinion. He simultaneously chews up the screen, blows Sally Field off the set and disappears into the character with amazing subtlety and nuance.
As a side note, it’s mildly interesting that this is the second role for DDL in which Tammany Hall cronies were his primary adversaries. The guy loves playing 1860’s bad-asses I guess.
Tommy Lee-Jones was terrific and funny in his portrayal of Stevens. Sally Field, I’m sad to say, was terrible in her portrayal of Mary Todd. It’s possible that the role was just written so unlikeably that I’m reacting to that and not her acting, but it felt to me like she could not play a period character. She had one good monologue at the party where she attacks Stevens but aside from that she lacked all the subtlety and authenticity that DDL showed.
I’m sure at some point someone will come in and say they screwed up the timelines and misrepresented some of the political mechanics of the House, but I don’t think that’s really the point. It really captured Lincoln in a compelling and believable way and transports you back to the 1865.
I’ll be shocked if anything else wins Best Actor, Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director. It’ll probably win a ton of technical awards as well.
I was just trying to say that as a non-American I might not be emotionally involved. Yet, the movie did it for me - I’'l be sure to now study Lincoln in more detail.
I’m glad to hear people saying that this movie avoided jingoistic tripe… also glad to hear that DDL disappeared into the character. At least once in my life I’ve watched a whole movie and not realized he was the lead until the end credits–he’s a great actor. Makes me feel weird to have a non-American playing Lincoln, but oh well.
I saw it yesterday and thought it was brilliant – as close as you can get to time travel. I have to disagree about Sally Field’s performance. I though she captured the edge on which Mary was living, the undercurrent of grief running through her behavior and the subtlety of her relationship with her husband. In fact, the only scene that I thought was a bit too much was the one in which she let it all out – I got a “Norma Rae” vibe there.
I know quite a bit about Lincoln, but I feel like I never really understood him until this movie. In some ways that’s a bad thing – replacing the real historical person with the movie image. But given the unlikelihood that I will ever actually meet Lincoln, this was probably the next best thing.
The one thing that had me concerned before going in was the talk about the movie being incredibly dark. It covered a dark period of history, but I thought Spielberg did a great job of injecting humor into the story. I laughed a lot more than I would have expected. I also cried quite a bit, and not just at the tragic points. Several times I found myself just being overcome with emotion and crying at the sheer intensity of the film.
If there is a movie that can beat this one for Best Picture, I’m looking forward to seeing it.
I wonder if people are speaking literally or figuratively. The movie was filmed in a soft, shadowy lighting. In many ways it almost felt like an old black and white movie, helped by the fact everyone wore those colors. It looked a bit like There Will Be Blood.
I agree that it wasn’t particularly bleak or dystopic.
The racists in the movie were capital-R Racists. This is almost certainly accurate for the time and they spoke and debated with the tone of a person who is speaking with absolute certitude, without any specific malice but just matter of factly. War is characterized as horrible which is pretty common these days but it wasn’t shoved down your throat. Mary Todd is depressed and despondent and there’s not a ton of joy to be found until the end for most everyone.
All that said, it didn’t feel all that dark to me. As you note there’s some terrific and timely humor and a couple over-the-top characters. Lincoln and Stevens were always witty and generally optimistic. The movie is heavy and realistic, but the tone wasn’t especially bleak. This is Speilberg after all.
I just saw it a few hours ago, and would agree with most of what Omniscient wrote. I’m a Lincoln freak from 'way back and was very impressed. The casting, first and foremost Day-Lewis, but also Field and Jones, was very, very good. I could nitpick a detail or three, and I thought the movie was a bit overlong, but I still highly recommend it.
