SWMBO and I just got home from seeing this.
O! M! G!
If this movie doesn’t take damn near every Oscar available, there ain’t no justice. Daniel Day-Lewis owned the role of Lincoln like I have never seen an actor own a role before.
Just an absolutely incredible movie. We’re gonna go see this one again!!
Nitpick: Stevens was a member of the House, not the Senate.
Really? I thought that body looked a little small for the Senate, let alone the House…
Umm, maybe because there were fewer members then?
There were 185 members of the House in 1864; there are 435 today: 1862–63 United States House of Representatives elections - Wikipedia
This is the article re: the House elected in 1862, because that’s who was gathering in early 1865 to vote on the proposed 13th Amendment before the incoming class of the election of 1864 came in.
Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy produced the film.
Exactly the same for me, too and I had a hard time getting into the movie because of it. And I did for a second think that Lincoln resembled Ben Stiller.
My rule of thumb for Oscar champ is if their character really tugged at me in some way, but DDL playing Lincoln was a different kind of performance. But just incredibly well nuanced. I would have no problem with him winning it. My complaint about most biopics is that the actor can’t hang with the real thing, but I bought this one, all the way.
Just wondering, has Spielberg ever directed a Best Actor or Best Actress performance? I’m thinking he hasn’t.
Nope, no winning actors or actresses in either lead or supporting roles.
Yes, they were, at least according to James M. McPherson (Battle Cry of Freedom):
Saw it last night. Warning: I am a huge Lincoln fan.
One thing that amuses me is how many of the complaints about historical inaccuracy turn out to be wrong; the movie might not be perfect, but it got a lot of little details right. Thaddeus Stevens’ housekeeper, the Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens (physically perfect for the role, being small and frail, and the character captured Stephen’s personality, being notably proper and polite to a black soldier in the carriage scene despite being a racist leader of the slave power), Lincoln’s doting on Tad, Lincoln’s mannerisms, and so on.
One minor “error” was having Grant in full blue dress uniform for the Appomattox surrender – his appearance at that meeting is famous:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Grant, whose headache had ended when he received Lee’s note, arrived in a mud-spattered uniform—a government-issue flannel shirt with trousers tucked into muddy boots, no sidearms, and with only his tarnished shoulder straps showing his rank.
[/QUOTE]
And I was delightedly surprised by the portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens as a romantic hero! Who’d have thought they’d do that? Stevens was a notorious troublemaker, famously unyielding and argumentative, and gave Lincoln (among many others) enormous headaches over the years. Using Tommy Lee Jones to play him was inspired – cantankerously perfect for the role. Stevens was a monumental jerk, but ultimately on the side of good.
Sure, Spielberg’s portrayal of Lincoln borders on hagiographic. What people might be missing is that Lincoln is one of the few figures who can stand up to scrutiny – he might actually deserve what we believe about him.
Was he troubled? Did he make mistakes? Sure, he was human. But under almost unbelievable pressure he did more to personally influence the course of events than almost any other president (excepting perhaps Washington). And he definitely suffered, personally, for our national sins. He played a dangerous game of brinksmanship, balancing so many concerns while maneuvering the country through its worst crisis…then used that crisis to transform the country into something greater than it had been, something closer to the ideals of our founding myths. Made us a little more like what we claimed we wanted to be.
Frankly, he could have accomplished a lot less and he’d still be remembered as a hero.
In fact, despite his films amassing 110 nominations and 31 wins, only 9 actors have been nominated for his films
Margaret Avery
Melinda Dillon
Ralph Fiennes
Whoopi Goldberg
Tom Hanks
Anthony Hopkins
Liam Neeson
Christopher Walken
Oprah Winfrey
This film will put him in double digits.
I very much loved this movie, but I agree with you. I even thought it could have ended with Lincoln and his son looking out the window behind the curtains as people began to celebrate the decision.
That said, I’m glad that they at least handled the assassination how they did. I’m not sure I could have emotionally taken seeing him shot (and I’m not sure why-- I’ve been to Ford’s Theater, I’ve been across the street, I know what went down)-- I kept waiting for it to happen and was glad it didn’t.
I thought the movie was fantastic and hope it wins the Oscar.
There were a couple of lines in the movie that I wondered about. For starters, we have several people referring to “the conservative wing of the Republican party” including people who claim to be a part of it.
Did the people of that time really refer to “the conservative wing of the Republican Party” or is that an example of Kushner and Spielberg perhaps letting their modern sensibilities come through.
Similarly, when Thaddeus Stevens(played by Tommy Lee Jones) refers to “bipartisan support”. Was that term really used back then. It seems a bit too modern to me.
We saw the film tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m presently reading the book, and it was great to see Lewis completely take on the real Lincoln’s mannerisms, including his awkward, clumping walk, his high voice, and his tendency to lounge about and to allow underlings to say the most outrageous things to him without fear of retribution. DDL crawling around on the floor to stoke the fire was apparently very true to form for Lincoln, who was about as unpretentious a man as ever walked the halls of Washington.
I was prepared to hate Sally Field in this role as her shameless emoting in other roles has put me off. People have criticized Field for making Mary appear erratic and more aged than she ought to have been. But Mary Lincoln was a much different person in 1865 than she was five years earlier. The death of Willie unhinged her, and by 1865 she was consulting mediums and claiming to have seen her dead child.
the friend i saw it with and i both agreed it ran about a half hour too long, and dragged in spots. it’s a good film, though, and i’m glad i saw it. daniel day lewis is just mesmerizing to watch in this role. he may as well write his acceptance speech now for the oscars.
i also liked how they handled the assassination. it wasn’t what i expected, but it worked.
I like your remake of that scene!
Bucking the tide here: I actually fell asleep until TLJ entered the movie. He nailed Stevens’ curmudgeon character and I quite forgot his TX accent. Agree that it would have been weird for him to affect any other sort of accent.
I thought DDL did a horrid job with the role and was always aware that it was DDL pretending to be Lincoln. Not his best role. TLJ stole the show for me.
Sally Field overemoting as par the course.
I love it when y’all review films. I try my best to take everything written by you with me when I go see a movie and I reckon me and D will go see this one either on the 25th or the 1st.
For what it’s worth, I’d rather read a review here than in some major fish-wrap.
Q
I enjoyed Lincoln greatly especially because it zeroed in on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment rather than attempt to portray all of Lincoln’s life in a few hours. I didn’t really how difficult passage of the Amendment was-much of the time it seemed that abolition of slavery became easy once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. I felt however it could have used a few more “epic” scenes of battle like previous Civil War epics, especially considering Mr. Spielberg’s budget. Nonetheless, it’ll be the Civil War movie of our generation IMO much as Birth of a Nation or Gone With the Wind were for previous ones and much more historically accurate than those to boot.
The slavery issue was highly contentious, even in the north. Many felt that the states were constitutionally protected as to whether or not to be slave-holders. Feelings in the north ran the gamut from strict abolitionists to let well enough alone sympathizers. For the latter, the Emancipation Proclamation did not sit well, as it was seen as a power grab by the President and to be opening the door for insurrection by blacks, prolonging the war, etc. The 13th Amendment was a hard sell, but Lincoln was a master strategist.
I saw the film yesterday and agree with this entirely. The acting was uniformly good and Daniel Day-Lewis was phenomenal. The script was powerful and intelligent. The directing was ridiculously ham-fisted and sappy. The Gettysburg Address moment at the beginning only served to herald what would be 2.5 hours of entirely unnecessary and clumsy pulls on the heart strings. Thank God every role was filled with a talented actor – they kept the film grounded in reality.
There was at least one moment – Stevens’ compromise of his values in his speech to the House – where the melodramatic ~and the music swells~ cue was so misplaced it was laughable. Really, Spielberg? You think a moment where a man who truly believes in racial equality equivocates and soft-pedals his moral convictions so as to let a motion pass on a legal loophole is cause for a majestic music cue? Not to mention the shot of Elizabeth Keckley looking on with radiant tears in her eyes, as if she’s proud of the guy for…what? Not saying that he believes black and white people to be equal? We know (because it’s spelled out for us 1 minute later) that Stevens made that speech out of a desire to serve the higher good, but an onlooker who doesn’t know the man intimately wouldn’t know that. The emotional tenor of that scene was so off.
I also thought the film should have ended on the shot of Lincoln walking away down the hallway (minus the heart-string shot of his loyal servant gazing proudly on). The audience knows (or should know and it’s their shame if they don’t) that he’s walking away to his death. We don’t need to see that played out, and we especially don’t need to see the hammily-acted scene of his son screaming and clutching the balcony railing in his grief.
Imagine this movie directed by someone interested in subtlety. Wow!
Speaking of subtlety, and so that I’m not entirely negative, let me just say I loved those moments when Daniel Day-Lewis would be sitting there, stooped and approachable, telling some folksy tale to the amusement of his audience, and then you would see a gleam in his eye of sharp intelligence and ferocity shining out behind that unassuming persona. I felt like that was Lincoln in a nutshell, and Day-Lewis was a genius for capturing that.