MOVI ES
BY MO LLY TEMP LETO N
SPIELBERG’S 13TH AMENDMENT
Daniel Day-Lewis rises above the historically cumbersome Lincoln
LINCOLN: Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay by Tony Kushner, based in
part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals. Cinematography, Janusz
Kaminski. Editing, Michael Kahn. Music, John Williams. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis,
Sally Field, David Strathairn, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader and Joseph Gordon-
Levitt. Touchstone Pictures, 2012. PG-13. 150 minutes. 00021
L
incoln, contrary to what its name implies, is not
a defining portrait of a man, though Daniel Day-
Lewis’ performance as Abraham Lincoln is one
of his defining roles. Stooped, quiet, introverted,
exhausted, brilliant and prone to making his
point via stories, Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is the calm
center to a complex and flawed film about the 16th
president — and about the role of politics in America’s
terrible relationship with race.
Steven Spielberg’s film — written by Tony Kushner
and based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s highly
praised book Team of Rivals — takes place after Lincoln
has been elected for a second term. The Civil War drags
on, but the end is creeping into sight, and Lincoln has
realized that his Emancipation Proclamation may not hold
up once the war is over. His focus becomes the passage of
the 13th Amendment, which faces considerable opposition
in the House.
The politicians opposing the amendment are largely
one-note villains, though Lee Pace’s Fernando Wood is a
lively orator. Lincoln’s complexities are more apparent in
the character of Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones),
who tempers his fiercely abolitionist position in one of the
movie’s most interesting moments. Reluctantly, Stevens
makes a stark moral compromise in the interest of
garnering support for the amendment. The film — with the
clunking assistance of John Williams’ intrusive and
inelegant score — plays this as a quiet triumph, a difficult
choice made in the service of greater goals.
Lincoln is full of small, ugly moments necessary for
the amendment’s passage. Lincoln’s secretary of state,
William Seward (David Strathairn), hires a trio of lobbyists
to coerce Democrats into voting for the amendment, and
their efforts are inexplicably often played for laughs, the
soundtrack taking on a down-home twang as they go about
their business. Perhaps this is just meant to lighten the
scene a bit, but it’s jarring, considering the work being
done. But Lincoln often stumbles when it steps away from
Day-Lewis and Jones. Secondary plotlines involving
Robert Lincoln (a miscast Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and
Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field), and the family’s grief
over the son who was killed in the war, drag on, heavy
with sentimentality. The scene in which Field trades barbs
with Stevens does too little to balance out the amount of
time she’s asked to spend weeping and bereft, the
emotional counterpart to Lincoln’s stoic, intellectual calm.
This isn’t a lionizing movie; it’s not a film that presents
you with a man and his work and expects you to bask in
his brilliance. In quiet ways, it’s more nuanced than that.
Stevens is as vital to the passage of the amendment as
Lincoln; the ugly politics required to push it into being are
neither glossed over nor unnecessarily lauded. For the
most part, they’re presented as simply the lengths Lincoln
felt it necessary to go to in order to do away with slavery.
Lincoln is long, occasionally complicated and full of
middle-aged white men with impressive facial hair. For a
movie about
our country’s
slow
press
toward equality,
it’s unnervingly
content to mostly have
its few black actors stand
around looking grateful, as if
black Americans played no part
in the fight for emancipation.
Even if Spielberg wanted to keep the
focus on the politicians, he could have found
time to better establish the characters of Mrs.
Keckley (Gloria Reuben) and Mr. Slade (Stephen
Henderson). But Lincoln’s flaws don’t keep it
from succeeding on several levels: as a showcase
for Daniel Day-Lewis; as an interesting and
engrossing biography of an amendment and a
man; and as an uncomfortable and pointed
reminder about the hideous racism that’s an
unavoidable piece of America’s makeup. ■
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