He watches calmly as a cigar-armed member of his Cabinet blackmails a wheezing farmer and his wife. He allows his son to play with a War Department map. He grins and tells a story every time someone confronts him with a difficult question. He uses his gift of oratory to convince people of the legality of his violations of the law. This twinkle-eyed, smiling man isn’t the mournful Abraham Lincoln we know from daguerreotypes. This clever politician isn’t the principled saint we’ve read about in textbooks. This is the human Lincoln, with selfish interests, with a strong will, with the tremendous ambition and determination to see it through that carried him from a log cabin to the Oval Office.
As is usual with Steven Spielberg’s war-centric films, we enter the story through the battleground, where hand-to-hand combat makes us sick to the stomach. But, thankfully for the weak-hearted, this isn’t a war movie so much as a film about what goes on in the corridors. And a lovely shot that catches Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) in profile, swings all the way around his slightly-hunched back, and holds his proud, bearded chin tells us that this film is him. He will win, and he’ll do what it takes to win.
We know what happened, historically - the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, and the Civil War ended. It was, as one character says, “Τhе grеаtеѕt mеаѕurе оf thе Νіnеtееnth Сеntury. Ρаѕѕеd by соrruрtіоn, аіdеd аnd аbеttеd by thе рurеѕt mаn іn Αmеrіс.” This is the story of how it happened, and so gripping is its telling that it plays out like a political thriller. Yes, Spielberg does take some liberties, especially with language. You don’t quite think a wheeler-dealer will gasp, “Well, I’ll be f***ed” when the President makes an appearance at his quarters. But, aided by powerful performances, the film appears so authentic that we’re transported to the era. Some scenes are even reminiscent of Gone with the Wind.
One of the film’s greatest achievements is fitting Lincoln’s quips into context, without making us OD on them. For instance, after a long, fierce speech, Day-Lewis leans forward and says, with an ironic smile, “Αѕ thе рrеасhеr ѕаіd, Ι соuld wrіtе ѕhоrtеr ѕеrmоnѕ, but оnсе Ι ѕtаrt, Ι gеt tоо lаzy tо ѕtор.” It shows us a glimpse of his eccentricities, without making this film about the-Lincoln-we-don’t-know. The focus of the film is always Lincoln’s shrewdness, his political acumen, his brimming confidence, so at odds with his humble beginnings.
And the reference to these humble beginnings is made often, but unobtrusively. Lincoln tells an engineer who can’t remember Euclid’s axioms how he borrowed the treatises as a boy. In another instance, Mary Lincoln (Sally Field), in a beautifully sarcastic tirade, refers to their family as “prairie primitives”. The dialogue is remarkable for its capacity to keep the speeches from sounding grandiose, while ensuring that they resonate.
All the supporting performances are excellent, but two stand out — Tommy Lee Jones as the Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens and Gloria Reuben as Mrs Lincoln’s maid. There is plenty of comic relief and, fittingly, most of it is found in Parliament. So beautifully paced is this film that we feel indulgent towards Spielberg’s set pieces and symbolism, and his penchant for an extended denouement.
The Verdict: With the character and locales stoked to life, Lincoln is a cinematic achievement.