“Lincoln” Review
The charm of “Lincoln” lies primarily in the charm of Daniel Day Lewis, whose unrivaled ability to command attention makes what could have been, at two and a half hours, a biographical slog, into inspiratory splendor. Along with his visage, which is keen and unwavering and proud, and his robust and looming stature, his much talked about vocal performance completes a trifecta of dignified strength and gentle persuasion that characterizes one of our most beloved presidents.
(Theatrical poster for “Lincoln.” Photo courtesy of the Washington Post.)
When Lincoln tells a story in the film, the world stops. The constructed cinematic world, the physical world of the audience and the private world of the mind all yield to the greater narrative power. When the floor is his alone, Lewis’s stranglehold on the emotions is total. When he finishes, all worlds exhale. The ending of one story in particular induced such an easy and uproarious laughter in both movie and theater that this correspondent forgot which was which.
Indeed, in “Lincoln” one forgets oneself. The scope is so fully realized and the plights of the nuanced and myriad cast characters so effortlessly displayed that the art-lover’s mind is overwhelmed. There is so much to absorb and so much to latch onto that if the vortex that is Daniel Day Lewis-as-Lincoln didn’t exist as fully all the other aspects of the film might spin out of control, or worse, be uninteresting.
The story of the Civil War and of Lincoln is well known and well worn, and the film seems to understand this and instead surmises to show us how it felt, and succeeds admirably in this task. We feel the ingrained ignorance and unbridled spite of the Democrats, the nationwide emotional devastation in the wake of the ongoing war and the weight of moral compromise to help end that war in Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones). Feeling these things makes us become interested in the story again, and even get caught up in the drama even though we are well aware of the outcome. We know who ultimately wins and who ultimately dies, but as all great films do “Lincoln” casts these concerns into irrelevance and instead instills wonder at the spectacle, and at being part of a blur between art and life.
With “Lincoln” Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day Lewis have succeeded in making the real more than real, they have taken the legacy of an important man from a crucial point in history and time and turned him to flesh and bone again. They have saved him from being the banal archetype of history books, preserving his distinguished, quiet wisdom and fearless heroics for the ages. They have distilled the shadow of a great man into finite form, and any who view the film would be hard pressed to not have their own shadows seem pithy (yet somehow enriched) by the comparison.
Article by Dominic Molinaro
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