Showing posts with label lincoln. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lincoln. Show all posts

Monday, March 4, 2013

Lincoln

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes. Director: Steven Spielberg.  Screenplay: Tony Kushner, based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Cinematography:  Janusz Kaminski. Music: John Williams. Genre: Drama. Running Length: 2:30 U.S. Distributor:  Touchstone Pictures.


Technical assessment:  4
Moral assessment:  4
CINEMA rating:  PG 13
MTRCB rating:  PG 13

Film is indeed a powerful medium for teaching history.  Had we not watched Lincoln and been awed by the riveting performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, the United States’ 16th president would have remained in our mind as nothing more than a shiny marble statue.
Lincoln chronicles the last month, January 1865, in the life of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, as he zeroes in on the last and greatest win of his political career—the abolition of slavery in America.  
Director Spielberg does right in depicting a Lincoln that is at once iconic and human.  Far from being a traditional bio-pic that tends to paint a glossier-than-reality picture of a revered character, Lincoln shows how a principled man may still be admired despite his political savvy that enabled him to resort to the maneuverings prevalent in his time. 
President # 16 has been played by so many estimable actors since 1930, but in Lincoln, the role is not played, it is lived—to the point that it becomes difficult to tell whether it is the actor Day-Lewis inhabiting the Lincoln character, or the spirit of Lincoln inhabiting the actor’s body.  A well-chosen cast combined with matchless supporting performances—notably by Tommy Lee Jones (as Thaddeus Stevens) and Sally field (as Mary Todd Lincoln) add to an authentic reliving of Lincoln’s struggle towards his goal.  To the last detail, the rich production sets are adjudged faithful to Abe’s life and times, bringing the past vividly back to life to afford the viewer a peek into history.
The sessions in Congress where the battle over the 13th Amendment is raging is particularly eye-opening to contemporary political observers.  They reveal that some things in the field of public service have not changed—and perhaps never will—such as under the table deals, patronage positions as bribes, presidential strategizing and pressure on the House of Representatives to ensure the passage of an amendment, etc.  The latter may evoke a feeling of déjà vu in people quite familiar with the debates that not too long ago raged over an RH bill in the Philippine Congress, and the nonchalance with which some lawmakers dismissed the Executive railroading of the contentious bill.  In his rush to pass the 13th amendment, Lincoln utilized all the tricks in his arsenal.  Sounds familiar?  But of course, presidential maneuvering of the Legislative branch takes on a different coloration depending on the issue at hand: a law abolishing slavery is not the same as a law establishing a contraceptive mentality. 
It might also come as some form of warped consolation to Filipinos that their present-day solons’ (mis)behavior is civil compared to that of the insult-hurling American counterparts in 1865.  If in 1865 their congressional session room resembled a saloon filled with trigger happy cowboys, ours in 2012 was simply reminiscent of classroom of overgrown kindergarteners who couldn’t differentiate between study and play.  One noticeable thing, though: the 1865 lawmakers hurled verbal darts at one another, but God was acknowledged in the process of lawmaking.  In the 2012 RH arena… well, make your own conclusions.
Kudos to the Spielberg-Kushner tandem that brought out the Oscar-winning performance of Day-Lewis, the Abraham Lincoln that came alive onscreen proves worthy of the reverence accorded him by his countrymen—a doting father, a sympathetic husband, a statesman made of fire and ice, wisdom and wile, a soul blessed with courage and grace, a human being who passionately went after his dream and paid the price for it.  Certainly a very very far cry from being a mere marble monument.