Lincoln (2012)

(Movie Review)

One of the best movies I've ever seen.

With a caveat:
I'm one of those insufferable puritans who tends to judge historical themed movies by their degree of historical accuracy.  Especially for history movies whose whole reason for being is to inform audiences about a historical event.   Braveheart or Sparticus can be wildly historically inaccurate, and no one really cares because you still have the epic story lines, the romance, and those huge battle scenes.

But a movie about congress debating an amendment does not have that flexibility.  If it were not historical, it would not be interesting, and to the extent it is interesting, it is interesting in proportion to its historical accuracy.

I do not know much of anything about the history portrayed in this movie, and so am unqualified to critique it.  (History geek though I am, this is one of my blind spots.)

With that caveat aside, assuming the events portrayed in this movie are more or less historically accurate (until someone can convince me otherwise), I would say that this is one of the best movies I have ever seen, and as close to perfect as a movie experience is going to get.

Not everyone will enjoy this movie of course.  You have to have a little bit of a taste for political intrigue and a curiosity about history.  (I have friends who hate history, and they should stay far away from this movie.)

 But, wow, I was absolutely fascinated by this movie.  The script did a masterful job of making the congressional debate into a compelling story.  Very few lines in this movie were wasted--the screenwriters were masters of conveying information in a very economic way.  This is one of the few movies I've seen where you have to pay close attention, or you will miss things.  And I mean that in a good way-- the movie rewards you for being attentive. This movie does not talk down to you.  It's one of those rare movies that make you more intelligent for watching it.

 The acting is great.  Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing.  But the whole cast is great, even down to the minor characters.  This film has a lot of famous and almost famous actors in bit parts, so the "hey, it's that guy!" factor of this movie is pretty high. Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, David Strathairn (from Goodnight and Good luck), John Hawkes (from Deadwood), Jared Harris (from Mad Men).  I didn't even recognize Joseph Gordon-Levitt until the movie was over.

Historical Accuracy
As I said before, I'm unqualified to judge the historical accuracy.  But I can link to other people who sound like they know what they're talking about.

This article What’s True and False in “Lincoln” Movie lists off several inaccuracies, but all of them strike me as minor and forgivable.

A Civil War Professor Reviews 'Lincoln' .  He criticizes Spielberg for making the story more complicated than it needed to be, but I was not entirely sure whether he was speaking historically or cinematicly.  (Maybe I'm just dense.)

The article How True is "Lincoln"? alleges some small liberties were taken, but claims the movie is more true than not.

Fact-Checking 'Lincoln' from The Atlantic seems to largely defend the accuracy of this movie, but makes an important point:
Lincoln presents almost every public figure as either comical, quirky, weak-kneed or pathetically self-interested. Only the president is able to rise above the moment and see the end game. This treatment does injustice to men like Rep. James Ashley, Sen. Charles Sumner, and Sen. Ben Wade (misidentified in the credits as "Bluff" Wade, his nickname, for when challenged to a duel by a pro-slavery congressman he accepted and chose broadswords. His foe assumed that he was bluffing but didn't care to find out.). These men were serious, committed legislators who fought a lonely fight for black freedom before the war, and a difficult struggle for black equality after it. They deserve better. 

I agree.  Lincoln always got way too much credit on the slavery issue, while the more dedicated abolitionist radical republicans have become just footnotes to history.  

From Salon.com
Columbia University Professor Eric Foner, one of the most eminent historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction, sees the film as an “inside the beltway” rendition of the period. In a recent interview on Jon Wiener’s KPFK radio show, Foner points out that during the period that the movie covers, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Army was marching through South Carolina. Slaves, in full-scale rebellion, were seizing plantations and “occupying” the land that they had worked. Slavery was “dying on the ground,” Foner insisted, not just in the House of Representatives. In Lincoln, “We are back to the old idea of Lincoln freeing the slaves by himself,” Foner says, reinforcing a one-dimensional view of a complicated historical process. The problem is not what the movie shows but what it doesn’t show.

A good point.  It's important to remember that progress always happens because of pressure from below, not as gifts from politicians.  Still, correct context is different from straight out inaccuracy.  That comes a few paragraphs later:

What Oakes finds more troubling in terms of historical accuracy is the scenario set up by Kushner, whereby conservative Republicans (represented in the film by Montgomery Blair) and Radical Republicans had to be brought in line to defeat the Democrats and pass the amendment. Oakes points out that the Republicans were united all along, as demonstrated by the House vote to pass the 13th Amendment that took place the previous July. There was only one Republican “no” vote at that time, cast by Ohio Republican James M. Ashley. Ashley was a strong supporter of the amendment, but realizing the amendment was about to lose, he voted no as a procedural maneuver that would allow him to call for reconsideration of the amendment when Congress returned in December.
Blair, who had represented Dred Scott in the famous Supreme Court case, was Lincoln’s Postmaster General until he was replaced in late 1864. Blair had influence in Maryland and Missouri and was called upon to secure Border State Unionist votes, not to cajole conservative Republicans. Between July 1864 — when Democrats and Border State congressman had defeated the amendment — and January 1865, both Maryland and Missouri had abolished slavery. So Congressmen who had represented slave states the previous July were representing free states in January. They were the Congressmen that Blair went after.

Ouch.  This was pretty much the major point of the movie, right?  If true, this would negatively affect my assessment of the movie.

The Language
Sadly, the only inaccuracy I was able to catch on my own was the work fuck.  Fuck did not enter the common vernacular until after World War II, so it is out of place in a movie that takes place the 19th century.  Granted the word only showed up a couple times in this movie, but those couple times were enough to bug me.
Now, I know some Western shows like Deadwood have made an artistic decision to ignore this anachronism, and use the word fuck anyway (W).  And because the show Deadwood went through the trouble of explaining the rationale behind this decision on their DVD extras, I largely forgave it.  But that doesn't mean everyone can get away with this anachronism just Deadwood popularized it. 
Can we at least try for a little period authenticity when we do these movies?  Would anything have been lost by removing the word fuck?
(Oh and by the way, lest I get confused with the morality language police, I want to be clear I'm objecting to this word on historical, not moral grounds.  If you're making a movie that takes place in the 21st century, go ahead and use fuck all you want.)

Other Notes:
* My enjoyment of this movie was increased for having recently read about William Seward in the historical fiction book Flashman and the Angel of the Lord.  (Seward was one of the characters in that book, and his life and career were further highlighted in the book's footnotes.)
His portrayal in the Flashman book was a bit different than his portrayal in the movie.  In the Flashman book he was much more the brandy-swilling cigar-chomping type of politician--in the movie David Strathairn portrayed him as much more the New England patrician type.  But I'm not sure the movie is wrong on this (those Flashman books can sometimes take a few liberties.)
But regardless of which portrayal is correct, the relationship between Seward and Lincoln becomes a lot more complex when you consider that Steward was supposed to win the 1860 election, and only unexpectedly lost to Lincoln at the last minute (W).  It makes you respect him all the more for serving so faithfully under Lincoln. 

* Remember that scene when someone tried to shoot James Spader's character?  And remember how long it took him to reload and fire off a second shot?  Remembering the types of firearms used during this period help to keep the 2nd Amendment in perspective. 

*It is a cliche for Hollywood biopics to create domestic drama for their subjects by inserting lots of scenes of them arguing with their wives.  Tears, yelling, and screaming can usually be expected, and somehow in these movies the wives always become most emotionally needy just when the hero is at some historically important decision.
I normally lose patience with these type of scenes fast, and this movie flirted with that type of story.  But then they pulled back, and they didn't let the drama with the wife take over the movie, and I thought it was done just about right.  We got just enough insight into Lincoln's private life to make it interesting, but not enough for it to overshadow the other events in the movie.
In fact, this movie really did a good job of giving us just enough of everything.  There was just enough of a taste of the politicking, without getting bogged down in the details.  There was just enough background of the war, without losing the focus on Washington.  It was really brilliant screen-writing when you think about it.

* According to Wikipedia (W), early drafts of this movie focused on Lincoln's relationship with Frederick Douglass.  At the risk of sounding greedy, can we have that Frederick Douglass movie too please?  (Frederick Douglass is on my list of the top ten Hollywood biopics I would like to see.  I'm still convinced his life would make a great movie.)

* Some of the audience applauded at the movie theater when this movie finished.  That doesn't usually happen, but it was not undeserved for this movie.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - Deterring Democracy

Lincoln (2012): Movie Review (Scripted)