Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite heroes in history. (he’s reading in this photograph)
I’ve read so many books about him that it feels as though I knew him so when Daniel Day-Lewis first appears on screen in Lincoln, Steven Spielberg’s new film, my breath caught in my throat.
The resemblance is downright uncanny. 
Yeah I know, they can do just about anything with make-up these days, but this visual duality I assure you has little to do with special effects. Mr. Day-Lewis’s Lincoln comes from a place deep within as though Abraham himself inhabited the actor’s entire being.
Taken from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s award winning book, Team of Rivals, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner (Angels in America), it brings to life a watershed in American History in an exceptionally compelling way.
You first see Mr. Lincoln from behind speaking softly to two Black soldiers, one humble the other not so much. Right out of the gate as the camera turns and you take in the unearthly likeness between hero and actor you are pretty much introduced to one of our, if not, greatest American Presidents.
It opens with a bloody battle to immediately show how horrific the War Between the States truly was (750.000 casualties). The media is comparing it to the opening of another Spielberg film, Saving Private Ryan, but though gruesome, it’s not as painfully long. I appreciated that Spielberg didn’t make it about the carnage but more the cause which in 1865 was the imminent abolishment of slavery throughout a very troubled America.
It begins in January of that year as the war is finally reaching its end. Lincoln has just been reelected and is focusing fervently on getting emancipation pushed through a very mean-spirited, divided Congress.
William Seward, his Secretary of State played beautifully by David Strathairn who in actual life even looks like him, is behind the scenes doing whatever needs to be done to glean the necessary votes.
His three trusty or should I say, not so trusty lobbyists (James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson) are seen throughout the film performing shady shenanigans to insure that the 13h Amendment indeed gets passed (Spader, in particular, is terrific right down to a mustache with a life all its own).
It’s nice to know the underpinnings of politics have changed very little in 147 years.
Congress in session is a true treat. Seeing Democrats fight like feral cats against the Republicans made my hair stand on end the latter group, in this case, being the noble one.
Of course Henry Clay came to mind since dramatic oratory was still the fashion. Whomever took the floor bellowed and raged insulting their opposition with little or no restraint. At times these men behaved no better than an unruly mob, just in suits and sideburns.
The performance that will undoubtedly turn heads is Tommy Lee Jones as the Republican Representative from Pennsylvania, the passionate, quick-witted, wig wearing Thaddeus Stevens who’s sole goal had always been to end slavery in his lifetime. Your eyes never leave him while he’s on screen. 
They’re are many memorable performances: Hal Holbrook as Preston Blair, the head of a southern slave-owning family who oddly supports the bill but would prefer a peace settlement with the south.
Bruce McGill as Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, who along with Seward loathed Lincoln in his first term but grew to love and respect him as he’s about to serve his second.
It always irked Mr. Stanton that Mr. Lincoln pardoned so many deserters. “How are those boys gonna learn if you keep lettin-em go,” he’d holler all the way from the War Department.
“You can’t very well teach a dead soldier a lesson, now can ya?” was his President’s reply. That’s not in the film, but you do see him signing many a pardon the last one (Patrick Murphy) being on the day he died.
How could you punish a man who just wants to go home, was how Lincoln saw it.
Joseph Gordon Levitt as Robert Lincoln, the eldest son, has a heartfelt moment when he accompanies his father to an army hospital. After wanting to enlist against his parent’s wishes he sees a gurney go by with freshly severed limbs that puts him in a shameful rage. His father, who comes out to find him weeping, tries talking him out of his decision knowing what it will do to his mother already grieving for the loss of their third son, Willie who recently had died of typhoid. He was 11. 
Eddie, their second son, died at 7 of tuberculosis in 1850. 
This brings me to Sally Field as Mary Lincoln. 
Ms Field carries pain on her face like no one else I’ve ever seen. Again, that was no make-up fixed upon her brow. The strain and heartbreak of the war and personal loss transcended clings to her every move and expression. When I think Spielberg almost didn’t cast her I can barely believe it. When he called to say the part wasn’t hers, she told him he owed her at least a screen-test. After auditioning with Daniel Day-Lewis in full costume, things changed.
Of all these stellar performances many I haven’t mentioned, it’s Mr. Day-Lewis who will cull the most acclaim. He captured the sadness and overall weariness that Lincoln allegedly displayed after four years of such bloodshed. 
Imagine knowing that you had the power to stop it while thousands of mothers cursed your name.
The way Lincoln relaxed into telling a story and the love he had for his kids pours through Day-Lewis like a steady rain. In an early scene he finds his youngest son, Tad, asleep on the floor of his study so he stretches out alongside him to gently give the boy a kiss. That quiet gesture reveals a lot about Abraham Lincoln since tenderness can be very telling. In Lincoln’s case you become privy to his pain just the way he takes solace in a moment of unexpected affection.
In another scene he fights with Mary over Robert’s enlistment his anger building like mercury inching up an ancient thermometer. It took a lot to get Abe to lose his composure but this was one time he let it loose on the one person who clearly knew where his buttons were, not only on his morning coat.
I was very moved by Daniel Day-Lewis finding myself weeping more than once.
Throughout the film’s two and a half hours I kept thinking, in three months this tall, exhausted, craggy man will cease to exist yet no one knows that, just we the audience sneaking back into time wishing we could alter it…
that fateful Good Friday when Abraham Lincoln was no more.
On a lighter note, when they showed the tail end of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox I nudged my friend Ed and said, “Look, it’s Traveller,” Lee’s famous gray gelding. 
Ed, another history nut, leaned over and whispered, “I was just thinking that.” This is when you know it pays to read since you can fill in your own blanks where time didn’t allow more elaborate explanation.
Apparently there are holes I didn’t see. My friend Evelyn said the drapes were all wrong, they weren’t period and Ed felt Daniel Day-Lewis’s beard wasn’t quite right. Andrew the librarian said the acting was too over the top. “They’re working for their Oscars,” he said. And Arthur didn’t like how saintly Spielberg portrayed old Abe.
This is America after all and we are all allowed our opinions something Mr. Lincoln would no doubt applaud.
This is truly an American’s movie; what I especially loved was its history lesson. You come away realizing what really happened those last few crucial months of a war that some still say, should never have been fought.
I’m so glad to have seen it. History I’m happy to say humbles me and makes me more than a little proud of my noble predecessors who did their best…
for better or worse.
SB
