Lincoln (dir: Steven Spielberg, Written by: Tony Kushner, cinematography: Janusz Kaminski, music: John Williams)
The British liberal newspaper Guardian once carried a series on great speeches of the twentieth century and provided free samples of some of the greatest speeches. Thus there were samples of Jawaharlal's Nehru's speech at the time of Indian independence, John F.Kennedy's inaugural speech, FDR's rousing dismissal of fear and my personal favorite, the beautiful cadences of Martin Luther King Jr. as he laid bare the darkness at the centre of the American soul. Listening to these I used to think of how it would have been to listen to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, which of course predated the invention of recording devices. In Spielberg's latest, I was hoping for a reprise of the speech by Daniel Day Lewis. Alas I was disappointed and thrilled in equal measure. Spielberg gets Lewis to declaim only part of the speech towards the end; better still he gets Union soldiers, black and white, to recite portions of the speech in front of Lewis's Lincoln. That is a genuine goose pimple moment. Of course, there is an element of cinematic conceit here. The Gettysburg speech was not so famous that people were repeating it to one other within two years. Indeed, only in the early twentieth century was the speech canonized, so to speak. Much like we don't know which of Obama's speeches are his best, Lincoln's contemporaries must have had a full house to choose from.
That is not the only conceit of the movie. The entire plot is an artifact, so to speak. It revolves not around the civil war or Lincoln's struggles but the efforts mounted to pass the Thirteenth Amendment that made slavery illegal. While the Amendment created history, Lincoln's biographers typically do not spend too much time dwelling on the way the Amendment was passed. It may be that Lincoln was not directly involved in the passage. He may have left it to the devices of his Secretary of State (and rival) William Seward or that lion of the Congress, Thaddeus Stevens. But it is tempting to believe that Honest Abe used a few dirty tricks to round up enough votes for the passage. For it required two-thirds majority, which was beyond the strength of Republicans in the House, not to mention the divisions between conservative and radical factions within the party. It is also delicious to think of ways in which a President can get one over a recalcitrant Congress and an obstructionist opposition party. How topical can a movie about a nineteenth century President get? I can imagine all these and other reasons persuading Spielberg to make his Lincoln a movie about Congressional drama, about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. As AO Scott notes in NYT, Lincoln is more a civics lesson than a biopic, but none the worse for it.
The result is that we get to see glimpses from the personal and official life of Lincoln in the final four months of his life. And what glorious glimpses. Much like one identifies Ben Kingsley with Gandhi, so does one come out convinced about Lewis's Lincoln. He stoops, shuffles, cracks jokes, pounds tables, reasons with his wife, plots and commits borderline illegal activities, much as the real life Abe must have done. The portrait is of a masterful politician who gets the right things done even a she fights the demons in his family life. Daniel Day Lewis, take a bow. The Academy award is a mere formality.
The other stand out performance is that of Tommy Lee Jones, who really enjoys himself as the acid tongued Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens was an ardent abolitionist and he went farther than any politician was prepared to go in the nineteenth century, Lincoln included. He was of the view that the South should be treated as enemy occupied territory and Reconstruction must include harsh terms. Alas, his views did not prevail. Who knows, maybe the horrors of Jim Crow and segregation would have been nipped in the bud if Stevens' views had prevailed. In the movie, Stevens has to curb his enthusiasm and conceal the extent of his regard for the oppressed slaves. Otherwise, any ill-timed remarks would have alarmed the moderates and made it impossible to get the required votes. If this is a portrayal of a restrained Stevens, I would love to see the unrestrained one. Still the way Stevens corrals the vote of a Congressman who has lost the elections, but can be renominated, is pure gold.
One of the joys of watching old movies like The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca is to identify supporting actors (or what we call character artistes in Tamil cinema) like Sydney Greenstreet or Peter Lorre. In Lincoln we get such highs from spotting James Spader and Hal Holbrook. Holbrook has of course delighted us in 'All the President's Men' and 'Wall Street'. Here he almost derails Lincoln's plans before seeing sense. James Spader plays the leader of the dirty tricks gang which goes about rounding up the required votes. Special mention also to David Strathairn who plays William Seward.
A great movie is one which lingers in our memory for many hours after we watch it. Great performances are those that leave us pining for more. Lincoln scores on both fronts. It is a movie for our times but also one for the ages, much like its inspiration.
No comments:
Post a Comment