Lincoln

Lincoln

Stinkin’

Hollywood has a long tradition of historical bio-pics that play fast and loose with the facts.  Take 1995’s Braveheart for instance.  In reality, William Wallace did indeed kick significant amounts of English bottom but, while no Lord, he was landed gentry not the ordinary commoner depicted by Mel Gibson.  His greatest victory, the Battle of Stirling, depicted in the film as the first time an English Cavalry charge was defeated by Scots infantry, actually took place at Stirling Bridge and, far from standing up to a cavalry charge, the Scots merely twatted the English knights as they tried to cross the bridge two abreast.  He never wore woad as depicted in the film and it’s also doubtful Wallace boffed and knocked up Edward II’s Queen as Isabella was about 10 at the time and still living in France.  Still, 10 Oscar nominations and 5 wins (including Best Film and Best Director) later, historical accuracy can go suck an egg.

Similarly, in 2001, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator gave us a despotic, patricidal Emperor Commodus with a harelip and an incestuous fancy for his sister who was universally hated by the people and quite enjoyed the odd spot of gladiatorial combat.  12 Oscar nominations and 5 wins however make it pretty easy to ignore the fact that Commodus’ father, Marcus Aurelius, died either of plague or smallpox while on campaign rather than being murdered by his son, Commodus was no despot and was almost universally loved by the people, ruling for 13 years, and while he did enjoy entering the arena, he did it anonymously for the most part and certainly wasn’t killed by an Aussie in a leather skirt, instead being strangled in his bath.  And far from nursing a forbidden love for his sister he had her exiled then executed after she plotted to have him assassinated.  Which would have been a slightly less crowd-pleasing ending to the movie.

Released in UK cinemas this week with 12 Oscar nominations trailing in it’s wake, it’s not a huge surprise then that Steven Spielberg’s reverent bio-pic of America’s 16^th President, Abraham Lincoln, dodges the thornier aspects both of Lincoln’s life (his suspension of habeas corpus and his arrest and imprisonment without trial of thousands of Northern citizens including journalists and congressmen, his ties to Northern industrialists) and the politics and causes of the Civil War (states rights, taxation, industrialisation and federalism are never mentioned, only slavery) in favour of the hallowed popular vision of Lincoln as the Great White Emancipator of the American Negro.

Anchored by a frankly ridiculous performance by Daniel Day Lewis (who recently won the Best Actor Golden Globe) who’s more Abe Simpson than Abe Lincoln, Spielberg’s Lincoln isn’t so much a film as a two and a half hour history lecture for primary school pupils, eschewing vampire hunting for a series of dense conversations in dimly-lit rooms conducted by white middle-aged men (and they are all white men) with varying degrees of facial hair who dicker, horse-trade and bribe one another to force through legislation that few wanted.  With the exception of some black Union soldiers, it relegates African Americans to the role of passive observers, faithful servants nobly waiting for the white man to free them.  Focusing solely on the final weeks of Lincoln’s life and his struggle to pass the hugely unpopular 13^th Amendment which outlawed slavery, the film drastically exaggerates the chance that the war would end with slavery still intact, ignoring the fact that, by the time the film is set, former slave-owning Southern states Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maryland and even Missouri had already abolished slavery of their own volition, freeing three million of the South’s four million slaves.  Slavery was already dead; the passage of the 13^th Amendment was merely the rubber stamp.

While Day Lewis shambles through the film and Sally Field chews the scenery as Mad Mary Lincoln, whining and weeping more than she did in Steel Magnolias, the supporting cast are excellent with Tommy Lee Jones turning in a barnstorming performance as the gruff abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens and David Strathairn understated as Secretary of State (and Lincoln’s alleged lover, though the film never mentions that) William Seward.  By far the best things about the film however are James Spader, John Hawkes and Tim Blake Nelson who play the three dodgy geezers Lincoln and Seward employ to attain the necessary pro-Amendment votes through under-the-table deals and bribery.

Ultimately, Lincoln is far too worthy to satisfy as drama, too worshipful to work as history, a simplistic reading of events that fails to do justice to a complicated man and the complex times he lived in.  It’s overlong and soporific and every time Day Lewis puts his hat on, your heart will soar at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he’s on his way to the Ford Theatre and you’ll finally be released. 

If D.W. Griffith’s reprehensible Birth of a Nation was, as 28^th President Woodrow Wilson said, “like writing history with lightning,” it’s unfortunate that Spielberg’s Lincoln takes two and a half hours to write history via Twitter.  Slavery bad L lol.            

David Watson

Directed by:

Steven Spielberg

Written by:

Doris Kearns Goodwin and Tony Kushner

Produced by:

Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg

Starring:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Daniel Day-Lewis, David Strathairn Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, Lee Pace, Sally Field, Jackie Earle Haley, Walton Goggins and Jared Harris

Genres:

Biography, Drama, History, War

Language:

English

Runtime:

2 hours 30 minutes (approx.)

Certificate:

12a

Rating:

1/5

UK Cinema Release Date:

Friday 25^th January