Spielberg-directed “Lincoln” deserves the attention
Many Hollywood experts have “Lincoln” on their prediction lists to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2013. After I saw “Lincoln” yesterday, I couldn’t believe the movie hasn’t won the Best Picture award already.
The Steven Spielberg-directed “Lincoln” came out Nov. 16 to much hype due to its all star cast of Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln, Sally Field as his emotionally distressed wife, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln.
The movie is set in Jan. 1865 at the end of the Civil War. After 4 long years of fighting the stress begins to show on everyone in the movie, especially President Lincoln. Multiple times in the movie the president slouches against a wall for support in a way that makes the audience wonder if he’s going to pass out.
The main plot line of the movie is Lincoln’s attempt to garner enough Republican and Democratic support in the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment banning slavery in the United States. The entire time Lincoln and his cabinet are trying to woo congressmen to their side by promising congressional seats and additional powers. Spielberg does an amazing job showing the behind-the-scenes views of Congress, and throughout the film multiple shouting matches break out between 60-year-old congressmen.
Tommy Lee Jones does an Oscar-worthy job as Pennsylvanian Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. Throughout the film Jones stands up in front of Congress and gives rousing speeches about how African-Americans should garner equal rights even though he and most others in the house don’t believe they are equal human beings.
As serious and dramatic as the film was, Lincoln provided some humor that relieves some of the drama. Frequently Lincoln would sit down, garner all the attention in the room and tell a funny story that would give a metaphor for the current problem they were facing. These stories left the rest of the theater and myself chuckling in our seats.
Unfortunately throughout the movie I knew that the inevitable assassination was coming. At the end of the movie Lincoln puts on his jacket and gloves as he leaves the White House for Fords Theater, unaware of his impending death. Right before he leaves the room, he turns around to his advisers who are debating reconstruction of the South as they are huddled around maps and he says “I guess it’s time to go, but I’d rather stay,” almost as if he knew his fate that night.
The movie was the most powerful and realistic movie I have seen this year and I am joyfully awaiting the Academy Awards next year so I can see the amount of awards that are going to be bestowed upon “Lincoln.”
