Steven Spielberg is one director who, on first notice,
doesn't seem to have a personal thematic obsession to explore in his films
like, for example, a Scorsese or a Bergman. Beyond a general larger-than-life
celebration of the human spirit and occassional forays into Jewish identity and
the Holocaust (themes so common, no director can claim to be their champion),
what do his films have in common? What does a robotic Pinochhio and a dinosaur
theme park have in common? But underneath the surface of many of his films lies
a fascination-- how underhanded, and even sometimes criminal, actions can often
be used for the common good. Oskar Schindler bribed and cheated and lied his
ass off to accomplish a stunning feat of human heroism at the height of the
Holocaust. The Israeli death squad in MUNICH are more often than not, content
in the knowledge that their bloody vengeance is a righteous one. So too with
EMPIRE OF THE SUN, MINORITY REPORT and many others.
And now in LINCOLN, we see one of the gray-est characters of
all, Abraham Lincoln, and the final four months of his life, near the fag-end
of the American Civil War, where Honest Abe pushes for the abolition of slavery
with every politician’s tool at his hands. This is a powerful film, focussing
on a statesman the likes of which the world has rarely seen, bringing out his
character in all its flawed, blemished, heroic glory. This is the way to do a
great biopic, where the emphasis is not on the events or the timeline of the
subject’s life, but on the emotional turmoil, the inner decision-making
process, what director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu called “the mental life of
the character”. It is easier to empathise with a person once we understand what
makes them tick.
The movie paints Abraham Lincoln as a fundamentally good
man, a man far, far ahead of his times, pragmatic, insightful and having the
ability to capture and hold the attention of crowds at will. He is adored by
the people and well-liked and respected by members of his own government, but
he faces difficult challenges on the road to ratifying the 13th
Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, which aims to
abolish slavery and involuntary servitude in the country. In an atmosphere
where racism is not only prevalent, but accepted in society and the higher
halls of government, he realizes idealism is not the way forward. Diplomacy is.
The urgency of the film owes to the fact that the events of the film and the
process of debate and voting on the 13th Amendment in the House of
Representatives, is portrayed as a race against time before the war ends. When
the war ends, the Southern states join the Union and any advantage Lincoln may
have in numbers in Congress, would be destroyed and the Bill would never pass.
The screenplay is brilliant in its detailed exposition of
the inner workings of the highest political bodies in the USA during the time
of Lincoln. You don’t need to know much about politics or the political
structure at the time, the film more or less explains it all, in a fluid
unforced manner. The movie is grandiose and eloquent to a fault, and yet there
are no cringe-worthy moments. When Lincoln talks about the importance of this
Bill and how it would not only influence thousands then in bondage, but also
unborn millions to come, a shudder of recognition ran through me. You can see a
long line extending from Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens and Harriet Beecher Stowe,
through Oliver Brown and Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr and James L.
Farmer, a long line of people who believed in a certain abstract ideal of
equality of all mankind, an ideal they believed in enough to die for it, a line
which culminated in the euphoric 2008 U.S. Presidential elections which brought
Barack Obama into the very seat of power where Abe Lincoln had sat nearly a
century and a half ago.
I have dithered long enough in this review without
mentioning Daniel Day Lewis, and it is with a reason. I did not see Daniel Day
Lewis in this movie. I saw only Abe Lincoln. DDL does not portray his
character, he becomes him. The accent, the sly twinkle in his eyes, the
shoulders hunched under the pressure of spilt blood on both sides of the war and
of doing the right thing, the thinly veiled anger when people just often
couldn’t understand the ideals he was striving towards. Watch him as he rails
against political pettiness and partisanship, draws himself up to his full
height and thunders at his Cabinet, “I am the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA, clothed in immense power and you WILL procure me these votes!” His
performance nearly overwhelms Sally Field’s fiery turn as Mary-Todd Lincoln or
Tommy Lee Jones’ sarcastic, idealistic Thaddeus Stevens, but these two legends
deserve their share of plaudits for shining bright in a film chock-full of
great performances.
The White House in this film is hardly the sparkling gleaming
hub of idealism as we have so often seen it depicted in pop culture, but a
dusty place full of shadows and the machinations of political
wheelers-and-dealers. Janusz Kaminski has few wide exteriors to work with, but
he manages miracles in small enclosed spaces, playing beautifully with
streaming light and shadows. John Williams is his usual fluent self, giving the
film heft and weight with his grand score.
It
is very difficult to keep an audience enthralled by the exposition of an idea
and following the idea to its logical conclusions. Ideas are difficult to
understand. Money, power, greed – these are tangible, they have a physical
reality that is easy to comprehend. But what is equality? Just a word, isn’t
it? And equality would remain a word were it not for people like Lincoln who
make us realize somewhere deep in our hearts, that the word signifies a
yearning, a fundamental need within ourselves for fairness, an innate “moral
compass that should guide the soul towards justice”. A concept is what makes us
human, is what makes good different from bad and sometimes, a concept is worth
breaking a few laws for.
A masterpiece of
humanist cinema, a flawless political drama, anchored by a sublime performance
which has few equals. 9/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment