He Belongs To The Ages-Daniel-Day
Lewis’ “Lincoln”-A Film Review (2012)
DVD Review
By Sam Lowell
Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Fields,
David Strathairn, directed by Steven Spielberg, 2012
A while back somebody asked me when we
were talking about Presidential voting history not only our personal votes
during our lifetimes but who we would have voted for had we been around at the
time at various stages of American history. The caveat as well had been who we
could have enthusiastically voted for as opposed to just pressing the lever
like we had wound up doing too many times in our lives. (Yeah, the person who I
was talking to and I are just the kind of people who find such speculation
interesting over a couple of drinks on an off-night.) The other person stated
that undoubtedly that had to be Lincoln, Lincoln of the 1860 race when the
Republican Party first took power with the idea that they would both try to
keep the frayed Union in tack and get rid of or keep slavery in check somehow,
mostly the latter.
I hesitated on that vote but I agreed
that it would be Lincoln, although I felt stronger about the vote in 1864 after
the Civil War had been going on for several years which he waged relentlessly
if with some sadness with the idea of bringing the Confederates back into the
fold and after he had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. That brings us to
the film under review, Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of the man in Lincoln. I think based on the thrust of
the film in closely looking at the last few months of Lincoln’s life after his
re-election that my vote for him in 1864 would have been made with plenty of
positive energy.
There are many ways to look at the
Lincoln legacy and probably most of them have had their time from hagiographic
(despite the warts, and all) to more recent time when the politically correct
if rather anachronistic have ridden him off as another racist cracker in the
legions that have had that title bestowed on them. Looking specifically at the
end of his presidency when many things were going on from the military wrap-up
of the war which seemed no too far away to the fight to have the 13th
Amendment adopted to the Constitution forever banning slavery in areas under
the control of the United States government.
That fight to have slavery abolished
and codified into the Constitution is the central theme of this film showing
the artful politician Lincoln to great effect. He firm belief that the
amendment needed to be ratified before war’s end was unerring since the
possibility that “reconstructed” slave states returning to the Union could have
thwarted the efforts he had made to liberate as many slaves as came under Union
jurisdiction as a military necessity by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1963.
So everything is concentrated around this one great act in early 1865 in the
“lame duck” period before his second term starts (in those days in March not
January as now). Lincoln has to juggle about twelve different balls in order to
get the House to pass the bill (the Senate had already done so earlier).
He had to keep his own conservative
Republicans on board, had to satisfy leader of the conservative Republicans
Preston Blair’s desire to go to Richmond and begin peace talks, have the South
put together a delegation of peace commissioners to meet with Lincoln (which
proved to be dicey except for his quick wit about denying the commissioners
were IN Washington when asked by the House). Had to “bribe” some lame duck
Democrats to vote yes for jobs or other favors. Had to keep peace within his
own Cabinet (a subject covered by Doris Kearn Goodwin in her book Team of Rivals which a great deal of the
film uses as context for what happened during that final period of Lincoln’s
career), Had to keep one Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, played by ex-flying nun Sally
Field from going off the deep end and bringing him down there with her.
Yeah I would have voted for Lincoln
with both hands in 1864. I wish I could say that about some of my later real
votes. Enough said. No, War Secretary Staunton said it best and will get the last
word, “now he belongs to the ages.”
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