Steven Spielberg has done it again: created a visual experience that has all the elements of a masterpiece: amazing performances by gifted actors; photography that matches the landscape; a script worthy of the topic; and a fundamentally accurate basis in the book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Abraham Lincoln is no doubt the most studied of Americans with over 15,000 books devoted to his life and times. Fortunately, Lincoln himself was an able communicator, giving posterity clear examples of his written prose and personal philosophy. In addition, he lived at a time when photography had become a new and accepted media, although not quite available to the masses. We know and have known images of Lincoln all our lives: that, tall, gaunt figure walking with the stovepipe hat and scraggly beard. We understand those pursed lips as he dealt with the Civil War and the issue of slavery in our country; and his thoughts on the future of a post war America and her place in the world, a world wracked with revolutions across the oceans.
Often overlooked, unmentioned, and deemed less important, is the topic of Lincoln as family man, father, and husband. All of these topics are present in the Goodwin book and the Spielberg movie. Combined with the issue of African-American soldiers, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Grant's conduct of the war, the family portrait completes a very effective portrayal of an American icon.
My next entry includes Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address, a document as American as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The movie runs about 150 minutes, just about right. Enjoy.
Rating of Mayor: 5 stars out of 5.
Linda Ruth mentioned this movie in one of her dharma talks. She loved it. And she told this great story about how he asked one of his aides '"if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?" The aid replies "five." Lincoln replies, "four, just because you call it a leg doesn't make it a leg."' Awesome. So Zen.
ReplyDelete