WATCHING LINCOLN

The cinema-goer sees Lincoln on a horse, with a troop of mounted soldiers as his retinue, move slowly through the mounds of the mutilated dead. The camera briefly rests upon a black Union soldier, brutally broken, barely recognisable. Could it be Corporal Clarke who spoke out at the very start of the film?

The cinema-goer wonders if a more dramatic story of democracy and peace could be told if the camera, as written by Tony Kushner and directed by Steven Spielberg,  stayed with Corporal Clarke and not President Lincoln.

Democracy and peace are the grand themes of this grand film. The word 'plodding' creeps into the cinema-goer's mind. The drama is often elsewhere, other than with Lincoln. It is as if Kushner and Spielberg shy away, at key moments, from the arch-typically heroic drama with which they are wrestling. Lincoln is not present in The House when the vote on the constitutional amendment on abolition of slavery, for which he fights so ruthlessly to achieve, passes. Lincoln is shot, off. The cinema-goer sees his youngest son anguish and grip the rail of a box-seat in another theatre, not the one where his father is killed.

This is a problem with historical drama. The ending is widely known.

The heroic Lincoln nonetheless dominates the film, even with Kushner/Spielberg's apparent attempts to downplay the hero. The cinema-goer sees the classic image of the long walk down the corridor to his death, out of the present and into historical time, Lincoln wearing the stove-pipe hat, walking the gangly, stooped walk. The cinema-goer enjoys the homely, story-telling, Euclid-quoting sage, expertly played by Daniel Day-Lewis.

And yet the downplaying of the hero and the blatant portrayal of political duplicity in the search for votes do not serve to humanise the character or the story. A particular model of representative democracy, backed by great cultural, military and economic power is offered as the great idea; Lincoln, as the great man to save and advance it. 'Get me those votes' he thunders, sending scheming lobbyists to connive, cajole, threaten and bribe politicians to save and advance democracy. To make history.

The appeal to an idea of democracy is idealogical. Fundamental. Fanatical, almost. The assertion of the primacy of a particular understanding of peace and democracy reminds the cinema-goer of the wise old American saw - Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, (37 degrees North, 122 degrees West), circa 1968 -

Fighting for peace makes as much sense as fucking for virginity.

The cinema-goer enjoys the scene where a lobbyist tries to buy the vote of a representative who pulls a gun on him, which goes off in a comic bar-stoop scuffle. This is one of very few 'light' moments in the film. John Williams' musical accompaniment is jaunty throughout the corruption scenes, as if they were japes not crimes. 

Economic interests are briefly and slightly alluded to when the Confederate delegation parleys with Lincoln, suing for peace amidst their fears that the abolition of slavery will destroy their economy. And favour that of others. The Northern states, led by Lincoln? The film does not connect the dots linking war industry with democracy.

There is plenty of shock and awe. Off. The destruction of the port of Wilmington, with sustained artillery barrage from a naval fleet, is told in the war-room, full of politicians, generals and clerks tapping Morse code machines. Horrendous casualty figures are written on crisp, white, stain-free memos.

The opening scene of carnage is reminiscent of the similar and more telling opening scene in the film Cold Mountain. There is often a quality of easing and softening the cinema-goer notes in all Spielberg's treatment of war images. Even in the images of the man's head being heeled into the muddy water.

The viewer sees Lincoln elevated. On a horse. On a podium. In a carriage. On the steps of The White House. In a key scene, Lincoln stands and his wife kneels, stranded in the blancmange of her gown, bereft in her grief. The couple speak of burdens. The woman sinks, as if in quick sand. The man's heart break. The cinema-goer feels tears well up.

There is no great man to save no great idea. There is a mass of humanity, people, an assertion of blind genes, groping forward in the mire, human-made, yes, ever made by us. 

Mrs. Lincoln's black servant, Mrs Keckley, delivers the ace speech of the film on the steps of The White House. She rebuffs Lincoln's litany of 'your people' with the striking assertion that she is a mother of a victim of the war Lincoln prosecuted. She need say no more. The cinema-goer notes that we don't hear from her again.

The myth of the great man flounders. Spielberg has a gift for the mawkish. The sentimental. The jingoistic. The cinema-goer remembers the ending of Saving Private Ryan. These notes are less evident in this film. Tempered by Kushner perhaps, who writes a number of splendid dialogues.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a blinder as Thaddeus Stevenson, in particular in a warm bedroom scene with his black house-maid and life-partner. A strong advocate of abolition, his role underlines the feminist wisdom that the personal is political.

There are moments of great artistry, charm, even beauty. Lincoln lies down with his youngest son, in front of the fire, and they speak about another dead son.

The film  - and the war - is full of dead sons, who's fathers, Lincoln among them, send them to war. 

The cinema-goer, on leaving, sees a poster for Zero Dark Thirty and wonders if a film about the executive killing of Osama bin Laden will offer insights into democracy and peace.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443272/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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