{"id":10582,"date":"2013-02-25T00:34:21","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T14:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10582"},"modified":"2019-02-01T22:36:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T12:36:50","slug":"lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10582","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lincolnposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Steven Spielberg
\nWriter: \u00a0<\/strong>Tony Kushner
\nCast: \u00a0<\/strong>Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, James Spader, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones<\/p>\nT<\/span>his is going to sound idiotic but I had never really considered the political process that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States of America, undertook to abolish slavery in his country.\u00a0 I guess in my head I just assumed that at the end of the Civil War he just declared that they were free and that was it.<\/p>\n

Of course, it was nothing like that.\u00a0 In\u00a0Lincoln<\/em>, we learn plenty about the deal making, bartering and the political brinksmanship that Lincoln played to pass the 13th amendment to the constitution.\u00a0 The odds were strongly against him and his execution was nothing short of extraordinary.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that the film is actually about little else other than this political process.\u00a0 The film has a broad title and I’ve spoken to viewers of the film who were disappointed because they were expecting a more fulsome biopic.\u00a0 Instead, Lincoln<\/em> plays like a double length episode of\u00a0The<\/em> West Wing<\/em> set in the 19th Century.\u00a0 Fortunately for me, that’s right up my alley!<\/p>\n

It takes a moment to get adjusted and familiarized with the American political system at the time.\u00a0 The Republicans are conservatives but also the pioneers for abolishing slavery after the end of the Civil War.\u00a0 Well, most of them.\u00a0 The Democrats on the other hand, are against the abolition of slavery and cannot abide the notion of equality with African-Americans.\u00a0 At the end of the Civil War, they wish to see Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation expire with it.<\/p>\n

Not unlike Toby Ziegler on one of this better days in the Bartlett Administration, Lincoln senses an opportunity to pass the law before the end of the war which is expected to happen in a matter of months.\u00a0 It is an enormous and most unlikely gambit.\u00a0 Not only will he need the unanimous vote of the Republicans but he will also need to win over some of the opposition.\u00a0 He does so in cunning fashion, by targeting lame duck Democrats who have lost the recent election and are facing unemployment at the end of their term.\u00a0 By offering them jobs in the federal government, he effectively bribes the outgoing senators for their vote, whether they care about abolishing slavery or not.<\/p>\n

\"lincoln\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When the time comes for the amendment to be voted on, disaster strikes as the Confederates are rumoured to be entering Washington D.C to discuss peace terms.\u00a0 This would delay the vote and potentially squander the opportunity to pass the amendment.\u00a0 Lincoln orders the Confederates to wait ‘outside the city’ and then narrowly avoids committing perjury by claiming to the senate that he is ‘unaware’ if the Confederates are ‘in the city or not.’\u00a0 It’s the damnedest thing but from what we learn in this film, Lincoln basically throws money at people and uses semantics to get away with lying so he can get his way.\u00a0 Although Steven Spielberg is clearly an admirer of Lincoln, this is very much a case of the ends justifying the means.<\/p>\n

Such is the case of famed equality advocate Thaddeus Stevens, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who is a passionate supporter of abolishing slavery but when the time comes to make a big speech on the day of the vote, he purposefully downplays his advocacy of black civil rights in the interests of passing the law.\u00a0 The very act disgusts him but there is method to his madness.\u00a0 The notion of equality and the further repercussions in the decades ahead could potentially scare voters who were undecided.\u00a0 Hilariously, the Democratic voter plays on the fears of his constituency by speculating about a horrible future in which blacks and women could have the right to vote.\u00a0 Oh, how times have changed.<\/p>\n

Lincoln<\/em> isn’t a film that I anticipate will have broad appeal.\u00a0 It’s very much a talking heads production filled with political and legal jargon from its time.\u00a0 There is very little exposition and it expects the audience to keep up.\u00a0 For a Spielberg feature, there is unexpectedly little in the way of showboating.\u00a0 There aren’t scenes of people golf clapping and black people tearfully congratulating Lincoln for abolishing slavery.\u00a0 Spielberg wisely opts to leave out the saccharine grandstanding that would have felt at odds with the grounded and realistic tone of the earlier passages of the film.<\/p>\n

As someone who knows very little of American history, I found the film to be both entertaining and highly informative.\u00a0 It goes without saying that Daniel Day Lewis is excellent as Abraham Lincoln but generally, this is an excellent production in which everyone plays there roles with great conviction.\u00a0 On top of learning about the American political system and its machinations, I can also appreciate a good back and forth banter between gentlemen two hundred years ago.\u00a0 My favourite moment in the film would definitely be Thaddeus Stevens referring to his opposition counterpart as a nincompoop to which he retorts with a booming voice ‘Hooooowww darrrrrreee you sir….!!!!’<\/em> with a shake of the fist.\u00a0 Outstanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The West Wing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1540,1558,2173,1068,1557,902,1289],"class_list":["post-10582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-best-picture-2013","tag-daniel-day-lewis","tag-james-spader","tag-joseph-gordon-levitt","tag-lincoln","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-tommy-lee-jones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10582"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17139,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10582\/revisions\/17139"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}