Stephen Whitty on Lincoln

Stephen Whitty, writer and movie critic for The Star-Ledger, gave his opinion of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln on November 9^th, 2012. Lincoln was one of the few films that disappointed me this year. It had all of the elements of a great film but fell very short. Whitty points out several things to admire about Lincoln. Tony Kushner, screenwriter for the film, creates well- crafted movie dialogue. His screenplay brought the best out of every actor in the film. I agree with Whitty that there are surprising performances. He mentions James Spader (W.N. Bilbo) and Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln) as being a tremendous supporting cast. I would have liked Whitty to mention Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stevens). I thought that Tommy Lee Jones acting stole the show in certain parts of the film. No one can put down the genius of Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, however. He is a lock for Best Actor at the 2013 Academy Awards.

Whitty touches on the film’s important plot points. He mentions that Lincoln is a film about the 13^th Amendment, and ultimately ending the Civil War. Spielberg takes the audiences through every measure it took to passing the 13^th Amendment, including bribery and political extortion. There is only one battle scene in the entire film. Mr. Whitty mentions that none of Lincoln’s famous speeches are brought to the big screen. The assassination is not shown on screen as well, which is probably a good thing. Mr. Whitty also asserted that the film had no dramatic engagement. He claimed that there were too many parts of the film that were either unclear or dull. For example, he writes about how the film never explains why members in Lincoln’s Cabinet were contentious against each other.

I agree with many of Whitty’s points. I think that the title of his article speaks for itself: “Lincoln isn’t, but wants to be, a perfect movie.” There are many things to love and hate about the film. The acting is tremendous and Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is the key that holds everything together. While Kushner’s screenplay was good, it can be overbearing and preachy at times. John Williams delivered a quality film score, even if it’s not as original or complex as his early works. The cinematography is something to marvel at as well. Take all of these things away and Lincoln does become somewhat of a dull film.

There were many issues that I personally had with the film. Mr. Whitty is right to claim that there is barely a point of dramatic engagement in the film. A film that runs 2 and 1/2 hours without dramatic engagement, knowing what the end results will be, can be constituted as boring. It's not an easy thing to avoid with historical films like Lincoln. With a production of Lincoln's magnitude, one would expect the best. Mr. Whitty gave an honest opinion of Lincoln, a film that has been favored to win many Oscars. It was a decent film despite its problems, but even a director like Spielberg could not save its mistakes.