tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post1236779600140765336..comments2024-03-14T03:15:28.803-07:00Comments on The End of Cinema: On LincolnSean Gilmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-30639755560351795292012-11-28T13:47:47.552-08:002012-11-28T13:47:47.552-08:00Doris Kearns Goodwin said on Colbert that she'...Doris Kearns Goodwin said on <i>Colbert</i> that she's always thought Lincoln was sexy. I'm inclined to agree with her assessment. I did think DDL looked weirdly like ben Stiller at times, though.<br /><br />I think the film portrays a non-omniscient Lincoln, albeit one who is likely wiser (or at least more clever) and more forward-thinking than his contemporaries. He's the smartest guy in the room, but he manages to express, in his conversation with Elizabeth Keckley at least, that there are very real limits to his knowledge and experience.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-50733709387666611612012-11-28T12:12:36.946-08:002012-11-28T12:12:36.946-08:00Of course Day Lewis is far too handsome to be Linc...Of course Day Lewis is far too handsome to be Lincoln.<br />As he said "God must have loved plain looking people, he made so many of them"<br />And he saw himself as far from omniscient: "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me", a rather more elegant version of Macmillan's "Events, dear boy, events"Daniel Fabricehttp://moviezya.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-64396148905843110202012-11-24T09:17:47.367-08:002012-11-24T09:17:47.367-08:00It's one of my favorites as well.
I try not t...It's one of my favorites as well.<br /><br />I try not to think about the French girl and her grandpa. It's the worst part of the movie by far. What holds back my appreciation of the film is my inability to think of a rationale for it. IF I could be persuaded it was important, I think I'd like the film a lot more. As it is, the most positive reviews I've read of the movie focus mostly on the last half.<br /><br />Don't know what it is about Spielberg posts. They're probably just the rare times I write about movies people have actually seen.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-77770015082138433022012-11-24T08:23:35.928-08:002012-11-24T08:23:35.928-08:00Yes, I have seen Young Mr. Lincoln and I love it. ...Yes, I have seen <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i> and I love it. One of my favorite Ford pictures. <br /><br />To me, it is the warm dynamic between the family, including the horse, in their farm house that hearkens back to camaraderie of something like <i>How Green Was My Valley</i> or even <i>The Searchers</i>. What did you think of the overly precious French girl and her grandfather?<br /><br />Why is it your Spielberg posts always generate the most comments? You should do a Spielberg marathon to really generate some page views. Mikeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08400927064697543220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-67596215229182771122012-11-23T09:55:50.115-08:002012-11-23T09:55:50.115-08:00Lincoln standing alone after Keckley walks away is...Lincoln standing alone after Keckley walks away is a bit reminiscent of John Ford's <i>Young Mr. Lincoln</i>, I think. You've seen that, right?<br /><br />I just don't see the Old Hollywood in that section of <i>War Horse</i>. It's pure Spielberg to me, or Ron Howard, definitely a creation of the post-<i>Rocky</i> world. The music, the comedy, the stubborn doggedness. It's the film's most <i>Far and Away</i> sequence.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-64537695245205648712012-11-23T09:49:07.380-08:002012-11-23T09:49:07.380-08:00Thanks Andrys. You make a good point. My only qu...Thanks Andrys. You make a good point. My only qualm is that sometimes I think Spielberg leans a bit to far on the side of making violence and horrible things look too beautiful, rather than letting the ugly mar our otherwise pretty world.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-80737014124205490992012-11-23T00:59:18.756-08:002012-11-23T00:59:18.756-08:00Well, of course the Amendment's passage hinges...Well, of course the Amendment's passage hinges on those great personal meetings between Lincoln and the representatives, but as the movie shows it only worked half the time, literally a 50/50 shot. Lincoln definitely did his part, especially in the convincing of Michael Stuhlbarg's character, but the last third of the movie is so dominated by the vote itself and the now internalized war of the voters, with the President marginalized by his stature and position. That's when <i>the film</i> becomes more about the ramifications of the Amendment's passage and less about the man behind it. It's about what side of history these lesser men plan to be on. Lincoln's position has been steady the entire film, even when he is making back-up plans to potentially end the war. That's why Thaddeus's story is so interesting. He was a lifelong outspoken advocate for equal rights and had to go in the opposite direction of his values, at least publicly, to secure its passage. <br /><br />I thought the Keckley scene was fine. Lindy was more annoyed with the way Spielberg shot and directed it, with her saying her poetic, impassioned piece and then walking stoically into the house, leaving Lincoln standing alone in the night. It was a little too histrionic and contrived for her taste. I think it plays into your observations of Spielberg's insistence on beauty. The sequence is a little too perfectly conceived. <br /><br />Barring the scenes with the French girl and her grandfather, I really, really liked <i>War Horse</i>. I know you don't see the John Ford-ness everyone else was talking about, but the first third of the film, when the boy bonds with the horse (working the plow together, etc.) had an old Hollywood charm to it that is all but non-existent in pictures today. That section really reminded me of something like <i>How Green Was My Valley</i>. Meanwhile, the battle scenes were (again) beautifully composed and damn it, if I didn't cry like a baby at the climax with that fearful, strident equine running through the trenches.Mikeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08400927064697543220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-69850908977286697362012-11-22T21:10:48.458-08:002012-11-22T21:10:48.458-08:00Sean, enjoyed very much your insights and those of...Sean, enjoyed very much your insights and those of commenters here. Re the relentlessly pretty world of Spielberg's most violent scenes, I've always seen this as what we're capable of doing in a world of natural beauty -- that despite the Light and any sense of wonder at what we have, we are so capable of finding reasons to maim and kill one another to support the dominance of our own not-always-chosen values (some are inherited and habitual).Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05109282436243758435noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-17164984055269780582012-11-22T17:47:20.764-08:002012-11-22T17:47:20.764-08:00Yeah, Damsels and Margaret are both 2011, that'...Yeah, <i>Damsels</i> and <i>Margaret</i> are both 2011, that's why I qualified it with "opened around here". My top 2012 movies are festival titles: <i>In Another Country</i> & <i>Like Someone in Love</i>.<br /><br /><i>The Master</i> nags at me. It's just so fundamentally strange. A puzzle film with no solution and where nothing really happens, but it seems to contain multitudes.<br /><br />Interestingly, despite Lincoln's ultimately being left on the sidelines (alone with Tad in the White House) as the Amendment passes, they're only able to round up the votes once he finally takes an active role in the persuasion. He's essential, but ultimately we're left without him.<br /><br />I really liked the scene with Lincoln and Keckley. I thought it was a more nuanced, honest take on race relations than we've ever seen from a Lincoln film, acknowledging the utter gulf between the between black and white and the necessity of muddling though regardless.<br /><br />Did you like <i>War Horse</i>? I find it fascinating. So many lame parts, but ultimately such a weird, dark, and wild movie.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-86902338094302309622012-11-22T11:14:38.946-08:002012-11-22T11:14:38.946-08:00Isn't Margaret a 2011 film?
I haven't se...Isn't <i>Margaret</i> a 2011 film? <br /><br />I haven't seen or heard much about <i>Damsels in Distress</i>. I'll add it to the list.<br /><br />While <i>The Master</i> is very good, I appreciate it from a distance. It was the first PTA film that didn't truly surprise me. It was territory we had gone down before in <i>Punch-Drunk Love</i> and <i>There Will Be Blood</i> which his latest film is a weird hybrid of. <i>The Master</i> is definitely a better film than something overwrought and bloated like <i>Magnolia</i> but in the end, I was left wanting.<br /><br />That's a great observation that <i>Lincoln</i> becomes less about the President and more about us. I picked up on that too and meant to mention something to that effect above. While Daniel Day-Lewis still owns every second of screen time he gets, by the last half we've got these other stories that we're following and the President seems almost peripheral to the proceedings. His presence is always felt but it becomes more of an issue of the people coming to see his vision than anything he really does to bring it about. He has set the contraption in motion and like the film's director, he has to sit back and watch the events unfold.<br /><br />To be honest, I hadn't really attached Tad's prominence to the Spielberg pre-occupation with fathers but it is so blindingly obvious now. No other director would have constructed it that way.<br /><br />Lindy by the way liked the film far less than I did. We rarely disagree much about films but she really cannot handle Spielberg's serious side. Give her a <i>Jaws</i> or <i>Jurassic Park</i> and she's happy as a clam, but the machinations and emotional manipulations in his more somber films irk her to no end. She thought DDL was phenomenal and saved the picture but she gives very little quarter to Spielberg's style. She thought there were too many artificial, emotionally-profound moments, like the exchange between Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley talking about the ramifications of freedom. I know exactly what she means and I don't actually disagree with her, but I find Spielberg's style unique and almost always masterfully achieved, even if it can be rather obvious. <i>War Horse</i> and <i>Lincoln</i> are movies that come exactly as advertised, but Spielberg consistently delivers.Mikeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08400927064697543220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-34473561888360304982012-11-22T09:49:36.696-08:002012-11-22T09:49:36.696-08:00Thanks, I'm glad you liked it too. Did you se...Thanks, I'm glad you liked it too. Did you see <i>Damsels in Distress</i>? I think that, <i>Moonrise Kingdom</i> (which you'll of course hate), <i>The Master</i> and <i>Margaret</i> are the only American films released in our neck of the woods this year that I liked more.<br /><br />I've read some attempts to justify the prominence of the youngest son, Tad, in the film, especially focusing on his obsession with the photographic plates of slaves that I failed to mention, something about Lincoln's fatherliness and the nation being left to muddle along absent a father after his death, like so many Spielberg kids. That makes sense to me and explains the obliquity of the assassination sequence. By the end of the film at least, i's not about Lincoln anymore, it's about us.<br /><br />The JGL plot had the only moment of inappropriate aestheticization, I thought. In the scene where they go to the hospital and JGL sees the horrible pile of limbs, the shot is framed such that there's a lovely glint of sunlight overhead, peeking out from behind a building. Spielberg can't help making things look pretty, even when the point of the scene is the witnessing of unimaginable ugliness. It's an interesting tension in small doses, but it's also the contradiction that tears part <i>Schindler's List</i>. In <i>Lincoln</i> I think he manages to not so much "restrain" that impulse (though that was the word I used in the review, it is almost always a pretty movie, with lots of iconographic shots and great shafts of Spielberg light) as mute it with the drained color palate. The oranges and reds and blues that make <i>Close Encounters</i>, <i>Empire of the Sun</i> and <i>War Horse</i> so distinctive are almost completely absent in favor of white and black and shades of gray.Sean Gilmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16124894627028920508noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15283666.post-77382138504074352432012-11-22T01:27:03.135-08:002012-11-22T01:27:03.135-08:00Just got back from seeing Lincoln downtown. I want...Just got back from seeing <i>Lincoln</i> downtown. I wanted to catch the film before reading your very nice piece. It appears as though you and I agree quite a bit on the picture. As far as I'm concerned, it's the first great movie of 2012 that I have seen (these last five weeks better bring forth some viable contenders). <br /><br />I really appreciated Spielberg's restraint here. While I love me some treacle (I quite enjoyed last year's <i>War Horse</i>) this film would not have benefitted from it. And while he occasionally veers into a too-perfect close-up cued to a John Williams' orchestral swell, for the most part Spielberg lets Kushner's words course through the force of nature that is Daniel Day-Lewis. While he doesn't necessarily hide, Spielberg knows when to stay the heck out of the way. I thought his presentation of the assassination was keeping with this resolve. It was really well done and may have been the only truly surprising moment in the film. Spielberg is rarely a man for surprises.<br /><br />However, surprise means little when one is working with such a wealth of confident talent. I was riveted throughout the entire amendment vote sequence, knowing the outcome ahead of time meant nothing to my thrill. It was glorious filmmaking watching Spielberg cut between the House and the soldiers listening via telegraph, before finally resting on the President alone with his young son as the muted bells tolled triumphantly outside.<br /><br />It is stunning how consistently entertaining a film about securing votes for an amendment's passage can be. And remarkably funny! The quips delivered by Tommy Lee Jones, who retains that elegiac gravitas from <i>No Country for Old Men</i> while belittling the bigots across the aisle, and the brazen, blustery appearance of James Spader both manage to lighten the mood in a film that looks far more staid than it actually is.<br /><br />Jones's internal war between his lifelong idealism and the pragmatism necessary to secure passage of the amendment is by far the film's best secondary narrative thread. The Joseph Gordon-Levitt plot line was a bit undercooked in comparison and by extension the Mary Todd stuff was a tad superfluous. All in all though, <i>Lincoln</i> is an outstanding picture that warrants far more serious appraisal than I can muster up. <br /><br />In other words, it's pretty cool. Mikeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08400927064697543220noreply@blogger.com