I saw the movie Lincoln Friday, directed by Steven Spielberg. Despite the fact that America’s real history can be, well, boring at times, every student in America should find a way to see this masterpiece. In it, we see how ordinary people, put in extraordinary situations, tend to find ways to get the job done. And the rest is history.
History paints Abraham Lincoln as a humble man from Illinois who freed the slaves this nation had long held in servitude. But the reality is, he was simply the president who served during a certain time in our history. He was not above cutting deals and promising favors to political foes for voting his way. He had a big enough understanding of our nation’s greatness that he wasn’t afraid to embellish his points with little parables. Moreover, he never let the immortality of the American presidency keep him from remembering that the country was founded on principles of compromise and pragmatism.
It would surprise me if Daniel Day Lewis, who played Lincoln, doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for his performance, which simultaneously showed humility and quiet certainty in the appropriate historical situations. Lewis showed in his voice, eyes, and other body language, that the passage of the Constitution’s 13th Amendment was a moment for all of history, a time to complete the work Thomas Jefferson had started with the Declaration of Independence, and a time when all the politics needed to be set aside in the interest of the people.
The score, reminiscent of Aaron Copland’s “A Lincoln Portrait” and its climactic “and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth,” may also get some attention from Academy Award nominators. I could almost hear James Earl Jones’s voice from his hit recording with the Seattle Symphony. The words in the movie were spoken by soldiers in the Union Army after Lincoln asked them if they could even hear what he said.
Mr Lincoln, all of humanity heard you. What a great movie! If you love America, this movie will affirm all that you believe triumphs in the American spirit. It’s not always pretty, but at a few key moments in her past, this nation has been perfect.
