Some Drivel On...The Boxer

Running just shy of two hours, Jim Sheridan’s “The Boxer” (1997) does not feel overlong, just overstuffed in so much as it is piled high with situations and themes. It might be titled “The Boxer”, and it might be about a boxer, but the boxing often takes a backseat to The Troubles, and all that those entail, which – in reflecting the times in which the movie is set – are potentially nearing an end. The resolutions, in a manner of speaking, are often messy, and bloody, yet narratively they tend to feel neat, and often adorned with almost astonishingly on the nose dialogue (“I’m not a killer, Maggie; but this place makes me want to kill”). They are also filtered through a handful of characters, several of them family, whether literally or figuratively, which tends to make the Northern Ireland conflict feel more like a violent familial squabble than a low-level war. Still, for all the criticisms levied here at the outset, “The Boxer” works, not least because of the performances, all of which are solid, some of which are spectacular, as well as other details sprinkled throughout.

“The Boxer” might take place in Belfast but it opens with the real life words of Bill Clinton, during his 1995 visit, about how the sun was shining, which he hoped was an omen for peace in Northern Ireland. The sun may well have been shining during Clinton’s speech but it is hardly, if ever, shining in “The Boxer” where icy blues and cold, hard grays dominate the visual palette. This has a wearying effect, one playing straight to the performance of Brian Cox as Joe Hamill, the district IRA commander who is trying to help broker peace with their tormenters. Cox plays his character’s mission with a grave air, as if he knows the rickety nature of his own olive branch. Indeed, Joe’s hot-headed lieutenant Harry (Gerard McSorley) still has a bone to pick with the Protestants and generally ignores orders to knock things off. This character is strict cliché, but McSorley’s turn is effective, his laugh so maniacal he practically sports fangs.

Into this mess comes Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis), who 14 years ago was involved with the IRA and went to the clink, and now is being set free. The movie opens on the day of his release, where he seems almost upset at the invasion of his routine when he’s told its time to go, allowing for one of movie’s many strands of obvious dialogue (“Is 14 years not long enough for you?”). He is the boxer of the title, once promising, now essentially disowned and still in a virtual prison, underscored in myriad vérité shots from the point of view of helicopters patrolling the area. One of those shots, seen early, shows a Catholic wedding spilling out onto the streets, effectively tinging the celebration of an everlasting union with grim fatalism. The wedding is also set up for the movie’s most important plot point – that is, the overriding importance of a prisoner’s wife. You do not get involved with one or else. And Danny’s ex, Maggie (Emily Watson), Joe’s daughter, is married to a prisoner.

We don’t really get to know Maggie’s husband, or precisely what she saw in him, other than the fact he was Danny’s best friend, which merely feels like fuel for the drama’s fire. Indeed, Danny and Maggie are still in love, and while their dialogue might eventually explicate that love, it is strictly unnecessary, communicated through these two fairly titanic performances as if invisible electromagnetic romantic waves are percolating between them. If we know that eventually Danny and Maggie will come together, the movie never makes it easy, keeping them apart for most of the early portions of the film, as they communicate simply in little looks, Day-Lewis politely demurring with his head down while Watson’s blue eyes twitch. Even when they do meet, incidentally or intentionally, the tension is wholly palpable, keeping their distance but in their very air wishing they didn’t have to. And when Danny finally expresses his love, it has been building for most of the movie, an implacable desire for peace combined with a genuine sorrow for what he has lost suddenly set off in the form of something like a last stand that mutates into verbal magma before erupting in an actorly monologue for the ages.

The dilemma, of course, is that if they do come together, they risk what Joe has been building toward, which Harry seizes on, the whole thing threatening to unravel, emblemized in the community center that Danny, with the aid of his ex-trainer Ike (Ken Stott), turns into a kind of makeshift, and decidedly non-sectarian, boxing academy. That Danny is a boxer is one of the few ideas the script does not hammer home, refreshingly allowing the argument that violence is better channeled through the ring than out in the streets to emerge intrinsically, best heard in Day-Lewis’s plaintive explanation that he wants to teach the kids something. Even so, from a narrative standpoint, the boxing matches themselves sometimes can feel superfluous to what is at stake both in personal relationships and the broader political arena. Something emerges anyway, though, in Danny’s pugilistic intensity, and which further emerges in the typically ferocious commitment of Day-Lewis to getting the boxing and the training methods just right. In this world where so little seems certain, where so little seems possible, he essentially cultivates his own ring as one might cultivate his/her own garden.

Flip Phone Follies starring Daniel Day-Lewis

A couple nights ago I got a text from my friend Rory which came on the heels of a news alert on my phone which promptly followed the carrier pigeon that arrived at my window which was preceded only by sirens wailing all over Earth – that is to say, did you see? Sir Daniel Day-Lewis was spotted on the New York subway, by Daily Beast writer Karen Han, using a, ahem, cough, cough, flip phone. First, Han simply stated this information before providing actual photographic evidence, which one might argue was an invasion of privacy though another could mount a counter-argument that this photo was simply in the interest of the public good and therefore not invasive at all.

Either way, if the Internet has often swooned over the eccentricities of our formerly greatest working actor, this sent them into jokey overkill, perhaps best emblemized in Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich comically speculating that “Daniel Day-Lewis built that flip phone from scratch after a three-year Samsung internship”, which is a play, of course, on Day-Lewis’s infamously intense methodology, the go-to joke for any situation involving him, and one riffed on this past Thursday evening ad nauseam.

But, there were other takes. “(W)hat should we make of this new information?” wondered Hannah Gold at Jezebel. “Maybe it will finally give us, as a culture, permission to ditch our ‘smart’ phones that track us and shrink our attention spans.” Others, like The Evening Standard, cited his flip phone ownership as heroic, writing that Day-Lewis “has defied peer pressure and shunned modern technology.” But has he?

I take the train twice a day pretty much every day. All I see are zombie impressions of people looking at their phones. And before Thursday night, if you’d ask me how I might picture Daniel Day-Lewis, most interesting man in the world, riding on the train, God knows I wouldn’t have said he’d be looking at his phone. I would have imagined Daniel Day-Lewis riding the subway by simply watching the world go by, drinking it in and no doubt storing up its infinite substance in his legendary memory banks; I would have imagined him looking like that other photo of him just sitting on a park bench. (Four years ago, when “Batman v Superman” was being filmed in Chicago, I was, like, 45-55% sure I saw Amy Adams on the El. She – if she was her – wasn’t looking at her phone. Point, Speculative Adams.)

I mean, Daniel Day-Lewis is the dude who twelve years ago told The Independent that he “can spend upwards of a week, ‘just staring out of the window, watching the wind whip across the Wicklow hills. Some people will consider this shamefully neglectful when one considers that there are always more pressing matters at hand, but for me, I have to tell you, it is time very well spent.’” Now you’re telling me that Daniel Day-Lewis is, like, looking at the grocery list, or texting with his wife (my God, what do you think Rebecca Miller texts are like?), or accepting a LinkedIn request (probably from Vicky Krieps)? THIS IS THE WORLD WHERE YOU WANT TO LIVE???

It might be tempting to argue that all this proves he, Daniel Day-Lewis, is just like the rest of us, idling by looking at his phone, whether that phone is his preferred Motorola Razr or an iPhone Codswallop. But while it might be unfair, and while it might be symptomatic of how we confer god status to mere humans, the myth surrounding Daniel Day-Lewis always stood for something more, suggesting a life of cordial rejection of our exhausting collective norms. There is that tale Bruce Springsteen wove on his episode of VH1 Storytellers about being spotted outside a, uh, adult establishment by two people who exclaimed that he, Bruce Springsteen, wasn’t supposed to be there. To which Bruce replied something to the effect of not really being Bruce but a different Bruce, and that the other Bruce, the real one, was off attending to many Springsteen-ian good deeds. That’s what I thought of when I saw Daniel Day-Lewis on the subway looking at his phone.

That wasn’t really DDL, that was a different DDL, and the real DDL was off studying the effects of chemical contamination on Ohio River communities, or apprenticing at Area 51, or just staring out of the window, watching the wind whip across the Wicklow hills.

Phantom Thread

As is typical with latter day Paul Thomas Anderson Events, there are vast depths to purge in his latest opus “Phantom Thread”, a wholly original creation rather than an adaptation, even if it liberally quotes all manner of Hitchcock. Those depths, however, are not merely weighted more toward the end but brought down in the mix. “Phantom Thread” is not as joyously wispy a creation as his previous “Inherent Vice”, though it has more stiff comedy coursing through its veins than you might expect, but nevertheless an enticing ode to exacting craftsmanship. That artistry is evoked in ornately monikered main character Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), a meticulous fashion designer, yes, but just as much in Anderson’s own auteurist majesty. If “Phantom Thread” ultimately reveals itself as something like a romance with scant traditional ardor, the movie’s aesthetic is so audiovisually intoxicating that simply watching this movie is to fall head over heels in love. But then, that cinematic ravishment also functions as something akin to misdirection before Anderson as metaphorical dressmaker reveals the figurative gown he has fitted us for is so slender in the neck that all the life in us is being choked out.

If previous Anderson movie environs have been all-encompassing metaphorical dirges for certain ways of American life, “Phantom Thread” goes the other way, a surprisingly intimate chamber drama that gets right up close, emblemized in Woodcock’s morning routine where he shines his shoes, styles his hair, and snips away the hairs in his nose. If the latter often suggests vanity, it seems to go further here, suggesting the old phrase cleanliness is next to godliness, which is sort of how Woodcock sees himself, as god of the House of Woodcock. That’s the figure he cuts as the movie begins sitting at the end of his dining table, physically with his significant other yet still utterly unto himself, and when she deigns to serve him fattening sweet rolls, he kicks her out. Well, he does not kick her out so much as silently delegate his dressmaking deputy Cyril (Lesley Manville) to do it for him.

Though Cyril is his sister, she suggests Madame Anna Sebastian, the Machiavellian mother of Claude Rains’s character in Hitchcock’s “Notorious”, as much in charge as him whether or not he knows it, which he probably doesn’t. Indeed, Manville has Cyril receive Reynolds’s dictums and tongue-lashings so coolly that the idea of him being wrapped around her finger just intrinsically emerges. And Day-Lewis does not so much temper his tantrums by letting all the hot air out as allowing the hot air to build to a point of almost weird burlesque, like the sure be be iconic scene in which his emergent love interest scrapes butter across toast so loudly that he throws a fit. It’s not the buttering that is funny so much as his petulance drolly being raised; it’s like Day-Lewis is playing The Cowardly Lion without removing his mask.

His turn is not unlike Anderson’s photography, almost seeming to reshape its mood within frames, from domineering to defeated to delicate and back again. He is never more delicate than when Reynolds meets his match in the form of Alma (Vicky Krieps) who is waitressing at some seaside café, with flushed cheeks suggesting an innocence waiting to be corrupted, where he shows up to unwind, and where Day-Lewis transforms placing a breakfast order into a kind of courtlier version of Michael Fassbender staring at the woman on the subway in “Shame.” Woodcock is working up an emotional appetite, of course, one that takes form not so much in lovemaking as dressmaking, as he concludes their first date not by squiring her to the boudoir but his workshop.

In effect, Reynolds reduces Alma to a mannequin, propping her up and taking her measurements while Cyril records them. When Alma laments the size of her breasts, Reynolds remarks that it’s his job to give her some, if he chooses to, a line Day-Lewis gives an air of less control than doing-his-job fact. If it sounds off-putting, well, it is and isn’t, as Krieps plays Alma with a sense of at once being taken aback and turned on, underlined in the sequence’s searing Christopher Scarabosio sound design – the smack of the tape measure, the scribble of the pencil, the way shoes slide across the wood floor – that is so piercing it can make you cringe even if you simultaneously, improbably sense yourself getting aurally high, like one might aromatically from the smells of a kitchen.

That we never quite know where Alma came from never feels like a flaw but just right, emblemized in how she goes on to become Woodcock’s muse, sculpted into what he wants her to be. But if most movies might have let matters lie there, “Phantom Thread” then charts Alma’s esoteric journey to twisted self-actualization, which Krieps plays not by sitting in the middle of the boxing ring and slugging it out with Day-Lewis but deftly coming in from the side. Impressively, only once the movie is all over do you see the way in which Anderson’s turn laid in wait all along. It’s not something you put together like a puzzle post-screening, though, because the movie isn’t a riddle to be solved, so much as seek to wrap your bent mind around. I’m being coy here, I understand, and I apologize, but it’s delicate to discuss just how “Phantom Thread” upends its basic blueprint for something else instead, which, in essence, is what Alma does, not allowing herself to simply be talked to but talking back in ways you would not believe.

But if that makes it sound feel-good, that’s not quite right either, achieving some other plain that suggests peace, love and understanding in almost brutish, otherworldly form. That ethereal sensation, however, does not completely separate them from our current world, even if Anderson’s movie makes no overtures of timeliness. Maybe that’s because “Phantom Thread’s” détente is rooted in something ageless, one, weird as it may sound, that sort of reminded me of “The Princess Bride’s” Westley building up immunity to iocane power, and how humanity’s toxins might best be combatted by simply embracing them.

and then he was done

So Daniel Day-Lewis retired from acting. His announcement bore shades of notoriously demure professional basketball player Tim Duncan who last summer announced his retirement with but a press release. Day-Lewis also went the press release route, handing it off to Variety which published the notice in full. “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.” It is almost Ron-Swanson-ish in its brevity. What else does anyone need to know other than he’s discontinued acting? All other details are irrelevant.

Throughout his legendary career, after all, Day-Lewis was often aloof and fiercely private, though that admirable insistence on maintaining privacy in a profession that put him so squarely in the public eye made it never-endingly easy for that privacy to be errantly transcribed into mystery and that mystery to be errantly transcribed into lunacy. Indeed, his infamous dedication to Method Acting was often portrayed with a lunatic bent in the press, nearly every article or interview with Day-Lewis dutifully recycling the myriad stories of his exhausting preparation and the almost disturbing commitment to remaining in character, all of which provided material for so much comic fodder, which is why every fourth tweet in the wake of his retirement on Tuesday cracked some variation of a joke about Day-Lewis retiring to research a role about an actor retiring.

Granted, he often harmed his own cause by remaining so engimatic on the subject, half-deflecting queries of his process, then sort of offering some vagaries as mock wisdom, mostly expressing his discomfort with having to try and elucidate with words something that he quite simply just did. And his non-acting dalliances, apprenticing as a carpenter and a cobbler, often for years at a time, were also strictly off the record, only furthering the already expansive allure surrounding him.

By shrouding his process in secrecy and by famously being so selective with his roles, each performance he did give felt larger than life, both in the lead up and in what was eventually rendered on screen, which is why it’s so easy to think of him in terms of the towering Daniel Planview or Bill the Butcher. But he could be quiet too, often with an edge, like “Last of the Mohicans” where he was something like an immovable object in the face of a westward expansion, or lacing Abraham Lincoln’s folksy wisdom with just right the amount of political spin, or occasionally with a tenderness, like in “The Boxer”, where for all the rope-jumping and in-the-ring punching he did, he nevertheless played the part so inwardly, like a man who had let all the rage just dissipate from his body until nothing was left other than the last few gentle embers of his soul.

As an actor, I suspect Day-Lewis considered himself as a craftsman, not unlike the carpenter and cobbler he very much became. And for a craftsman, whatever trade he or she might ply, the quality of the finished product is paramount and the only commentary one needs on the process and career behind it. As such, the performances of Daniel Day-Lewis are frozen on film, their quality self-evident. What else do you need to know? He acted, rather righteously, now he doesn’t. All other details are irrelevant.

Sir Daniel Day-Lewis

"Now, once more, I must ride with my knights to defend what was, and the dream of what could be."

The Cinema Romantico Action Hero Championship Belt

You might have heard that Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy, Grantland founder, recently threw up a mammoth article on his site in which he re-imagined the Action Movie Star as a sort of Heavyweight Champion. His argument is that the Hollywood action hero as we know him and her began in 1968 with Steve McQueen's "Bullit" and so he goes from there, naming champion after champion. It's a typical Simmons list, not at all wholly inaccurate, but spotty on its real movie history (such as giving the belt to Jackie Chan for "Rush Hour 3" as opposed to any of his Hong Kong efforts) and littered with head-scratching decisions such as Sylvester Stallone re-claiming the belt in 1996 for "Daylight" (wait, what?).

His list, as it had to, got me to thinking. It got me to thinking: what if Cinema Romantio had its own Action Hero Championship Belt? You know, like this blog was a fly-by-night fringe boxing council - The Kremlin-Calexico International Boxing Federation - that awarded its own title belt that absolutely nobody - including the recipients, who would in all likelihood decline it - took seriously or even paid attention to? A champion's list that made people reading it think, "Who the hell made this list? What is with this guy?" Ah, now that sounds like the Cinema Romantico Action Hero Championship Belt!

ac·tion he·ro
     1. Ineffable
      "that's my favorite action hero!"

The Cinema Romantico Action Hero Championship Belt (established 1977)

Harrison Ford. 1977 - 1988.

For: "Star Wars Trilogy", "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Bruce Willis. 1988 - 1992.

For: "Die Hard."

Daniel Day-Lewis. 1992 - 1998.

For: "Last of the Mohicans."

Robert DeNiro. 1998 - 2000.

For: "Ronin."

Zhang Ziyi. 2000 - 2003.

For: "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Johnny Depp. 2003 -  2005.

For: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl."

Matt Damon. 2005 - 2010.

For: "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Bourne Ultimatum."

Angelina Jolie. 2010 - Present.

For: "Salt" (and general contributions to global badassery)

Top 5 Actor vs. Actor Showdowns

I am a fervent adorer of "Ocean's Twelve", as we know, but rather than launch into yet another passionate argument for the film's unappreciated brilliance, I'd simply like to re-iterate that its single flaw is this: a scene was not included that featured George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts sitting in a room together and LITERALLY reading from a phonebook, trying to one-up each other. A Hollywood Actor Royal Rumble.

Last week I was listening to a podcast with Grantland founder Bill Simmons and the site's resident film critic, Pulitzer Prize winner Wesley Morris. Morris mentioned how Meryl Streep has openly admitted to competing with actresses in films. This led to a later discussion on how the infamous scene between Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in the diner in "Heat" was essentially like a pickup basketball game, one on one, Jordan vs. Bird, which led to pitching an idea of re-visiting noted movie moments to ask "Who Won The Scene?" And this, as it must, got me to thinking.

Not necessarily about scenes and wondering who won them, but actorly competition, a full night of Hollywood's best squaring off in the ring, a stellar undercard and the monumental main event, live from Madison Square Garden.

Top 5 Actor vs. Actor Showdowns

Al Pacino vs. Denzel Washington

You want to get the undercard to a heavyweight title fight off to a fluffy start, and what better way than these two Oscar-winning titans hollering at each other for five rounds? But maybe it wouldn't just be hollering? Maybe the heat of battle would allow Al to re-locate his long-gone nuance and Denzel to internalize and, in turn, show us his soul. Or maybe not and they'd just holler, and five rounds of Pacino & Denzel hollering would be pretty cool. 

Amy Adams vs. Rachel Weisz 

I dare say it wouldn't have the pre-match buzz of our other bouts, but, trust me, this would bring the heat. Two chameleons, one American and one Brit, staring each other down and throwing elegant haymakers, gracefully swerving from sassy to charming to sexy to spinster to hippie to indie to classical to bawdy and back again. 

Christian Bale vs. Michael Shannon 

The intensity. Sweet Jesus, man, the INTENSITY!!!!!! They wouldn't touch (figurative) gloves, they would squint and spit and chew scenery. It would be exhausting in the best way possible. 

Cate Blanchett vs. Kate Winslet

You're toast, Blanchett. 

Daniel Day-Lewis vs. Meryl Streep

The main event. 15 rounds. No referee because he/she would just distract. A fury of tics and accents and costume changes and bone marrow embodiments. I'd think Streep might be the favorite, if only because Day-Lewis seems to require so much prep work and getting-into-character time. Unless he spent the months leading up to the bout prepping and getting-into-character. Still, no one has really ever counterpunched Day-Lewis, and Streep could counterpunch. But then, Streep has never had anyone get back up off the ropes. And Day-Lewis would get back up off the ropes. Let's call it even 'til we see it.

The April 29th Birthday Vortex

"Sedona is famous for its so-called vortex sites, spots where the earth's energy is supposedly increased, leading to self-awareness and various kinds of healing. (Think of them as spiritual hot tubs without the water.)" - Dwight Garner, New York Times

I have been to Sedona. When I lived in Phoenix what seems like 1200 years ago my friends/roommates and I took my Mom when she visited up to the site of the vortexes. I felt nothing. It was beautiful, sure, all the wide-ranging vistas and the immaculate Chapel of Holy Cross, but I will confess that I never felt the spirit stirring within me. And I think I know the reason - it is because April 29 is my own spiritual hot tub without the water.

The first real memory I have of watching “Seinfeld” is Jerry and George deciding to masquerade, respectively, as Murphy and O’Brien in order to score a free limo ride that, as it must, goes haywire when it turns out O’Brien is “the leader of the Aryan union.” While I confess it’s entirely possible that I am mis-remembering this moment – that the first time I ever watched “Seinfeld” may have been earlier (my mother was watching “Seinfeld” in those days when no one knew about it) or later – this would have placed my seismic “Seinfeld” moment in the winter of 1992.

It was the summer of 1993, of course, when I encountered Daniel Day Lewis as the heroic Hawkeye in “Last of the Mohicans” on the same TV in that same basement and felt my life change for better or worse (probably worse).

It was the spring of 1995 when I finally decided to go and see this “Pulp Fiction” everyone was talking about and became entranced with this Mia Wallace – the character, of course, and the actress, sure, but mostly the………performance.

These were the three most vital elements of my indoctrination to the visual arts. “Seinfeld” showed me what was funny – or, more accurately, what I considered to be funny. Episode after episode there were lines and reactions and situations that made me laugh so hard I would be laying on the floor (literally!) with tears streaming down my face (literally!). I had seen and heard funny things before and I have heard and seen funny things since but “Seinfeld” is my comedy summit, forever and always.

“Last of the Mohicans” made me a devout patron of the cinema even if I did not realize right away that this is what it had done. I had been moved and amazed and overjoyed by other movies and by books and by music but it was “Last of the Mohicans” that made me realize what art was truly capable of and gave me the strongest and most critical push toward the movie zealousness I now inhabit.

Uma Thurman in “Pulp Fiction” made me realize what a performance in a movie could be. As a child raised on certain old-fashioned films of the late 30’s and early 40’s and on 80’s ridiculousness I had never seen an actress/actor doing quite what she was doing – existing in both eras at once. It was never that I was aware that Uma was Mia or that Mia was Uma but up until that point actors and performances were, in my mind, a fusion – I simply could not separate one from the other. Uma as Mia made me realize what could be accomplished by a performer. (“You can get a steak here, daddy-o.” The line is retro but the delivery isn’t retro. That’s what Uma did with Mia.)

So what do these three bits of historical personal business have to do with April 29th being my spiritual hot tub? Simple.

Today is the birthday of Jerry Seinfeld and Daniel Day-Lewis and Uma Thurman.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go meditate.

Lincoln

The first few minutes of "Lincoln", taken from Tony Kushner’s screenplay based on the book "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearnes Goodwin, is deft and masterful. At first you worry Steven Spielberg has ripped a page from his own manual by kicking events off with a brutal battle re-enactment, only to move it aside quickly for two black Union soldiers reciting their accomplishments to an unseen face. The shot reverses. The unseen face is President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day Lewis). It tells us that Lincoln is specifically about what he is trying to gain for them.

Two white soldiers approach. They futz around, reciting The Gettysburg Address. One of the black soldiers recites a few of its words too. The words, the movie is saying, have resonated, but now they must be backed up as more than mere rhetoric.

The film takes place in the waning days of the grisly War Between The States. The army of Ulysses S. Grant (Jared Harris) is advancing on the Confederacy at Wilmington, threatening to force either a peace negotiation or surrender. Jefferson Davis sends three advisors, including his Vice President, northward in hopes of brokering a treaty. President Lincoln, however, has loftier ideals. He yearns to push the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, through the squabbling House of Representatives, and he requires the pretense of war to make it appear as if slavery’s abolishment is the only way to effectuate the war’s end.

"Lincoln", directed in a basic but elegant fashion by Spielberg, forgoes the trappings of the modern biopic by essentially not being a biopic – a re-telling of a whole life – but a chronicling of a key event in that life. By doing so, the essence of the man reveals itself through his decisions, interactions, and the way he goes about attaining equality. To do so he must abstain from playing fair, and willingly employs three skilled connivers (James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson) to cajole opposing Democrats of the Congress to turn coat and vote for the Amendment.

One of the film’s most telling sequences involves a dozen or more African Americans entering the U.S. Capitol Chamber as the people rise and the John Williams’ score dramatically swells, only to have Spader’s character an instant later lift his finger in impersonation of a gun at one of the representatives down below whose vote they demand. It’s a wonderful moment in which Spielberg – intentionally or not – undercuts his own typical pomp, which is sort of the movie as a whole is doing.

In a role that should, by all means, be virtually unplayable, Daniel Day Lewis gives a titanic performance by resisting the enormity of the man’s myth. You can see the coming myth taking shape in the way he commands a room in spite of his unimpressive voice with his grace and dignity, but Lewis seems to suggest that Lincoln either didn’t know or didn’t care about his stature. Frail and graying, endlessly hunched over, his eyes fixed on his shoes more often than the sky, clearly evoking the metaphorical weight of all he carried, he spends much of the film listening to others argue with a weary, amused grin. To show patience as President must require a Herculean effort. 

So too is Lincoln’s personal life mixed in with the political intrigue, the madness of his wife Mary Todd (Sally Field), her worries over how the nation will view the man they love if he pushes for something so controversial, and the anger of his son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who wishes only to join the Union army to prove his self-worth. Rather than feel forced, however, these passages demonstrate the full and tiring nature of the President’s existence, and the way his position calls for nearly eternal conflict.

“Lincoln’s” coda is the only troublesome spot. The presenting of his death, brief as it may be, is the one moment when History Channel-ness creeps into the production, an obligatory recitation of facts as opposed to re-illustrating the film’s themes. I did, on other hand, appreciate the (inevitable) placement of the snippet of the infamous Gettysburg oration. It brings it full circle from the opening, showing that the rhetoric did become reality.

And it is not even the most crucial speech in the film. No, the film’s most crucial speech is less a speech than one of the President’s many folksy parables, told to two nameless men in a telegraph room. Throughout "Lincoln", Honest Abe is sneaky and calculating in obtaining what he desires. His ideology, though, whether he was reciting it for 15,000 people or 2 people, was never in doubt.