The much anticipated biopic, “Lincoln”, has already opened for limited release and will open nationwide Friday, November 16 to raving reviews.
“Lincoln” has been shown on 11 screens across the country and has had the most lucrative limited-box office opening in history, according to the Daily Orange. Our current president will be seeing a screening of the movie thursday night.
The period piece drama takes place during the last months of the Civil War as Abraham Lincoln struggles to reunite the union while pushing the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery, through a divided congress.
“Lincoln” has already been praised as “one of the finest historical dramas committed to film” by Charlie McCollum of the San Jose Mercury News.
But the movie did not live up to some critics’ expectations.
“It’s dramaticlly mis or hit.” says critic Tom Tangeny of MyNorthwest.com. “When it misses, it is either wooden or schmaltzy”
Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as our 16th President is unanimously agreed to be wonderful.
“His performance here, tender and soulful, convincingly weary and stoop-shouldered, will almost certainly earn him a nomination” says New York times writer Charles McGrath.
Day-Lewis is known to be very meticulous when its time to get into character. In “The Last of the Mohicans” , he learned how to carve a canue and trap and skin animals. Day-Lewis studied Lincoln for about a year and, after mastering Lincoln’s voice, did not come out of character, even when he left the set, according to the New York Times.
“There’s a tendency now to deconstruct and analyze everything,” he said recently in an interview “and I think that’s a self-defeating part of the enterprise.”
Day-Lewis stars along side Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Lincoln. Speilberg got the idea for the movie from Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
“So many people think of him [Lincoln] as an icon, as a statesmen,” Kearns Goodwin in a recent interview with NBC’s Brian Williams “they don’t know what a great politicians he was”
With the success of “Lincoln”, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”, and various books such as Kearns Goddwin’s, many people wonder why is Lincoln making a comeback?
Many have drawn parallels between President Obama and President Lincoln. right now, Obama has the task of uniting Congress, and with the citizens of 20 different states petitioning for secession, both men face severe partisanship within the Union.
“[Lincoln] does everything he can to get this thirteen admendment passed, adds Kearns Goodwin “at the time when he has won the election is between the election and the new congress coming in, incredible coincidence of timing when Obama has the same challange now with the fiscal cliff”
For history students to come, will be much more interesting than the textbook’s description of the 13th amendment’s journey through congress.