I finally got around to seeing Lincoln again and I was stunned. The film is amazing. I just felt so absorbed in and in rapture of the film: I never wanted to leave it's 1860's time period. A friend of mine on F.b said that the film doesn't feel like a Steven Speilberg film and I agree . Not to say that I think his films are bad, but they often have a little too sentimental feel to them and this never did. The way it was made was so brilliant: He perfectly captures the historical setting and it is shot so flawlessly.
Tony Kushner (The same author of my favorite play, Angels In America) has written a beautiful script. He never lets it become phony or too hollywood. All the dialogue is fantastic and very memorable, especially Field's upstaging of the radicals at the party. My only slight complaint is the film difficult to follow at times because it is a political story and you have to really listen and concentrate to get everything that is happening, but that is fine and in the future, I'll just watch it with subtitles. :).
As some of you may know, I was underwhelmed by D.D.L's performance at first. Now I can say the opposite: He truly blew me away. He disappears into the character so thoroughly that you couldn't see one glimpse of Daniel Day-Lewis in him. He captures all his behaviors and mannerisms perfectly and adds such warm and humor to Abraham Lincoln and the results are something amazing. I hope and think he will win Best Actor, bt you never know until the envelope is opened. As for Sally Field, I thought she was superb. She is brilliantly in character and understands her to a T. I love the fire and passion Field brings to the part and she also brings the same warmth and humor that her onscreen husband brings. I do think/wish the character could have been given a little more to do, given she isn't onscreen that much, but a win would definitely be deserving. As for the rest of the supporting players, I thought they were all fantastic, especially James Spader and Tommy Lee Jones, but all of them were great.
I REALLY, REALLY hope it wins Best Picture, but I doubt it will because Argo just won the DGA and since it's also won the PGA and SAG award for Best Cast it looks like it's on the road to victory. It's not a bad film at all, just not that special of a film to me and certainly no way an equal to the masterpiece that Lincoln is. Ah well. I just hope Steven Speilberg wins Best Director. I'll be able to live with Argo's Best Picture win if Speilberg is honored with a well-deserved third directing statuette.
Expect BAFTA predictions and a review of Amour next week!
4 comments:
I had a similar experience, in that after I saw Lincoln for a second time I was truly blown away. It's such a great film, and easily my pick for Best Picture though it sadly looks like its not going to be winning.
DDL is fantastic in a great year for Best Actor (Phoenix and Cooper are also amazing), and Sally Field is good as well, though I don't like her as much as you do. Nice review!
Thank you so much!!
Really? I'm a little bit surprised, because I wasn't impressed by the film very much. But I'm going to re-watch it, in order to write an objective reviews of the performances, so my opinion may change, but I liked his previous War Horse much much better...
An incredible improvement over Spielberg's last film the over sentimental War Horse. This is a great film that depicts the period, and its specific event so well.
It's not quite perfect in that it should have ended a little sooner than it does, and there is one scene that I feel delves into Speilbergan sentimentality which is Tommy Lee Jones's last scene.
Those fairly minor quibbles aside this is a great film that would be a better choice for Best Picture than Argo, even though I still liked that film as well.
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