Lincoln: Spielberg’s clear-eyed masterpiece was worth the wait [MOVIE REVIEW]
“Lincoln,” Steven Spielberg’s magnificent film eleven years in gestation, is worth the wait. The rights to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s magnum opus, Team of Rivals, were purchased by DreamWorks well in advance of its 2005 publication, and a stunning and comprehensive guide to the political ascension of the 16th president it is. That a film could be carved from the intricate web spun from its pages is even more amazing, but Tony Kushner, the remarkable playwright (“Angels in America”) and screenwriter (“Munich”) illustrates that adaptation is an art form unto itself. Choosing one episode in the political life of Abraham Lincoln out of so very many was, in retrospect, perhaps the only way to approach the task. Using Goodwin’s book for characterizations and the background necessary to understand Lincoln’s personality and approach to governance, Kushner and Spielberg chose Lincoln’s push to pass the Thirteen Amendment to the Constitution. Lincoln, first, last and always a lawyer, knew that his Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime act, essentially taking away the property of rebel factions and might be subject to rescission by the courts once the war ended and the Southern…
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